For formal assessment, this means a movement away from tests that do not resemble real life tasks. For the instructor, authentic assessment is informal assessment made more thoughtful. Authentic assessment occurs at short intervals over time. Instructors get many samples of students' work. These intervals are planned and systematic, not left to chance or whim, and include assessment sampling during instruction as well as sampling of the products of that instruction.
Authentic assessment requires information from a variety of sources.
Tests are considered only one source of information about how well and in what ways students are able to do what we want them to do. Other ways include daily, weekly, and unit samples. Authentic assessment occurs while students are engaged in, or using products from, real reading and writing tasks. Instead of giving isolated tests over certain material, instructors maintain systematic records evaluating and noting students' responses. Authentic assessment uses instructor observation as a major source of information about how well and in what ways students are able to articulate content knowledge, rather than relying on test results, or any other assessment procedure, as the sole criterion of academic achievement.