You can design authentic assessments by asking students to apply course concepts to real-world tasks.
How to design an authentic assessment using Bloom’s
- Decide what kind of thinking you want students to demonstrate (apply, analyze, create, etc.).
- Identify a real-world task related to your discipline. Ask: “Where and when would someone actually use this skill in their workplace?”
- Match a task to the level. Focus on the action verbs in each level of the chart above. They can help you shape what students actually do in the assessment.
- Keep it manageable. Authentic doesn’t mean complex, and authentic assessments can inspire formative or summative assessments.
Use the Bloom’s Taxonomy chart below to choose the level of thinking you want students to demonstrate, then design a task that reflects how it’s used in practice. For example, instead of asking students to define a concept, you might ask them to explain it to a client or apply it to a case.
| Level of thinking | Action verbs | Example task |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Define, identify, describe, recognize, tell, explain, recite, memorize, illustrate, quote | Business students in a tax class are given an incorrectly completed tax form and they are asked to highlight issues. |
| Understand | Summarize, interpret, classify, compare, contrast, infer, relate, extract, paraphrase, cite | Nursing students make a 1-minute video citing a patient’s symptoms and classifying them as their “rounds.” |
| Apply | Solve, change, relate, complete, use, sketch, teach, articulate, discover, transfer | Students develop a concise and persuasive 1-2 page memorandum to staff colleagues and supervisors, based on evidence appraised in a previous assignment. |
| Analyze | Contrast, connect, relate, devise, correlate, illustrate, distill, conclude, categorize, take apart | Education students analyze a student’s behavior record and make recommendations that they present in a written email to the principal. |
| Evaluate | Criticize, reframe, judge, defend, appraise, value, prioritize, plan, grade, reframe | A nursing student collaborates with a hospital partner to find a quality improvement project and address their needs. |
| Create | Design, modify, roleplay, develop, rewrite, pivot, modify, collaborate, invent, write | MBA students create a business and business plan that they pitch to investors. |
Examples across Bloom’s levels
While your course design approach may vary, focus on aligning the task to your learning objectives and asking students to do something meaningful with what they’ve learned.
Here are a few ways this can look in practice:
- Understand: Record a 1-minute explanation of a concept for a specific audience
- Apply: Complete a task using a real-world scenario or dataset
- Analyze: Review a case and identify key issues or patterns
- Evaluate: Recommend a solution and justify your reasoning
- Create: Develop a proposal, plan, or product for a realistic audience
References
- Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
