Feelings on the new JC?

evolving_doors

solerina wrote: »

The whole system is flawed, apparently 30% of those who sat LC Biology in 2018 failed to get 30% after the first round of corrections....the marks were adjusted to bring that down to 14% !!! A weaker JC will lead to a much weaker LC in the years to come

What the heck went on with biology. There were double the % of H1s compared to last year too. Must have been a badly created paper... or else they're trying to shove all students into STEM.
Even better if they're female.

RealJohn

acequion wrote: »

I do. Anything under 40% is a fail and a fail shouldn't be rewarded with points imo. It also means that students persist with HL when there are completely below the standard. It's more dumbing down and makes a mockery of standards.

I don’t entirely disagree but I would argue that 30% isn’t “completely below the standard”, just “below the standard”. The person who gets 38% in HL does deserve some recognition for their ambition by comparison to the student who’s capable of passing HL but lazily decides to do OL instead.

Granted, the one thing I like about the new junior cycle is that there’s a common paper for most subjects, so your mark is always relative to everyone who took the subject, but I think this idea that failing should be shameful, or even a thing, isn’t great. I think exams should be to demonstrate your level of knowledge. Obviously, you should need minimum levels of knowledge for certain things and I’m certainly not suggesting that failing to meet criteria shouldn’t be a thing but I don’t think your mark should be indicative of ‘failure’ in and of itself. It should just represent your level of knowledge in the subject.
Someone who gets 90% has good knowledge of the subject.
Someone who gets 60% probably has good basics but is fairly underwhelming otherwise.
Someone who gets 35% has a poor overall grasp of the subject but isn’t completely useless.
Someone who gets less than 20% probably shouldn’t have picked it and probably doesn’t deserve much, if any, credit for it.

I don’t think it should be a case of 40% is fine and 39% is nothing though, unless 40% is the minimum required standard for a certain specific reason.
There should be little or no distinction between the student who gets 40% in biology (for example) and the student who gets 39%, if their next step is to study French literature.

gaiscioch

Was working with a 1st year group on one of my subjects and something which I had never thought of prior to this occurred: it's taking ages to do a class correction of students' work. I thought I'd be sensible and get the kids to correct their own work in class rather than my trundling home with heaps of books.

Except in this brave new world there was no simple right/wrong answer. We were expected to discuss possibilities and legitimate answers and so forth. All great, and they are engaged. Except, too, that we are expected to cover a large course and there is quite simply not enough time allocated to give this sort of thoughtful higher-level analysis to each question. So, maybe the teacher should just focus on covering the course and bring all the books home and take those hours out of his/her home life?

Perhaps somebody in the JCT might have a solution to this that doesn't drive teachers, who are paying a marginal tax rate of 60%, into a lunatic asylum with exhaustion? It is wrong at every conceivable level that any teacher - Pollyanna, buzz-word lovers aside - has to impose such a workload on their private life.

Anyway, I'll be a very reluctant attendee at yet another inservice tomorrow, Saturday, so I better get to sleep.

Bobtheman

gaiscioch wrote: »

Was working with a 1st year group on one of my subjects and something which I had never thought of prior to this occurred: it's taking ages to do a class correction of students' work. I thought I'd be sensible and get the kids to correct their own work in class rather than my trundling home with heaps of books.

Except in this brave new world there was no simple right/wrong answer. We were expected to discuss possibilities and legitimate answers and so forth. All great, and they are engaged. Except, too, that we are expected to cover a large course and there is quite simply not enough time allocated to give this sort of thoughtful higher-level analysis to each question. So, maybe the teacher should just focus on covering the course and bring all the books home and take those hours out of his/her home life?

Perhaps somebody in the JCT might have a solution to this that doesn't drive teachers, who are paying a marginal tax rate of 60%, into a lunatic asylum with exhaustion? It is wrong at every conceivable level that any teacher - Pollyanna, buzz-word lovers aside - has to impose such a workload on their private life.

Anyway, I'll be a very reluctant attendee at yet another inservice tomorrow, Saturday, so I better get to sleep.

Inservice on a sat? Was that obligatory? A big problem with the jc English is the vastness of the course . Weak kids can struggle to remember what a simile is let alone answer a question on the comma but yet the open ended nature of the exam means both must be well prepared. But which is most important to teach? To be understood beyond the exam ?
Exam gives teachers less freedom in that they cant help weaker pupils learn something well rather than a lot of stuff poorly.

Icsics

I explain the English course like this, we do a little bit of everything but not too much of anything!

acequion

RealJohn wrote: »

I don’t entirely disagree but I would argue that 30% isn’t “completely below the standard”, just “below the standard”. The person who gets 38% in HL does deserve some recognition for their ambition by comparison to the student who’s capable of passing HL but lazily decides to do OL instead.

Granted, the one thing I like about the new junior cycle is that there’s a common paper for most subjects, so your mark is always relative to everyone who took the subject, but I think this idea that failing should be shameful, or even a thing, isn’t great. I think exams should be to demonstrate your level of knowledge. Obviously, you should need minimum levels of knowledge for certain things and I’m certainly not suggesting that failing to meet criteria shouldn’t be a thing but I don’t think your mark should be indicative of ‘failure’ in and of itself. It should just represent your level of knowledge in the subject.
Someone who gets 90% has good knowledge of the subject.
Someone who gets 60% probably has good basics but is fairly underwhelming otherwise.
Someone who gets 35% has a poor overall grasp of the subject but isn’t completely useless.
Someone who gets less than 20% probably shouldn’t have picked it and probably doesn’t deserve much, if any, credit for it.

