In order for a task to have value beyond school students must be able to make a connection to life outside of school. Many teachers find this very difficult to do. This is a big struggle for good teachers to work around. As a primary teacher, if I am searching for information or ways in which to make my classroom an authentic one, I find few examples. It takes a great deal of time to learn the curriculum for a particular grade, then to have to work this new complex philosophy into the present curriculum takes more time and energy than most teachers have time for.
Teachers do a lot of development for present classroom assessment.
Now they are being asked to assess in a much different way than most are used to. If authentic learning is going to become a way of teaching, then teachers will be required to go through many hours of training for development of tasks and assessment. They will need many examples of projects and support for carrying out this new environment. As I read articles about authentic learning and its presentation in the classroom environment, I found that the example tasks reflect the thinking and working ability of middle school, junior high, and high school children. Thinking about this and getting very frustrated that examples do not reflect across the grade levels I have come to some conclusions.