Authentic Pedagogy and Student Performance

Reform efforts may increase active learning without enhancing the intellectual quality of students' work. We present a vision of authentic academic achievement and specific standards for pedagogy and student performance that are consistent with active learning, or constructivist, perspectives but that establish standards of intellectual quality rather than teaching techniques or processes as the central target of instruction. We show that in restructured elementary, middle, and high schools, authentic pedagogy is strongly associated with authentic academic performance, that authentic pedagogy can be equitably distributed among students of diverse social backgrounds, and that its achievement effects are reasonably equitable for students of different social backgrounds.