Authentic assessment : An approach to enhance and assess students’ learning

This paper underscores the process of using Authentic Assessment (AA) not only as a tool to assess learning but also as an approach to enhance learning in a school in the context of Pakistan. Data was collected through classroom observations, conducting interviews, analyzing relevant documents and maintaining person reflective diary. Findings indicate that AA helped in enhancing students’ learning such as knowledge about the noise pollution, planning, developing interview questions, interviewing people, preparing posters, giving presentation and responding to audience question. The study also revealed that in AA the student’s role changed from a passive test taker to an active participant in the process of assessment. For example, they identified issue, found out solution, presented it to the community and also took part in the assessment of their own performance through self-assessment. The teacher’s role during AA changed as a facilitator. Moreover, the study indicates that developing of observation checklists, criteria rubric and sharing it with students beforehand helps the student to improve their work and get desirable results

Authentic assessment: An instructional tool to enhance students learning

This paper underscores the process of using authentic assessment as a learning tool in a school the context of Pakistan. Data was collected through classroom observations, conducting interviews, analyzing relevant documents and maintaining person reflective diary. Findings indicate desirable changes in the perception as well as practices of teachers and students. Replacement of traditional paper-pencil test with authentic assessment resulted in active participation of teachers and students in teaching and learning process. Study finding also reveal considerable improvement in high order skills of the students. They were actively engaged in planning, collecting information and disseminating it to the community. Use of rubric for assessment was found to be very effective in determining a pathway for both the teachers and the students to look for and get to the desirable results

Authentic assessment: An approach to enhance and assess students’ learning

The traditional forms of assessments are generally seen to narrow down the teaching and learning process and they are ineffective in providing essential information on students\u27 learning. It also seems to encourage rote learning rather than the development of students\u27 understanding and thinking skills. In contrast, authentic assessment broadens the process of teaching and learning, and provides the students the opportunity to work on worthwhile and meaningful tasks in the real context, which in turn results in authentic academic achievements (construction of new knowledge through disciplined inquiry, which has value beyond classroom) of students and develops high cognitive skills in them. The main purpose of this study was to explore the approach of implementing authentic assessment. My major question was: “How can I implement authentic assessment to enhance and assess students\u27 learning in a secondary science classroom in a community-based school in Pakistan?” To investigate my research question, I used the qualitative approach as a research methodology. Within the qualitative approach, I used action research and more specifically practical action research. The targeted sample was class eight of a community-based high school in Pakistan. During the study, the data was collected through interviews (group and individual) and classroom observations to understand the process of implementation, students and my actions and roles, post-observation discussions, document analysis such as; students work samples. The other sources of data were my assessment tasks, tools, classroom discussions and my reflective dairy. This research aimed to explore the process of the implementation of authentic assessment to assess and enhance students\u27 learning in a secondary level science classroom. The analysis of the data in the reconnaissance stage revealed that traditional testing (paper-and-pencil test) was the main strategy to assess students\u27 learning in their science class. The assessment happened at the end of the teaching and learning process, assessing only knowledge and low cognitive skill and students\u27 role was limited to test takers. The students rarely received any written feedback or opportunities to link their learning to the real context. The findings of study indicate that authentic assessment helped in enhancing students\u27 learning such as; knowledge about the noise pollution, planning, developing interview questions, interviewing people, preparing posters, giving presentation and responding to audience question. The study also revealed that in authentic assessment the student\u27s role changed from a passive test taker to an active participant in the process of assessment. For example, they identified issue, found out solution, presented it to the community and also took part in the assessment of their own performance through self-assessment. The teacher\u27s role during the authentic assessment changed as a facilitator, helper, encourager and pusher. The study indicates that developing of observation checklists, criteria rubric and sharing it with students before implementation, integration of collaborative assessments (e.g. self-assessment) and collaboration with an expert or colleagues help in smooth implementation of authentic assessment in the science class. The findings of the study suggest that the practitioners should be provided opportunities to understand and sharpen their skills regarding innovative ways of assessment. It is also recommended that the students should provide more opportunities to interact with the real context. The findings of the study also suggest that the teachers should begin authentic assessment in the area in which they feel comfortable with small number of students and slightly with slow and gradual implementation

