Authentic Doing in Education

A few years back I developed the admittedly unfortunate phrase “Authentic Doing” to label a developing educational philosophy that embraces the ability of learners to be true—authentic—contributors to a wider world outside their own classroom. Born from my work with Telling Their Stories: Oral History Archives Project—students conduct and publish full-text/full video interviews—Authentic Doing is a personal passion that I believe is enabled by modern tools which make it possible to publish— and therefore contribute—to a population far beyond the classroom.

The key to this and similar projects is the real-world contribution of student work to an audience that transcends the school community. Student work can provide valuable primary source material for students and researchers throughout the world. They are crossing the boundary of “learner” to “contributor.” Their work has real meaning beyond the classroom. Students are not merely modeling and practicing techniques used by professionals; they are completing purposeful and meaningful work to be used by others throughout the world. The author refers to this concept as “Authentic Doing.”

Authentic Doing tasks can take multiple directions such as providing new research, data-collection, and community service. Authentic Doing is NOT simulating the work of professionals; Authentic Doing involves completing and distributing the work of professionals. The results provide service and contribution far beyond the classroom. A class mock-debate may be a great way to engage student thinking and generate higher levels of motivation, however, this is not an Authentic Doing task. Interviewing candidates and posting these unique sets of questions and answers on a public website prior to an election is Authentic Doing.

Elements of Authentic Doing
1. Work provides a service to a community beyond the classroom (other classes within the school, the school, the district, the local community, city, county, region, state, country, world).
2. Product is unique and provides real utility to the broader community, i.e., the product is not a repeat of previously existing projects, but rather provides something new.
3. The project is age appropriate. Given the goal to publish work relevant and usable to a wider audience, the tasks required should not over-reach their capability.
4. The product is age independent. The benefactor groups (readers, viewers, recipients) transcend the specific age of the student producers.