Authenic Assignments

These are posters, made by 3^rd graders. As far as third grade work goes, there is not really anything remarkably wrong with them. However, if we put on the lens of creating 21^st century learners, a whole lot starts to be wrong. Sure, they could have done them on a computer, or typed the text, but let’s go further. The assignment was to create an advertisement to encourage people to vote. A fine assignment. Step back and let’s look at this through a 21^st century lens. Who is the target of your advertisement? I would assume people who are eligible to vote, and are not voting. This raises the question of authenticity of assignments. If posters are created and hung in the hall of an elementary school they will be mostly seen by children, so not really reaching the target audience. This gives the impression of doing an assignment, simply for completing an assignment. One of the keys of creating 21^st century classrooms is having authenticity to the work, giving the assignments meaning. If student’s have a reason to complete the assignment that is authentic, they care more about the work. If an advertisement had to be created to encourage people to vote, and actually be seen by the eligible voting population, creativity is forced to take over. I am willing to bet that students will come up with ideas like YouTube videos, A series of Tweets, commercials, the list goes on. Now their work has purpose. They could actually influence someone to vote. So the product being digital is not what makes it an example of 21^st century teaching and learning, it is the idea of authentic work that has meaning and purpose.