Growth response and plant water status in forage sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] cultivars subjected to decreasing levels of soil moisture

A pot experiment was conducted to determine the response of two recent forage sorghum cultivars (JS-2002 and Chakwal Sorghum) and an old one (JS-263) to three levels of soil moisture (30%, 50% and 70% field capacity). Several traits were assessed addressing plant morphology, functional growth, leaf water status, biomass yield and water use efficiency (WUE). Soil moisture variation greatly affected all traits, while cultivars significantly differed in the response to drought. At low moisture the three genotypes showed similar net assimilation rate, specific leaf area, root and shoot dry weight. Conversely, at high moisture JS-2002 exhibited a higher potential than Chakwal Sorghum, in turn passing JS-263. As it concerns plant height, leaf area, leaf water potential (LWP) and relative water content (RWC), the three cultivars consistently behaved across moisture levels maintaining the same ranking between best (JS-2002) and worst performer (JS-263). Especially in LWP and RWC the gap between JS-263 and JS-2002 (LWP, -1.84 vs. -1.55 MPa; RWC, 71 vs. 78% in the two respective cultivars) points out the old genotype inadequacy to face drought. WUE outlined an increasing difference between most (S-2002) and least efficient cultivar (JS-263) at rising moisture. JS-263 also showed a higher yield response factor to water supply, meaning a stronger yield decrease under water deficit. The resilience to drought shown by recent varieties (JS-2002 and Chakwal Sorghum) is a good premise for their use in areas subjected to dry spells. Further research at field plot scale is nevertheless needed to assess actual gains in varying moisture conditions

Cooperative Opportunistic Pressure Based Routing for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, three opportunistic pressure based routing techniques for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) are proposed. The first one is the cooperative opportunistic pressure based routing protocol (Co-Hydrocast), second technique is the improved Hydrocast (improved-Hydrocast), and third one is the cooperative improved Hydrocast (Co-improved Hydrocast). In order to minimize lengthy routing paths between the source and the destination and to avoid void holes at the sparse networks, sensor nodes are deployed at different strategic locations. The deployment of sensor nodes at strategic locations assure the maximum monitoring of the network field. To conserve the energy consumption and minimize the number of hops, greedy algorithm is used to transmit data packets from the source to the destination. Moreover, the opportunistic routing is also exploited to avoid void regions by making backward transmissions to find reliable path towards the destination in the network. The relay cooperation mechanism is used for reliable data packet delivery, when signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the received signal is not within the predefined threshold then the maximal ratio combining (MRC) is used as a diversity technique to improve the SNR of the received signals at the destination. Extensive simulations validate that our schemes perform better in terms of packet delivery ratio and energy consumption than the existing technique; Hydrocast

Exploiting Outage and Error Probability of Cooperative Incremental Relaying in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper embeds a bi-fold contribution for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs); performance analysis of incremental relaying in terms of outage and error probability, and based on the analysis proposition of two new cooperative routing protocols. Subject to the first contribution, a three step procedure is carried out; a system model is presented, the number of available relays are determined, and based on cooperative incremental retransmission methodology, closed-form expressions for outage and error probability are derived. Subject to the second contribution, Adaptive Cooperation in Energy (ACE) efficient depth based routing and Enhanced-ACE (E-ACE) are presented. In the proposed model, feedback mechanism indicates success or failure of data transmission. If direct transmission is successful, there is no need for relaying by cooperative relay nodes. In case of failure, all the available relays retransmit the data one by one till the desired signal quality is achieved at destination. Simulation results show that the ACE and E-ACE significantly improves network performance, i.e., throughput, when compared with other incremental relaying protocols like Cooperative Automatic Repeat reQuest (CARQ). E-ACE and ACE achieve 69% and 63% more throughput respectively as compared to CARQ in hard underwater environment