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' learning. It also seems to encourage rote learning rather than the development of students' 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' 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' 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' 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' 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' 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's role changed from a passive test taker to an active participant in the process of assessment. For example, they identified issue, found out
Bernard Lewis is a representative scholar of eastern studies and western thoughts, and he is the most influential political figure in the U.S politics. So his thoughts play an important and vital role in academic and political fields of the West. Most of his writings explore his prejudiced attitude toward Islam and Muslims. He wrote many books about the teachings of Islam. Islam being a universal religion is an interesting topic for western intelligentsia like Lewis. There are many institutes of Islamic studies in their universities and many think tanks are working on various aspects of Islamic teaching for multiple purposes. In some educational institutions of the west revisionist orientalists such as Andrew Rippin are teaching Islamic thoughts from a critical and revisionist perspective which is quite contrary to the traditional Islamic teachings. Bernard Lewis is attached with The RAND cooperation (the most influential think tank of U.S.A) and most of his writings are evident of his prejudiced theories about political and social practices of Muslims.
Reading is an interactive- constructive process in which readers comprehend, interpret, and respond to the text according to what they already know. Effective readers have personal expectations about what they will get from a selection, and they bring those expectations to bear as they read by predicting and testing their predictions. The children actively create meaning by constructing, or generating relationship between what is within the text and what they already know. Some researchers describe reading as a ;transaction, (Rosenblatt 1988) in which meaning emerges from a give and take relationship between the reader and the print on the page. The interaction between the reader and the text allowed reader to construct their own meaning background Knowledge and experience according to there. This research was therefore conducted to identify strategies that were being implemented by the teacher to develop reading comprehension in students. And how, the teachers could be facilitated to improve their teaching strategies to enhance students reading comprehension skills. This study was divided into two phases. Phase 1 dealt with implementing strategies that could develop comprehension skills through stories in an ESL classroom. Story helps to develop language in the classroom, as Meek (1988) points out, ;Stories encourage them to take on new meaning regularly in a context of shared enjoyment. They learn about language and the different ways it is used. (P.37) They learn new language of stories, which is different from everyday spoken language. Gradually children take possession of the language of books and they begin to learn vital lessons about the reading process Phase II was an exploration of how to facilitate the teacher in her professional development. For enhancing her knowledge about implementing effective strategies like predicting, questioning, silent reading and group work, to develop children reading comprehension. The findings revealed the teachers understanding and her changes in her perception throughout the course of the study. And how this study helped her to professionally develop her style of teaching in order to get the desired children's reading comprehension. The findings also revealed that as a result of teacher development and reflection on practice, the teacher could change her conception and her approaches to the teaching of reading comprehension skills.