Authentic Assessments: Insight Needed!

A vocabulary quiz was given, with the goal of being an authentic assessment: 10 vocabulary words selected from the text the students were reading (without the students being advised which words would be checked). The quiz questions were formatted thus:

1) WORD
"The line from the play/in which the word is found/perhaps plus another line or two to ensure there is sufficient/context" (Act, Scene, line)
a) multiple
b) choice
c) options
d) here

32 out of 35 students in 2 classes answered incorrectly on one particular question - 25 chose the same incorrect answer. The challenge comes in determining if they only guessed at the meaning from the context (which would make sense for the 25 who chose the same wrong answer: they went expressly by context, without having noted the word earlier), in which case the context misled them badly.

Would it have been more fair to just give them the word plus the meanings, without the context? Did an attempt at authenticity, in this case, backfire utterly (at least in terms of this question)?

The number of incorrect answers for each particular question, ranging from 0 - 32.

The pretty-ish bell curve from the students scores (ranging from one 4 to three 10's).

These are the graphs from the first two classes - the second two classes to get this assessment are going to come this afternoon, and I'll update the blog post after looking at the data from them. This would have been an ideal situation in which to compare the responses with context/no context for the quotes, but I'm not sure how 'fair' that would be for data comparison and analysis. It would be almost equal numbers for the classes as well (35 and 33).

There are 3 more vocabulary quizzes scheduled for this unit - any suggestions for how to make improvements, or other ways to "play" with developing authentic vocabulary quizzes, would be appreciated!

(The word in question, for those curious: offal ).

Digital Badges for Standardized Systems?

Two of the MOOC courses I am currently involved in are treading interesting ground: one is a course on the United States' Common Core State Standards, and the second is a course called "Learning Beyond Letter Grades". These two courses seem, to me, to be a dramatic dichotomy: one is all about establishing standards and assessing those standards in an almost trope-like way (Select one of these fill-in-the-blank tasks. Fill in the blanks. Give to students. Mark according to rubric); the other is about how to explore assessment in new ways and allow students to demonstrate their mastery of skills in a much more freeform attitude.

I know the two can work together, but I am struggling with figuring out solid ideas and practical plans for how I could integrate something like digital badges into a state standards (or, for that matter, IGCSE) structured course without having the badges linked almost immediately to the subsection and paragraph expectations of accomplishments. I think the badges would be an excellent way to show students how they are achieving the particular learning outcomes expected by a program like CCSS, but something about the two systems finding a way to work together seems very tricky to me.

More experienced educators, help me out here? What kind of ideas do you have for integrating an idea like digital badges into a system like CCSS or IGCSE (or even IB)?

MOOCs and Continuing Education

When I was in middle and high school, it was pretty clear that education stopped when you finished college - whenever that was. You were expected to learn everything your teachers poured into your head, get all your pieces of paper, and then go into The Real World and do Things With Your Life. A student, more or less, stopped learning once they finished university/college.