Authentic Task Rubric – User Guide

What is this rubric?

The Authentic Task Rubric helps educators evaluate and improve learning experiences using 18 research-based design principles. Use it when designing new courses, revising curriculum, or evaluating learning activities for quality and effectiveness.

Who should use it?

Educators, curriculum developers, educational leaders, and instructional design teams working to create personalized learning experiences that promise to engage learners, foster 21st Century skills, and yield performance assessments.

Improvement scientists collaborating with schools on advancing learner-centered instruction, competency-based learning, performance assessments, re-engaging learners to fight chronic absenteeism,  and/or implementing Learner Profiles or Portraits of a Graduate.

Research foundation

This rubric synthesizes decades of peer-reviewed research grounded in the learning sciences and in the situated perspective. The foundational framework emerged from Herrington and Oliver’s (2000) seminal work on authentic learning environments, which established that authentic tasks reflecting real-world complexity significantly enhance engagement and knowledge transfer. This was elaborated in Herrington, Reeves, and Oliver’s (2009) comprehensive guide to authentic e-learning.

The current 18 principles result from iterative design-based research. Reilly and Reeves (2022) systematically refined these principles through collaborative work with educators, demonstrating measurably improved learner engagement and learning outcomes. Their 2023 study validated these principles as effective boundary objects for fostering 21st Century skills. Recent synthesis work (Reilly & Reeves, 2024a, 2024b) demonstrate the use of the rubric as a design tool to optimize learning experiences for real-world and learner relevance.

Research application

There is significant further research needed on how to best implement authentic learning experiences along a developmental continuum and how to support educators in designing, developing, and implementing authentic learning experiences and their resulting performance assessments with fidelity.

Practical application

Schools working on narrowing the achievement gap and/or fighting chronic absenteeism could use this rubric as a tool to to guide instructors in the type of learning experiences that re-engage learners and make learning personally meaningful. “A group of more than 400 researchers offering advice about education during this time urged that schools provide the most personalized and engaging instruction possible” by prioritizing authentic, culturally-responsive learning experiences (Darling-Hammond, Schachner & Edgerton, 2020, p.59).

Instructional design teams or professional development teams could use the rubric with educators to make pedagogical principles visible. This is particularly effective when demonstrating the change in an active learning (AL) score before/after a redesign.

Schools working to implement Portraits or Profiles of a Graduate could use the rubric to demonstrate  how learning designs with high active learning (AL) scores correlate with the future-facing skills they are seeking to foster.

Schools working to implement performance assessments could use this rubric to make explicit how authentic learning experiences culminate in [socioculturally responsive] performance assessments.

Schools grappling with AI-generated plagiarism could use this rubric as a guide to redesign learning towards authentic learning experiences as these are challenging to plagiarize.

How to use the rubric

Step 1: Select what to evaluate
Choose a complete learning experience—an entire course, a significant unit of study typically multiple weeks long. The rubric works best for sustained experiences rather than individual lessons.

Step 2: Score each principle
For each of the 18 principles, assign a score (0-3) based on how much of your learning experience demonstrates the principle. Consider both the time students spend AND the grade weight—if 70% of time involves collaboration but the group product is only worth 10% of the grade, this communicates to students that collaboration has a low value.

• EXEMPLARY (3): ≥60% of learning time and grade allocation
• NOTABLE (2): 40-59% of learning time and grade allocation
• DEVELOPING (1): 20-39% of learning time and grade allocation
• EMERGING (0): <20% of learning time and grade allocation

Step 3: Calculate and Interpret
Add all points to arrive at an Active Learning (AL) Score (maximum 54 points). Research shows that high AL scores correlate significantly with student engagement, learning transfer, and the development of 21st century skills. Use low AL scores to identify redesign priorities.

Score Interpretation

45-54: Exceptional active learning design
40-44: Strong active learning with enhancement opportunities
32-39: Moderate active learning; significant redesign recommended
24-31: Emerging active learning; major revision needed
00-23: Traditional design; comprehensive redesign required

Tips for Success

Do: Be honest in evaluation—the rubric only helps with accurate assessment. Focus on evidence from actual time and grade allocation. Start small by improving 2-3 principles at a time. Document changes to track impact over time.

Don’t: Inflate scores aspirationally—this prevents identifying real improvement areas. Evaluate too small a scope—single lessons lack meaningful assessment opportunity. Expect perfection—many excellent courses score in the moderate to strong range. Ignore context—some disciplines naturally emphasize certain principles more than others.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I modify the rubric? Yes. The Authentic Task Rubric Ver. 1 by reDesignED (2025) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0). You are free to share and adapt this material with attribution, for non-commercial purposes, under the same license terms.

What if my discipline doesn’t support certain principles? The design principles adapt across the disciplines with varying emphasis. Focus on implementing the design principles rather than perfect scores everywhere.

How often should I evaluate? Initially: before design, after design, and after first implementation. Subsequently: annually or when making significant revisions.

What’s the difference between this and earlier versions of the rubric? This 18 point rubric builds on the original 12 Authentic Task principles by Herrington Reeves and Oliver (2009) by including six learner-centered principles.

How do I cite the work? Please cite the following work: Reilly, C., & Reeves, T. C. (2024). Keep It Real: The Benefits of Authentic Tasks in Contemporary Learning Environments. In Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (pp. 201-217). Routledge.

Getting Started

1. Download the rubric (available below)
2. Score your first learning experience
3. Identify 2-3 priority improvement areas
4. Make targeted revisions using rubric guidance
5. Share your experience to widen the research base (info@redesign-education.org)