I don’t think it should be a case of 40% is fine and 39% is nothing though, unless 40% is the minimum required standard for a certain specific reason.
There should be little or no distinction between the student who gets 40% in biology (for example) and the student who gets 39%, if their next step is to study French literature.

You make some interesting points there, RealJohn, especially about how the percentage mark reveals to what extent the subject has been mastered.

But other than that I would beg to differ. In general terms it is very clinical to distinguish between 40% and 39% classifying one as a pass and the other as a fail, but is that not the whole purpose of a judging criteria? And without a judging criteria where there are cut off points how can selections be made in any judging process? In the JC for example, those who appealed their grades got their scripts back yesterday and one of my students got 74% in English,therefore a Merit. 1% more and she would be deemed Higher Merit. What possible difference in standard could there be,you would argue, between the candidate on 74% and the one on 75%? None at all,most likely, but do we not have to respect the cut off point? She will now get the script remarked but will have to accept it if it remains at 74%, unfair though that may appear and is exactly what happens at LC and affects the points they receive and the college placements. But that is the system and like all systems is far from perfect. And I would argue that below 40% indicates an unacceptable grasp of the subject. And remember there is quite a gulf between 30% and 39% but the former will get those points too. That's wrong imo.

And I'm completely against common levels at JC. I feel that this benefits nobody,in my subjects in any case. Thankfully English still has levels but not French,my second subject. I will have my first inservice for the new JC French this coming week and I'm curious,to say the least. Take the LC French where the oral is conducted at a common level,albeit with the examiner expected to differentiate. As an examiner myself I think this is a bit of a joke and would argue for two distinct levels for the oral as there is for the written.

Perhaps the common levels might work for other subjects but in languages I think it's a crazy example of a fuzzy, delusional education policy.

solerina

evolving_doors wrote: »

What the heck went on with biology. There were double the % of H1s compared to last year too. Must have been a badly created paper... or else they're trying to shove all students into STEM.
Even better if they're female.

Apparently it came down to 30% getting below 30% or end up with way more H1s, there was no clear middle ground, so they went with the latter option. There is a serious problem coming down the tracks in the not so distant future. This was with students who sat the old JC, what will happen with the JC group of 2019 ????

maynooth_rules

The common level issue is infuriating. The Jct team like to push the idea that they care about teachers opinions and always take them on board. Every single teacher that I have spoken to have all disagreed with the idea of common level exams, yet here we are.

gaiscioch

Bobtheman wrote: »

Inservice on a sat? Was that obligatory? A big problem with the jc English is the vastness of the course . Weak kids can struggle to remember what a simile is let alone answer a question on the comma but yet the open ended nature of the exam means both must be well prepared. But which is most important to teach? To be understood beyond the exam ?
Exam gives teachers less freedom in that they cant help weaker pupils learn something well rather than a lot of stuff poorly.

Yes, unfortunately it very much was as the teachers aren't there to cover us during the week. I was one of the lucky ones; about half of the people came from far outside Dublin for it as their respective schools couldn't cover a weekday. As usual, they were mostly younger teachers so had good, but scary, chats with them - one girl told me that when she did the PME the lecturer told them all to 'say yes to everything you're asked to do'.


Anyway, we got out an hour early and another teacher was delighted about that. I had a serious Clockwork Orange reminiscence of Alex being tortured into submission right there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E51-2B8gHtk

PureClareGold

maynooth_rules wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/junior-cycle-changes-not-serving-pupils-1.3507391?mode=amp

Interesting when a man who wrote one of the best known textbooks for the new JC feels this way.
Are we just going to sleep walk into the complete downgrading and dumbing down of our junior examinations?

Interesting that when a man who holds these views then goes and gets a job with JCT

maynooth_rules

PureClareGold wrote: »

Interesting that when a man who holds these views then goes and gets a job with JCT

Noticed that alright.

mtoutlemonde

maynooth_rules wrote: »

Noticed that alright.

Maybe just maybe he wants to change things from the inside??? Notwithstanding his salary or maybe he'll do a Peter Casey and not collect his salary If you can't beat them - join them!!!!

PureClareGold

mtoutlemonde wrote: »

Maybe just maybe he wants to change things from the inside??? Notwithstanding his salary or maybe he'll do a Peter Casey and not collect his salary If you can't beat them - join them!!!!

Can't change anything working for JCT. Would have to be NCCA or SEC

rainbowtrout

RealJohn wrote: »

but I think this idea that failing should be shameful, or even a thing, isn’t great.

Why though???? People fail at things all the time in life, why can't they be allowed to fail a subject in school. The grade description is 'Not yet achieved' which implies that at some point in the future they will achieve it, which may never be the case. That, and no one repeats the JC so they will not prove that they might achieve it.


When I failed my driving test, I wasn't told 'not yet achieved', I was told 'fail' and I wasn't given a licence. Didn't meet the required standard. It didn't do mean any harm, and it meant I had to improve to get a full licence.

Mountainsandh

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Why though???? People fail at things all the time in life, why can't they be allowed to fail a subject in school. The grade description is 'Not yet achieved' which implies that at some point in the future they will achieve it, which may never be the case. That, and no one repeats the JC so they will not prove that they might achieve it.


When I failed my driving test, I wasn't told 'not yet achieved', I was told 'fail' and I wasn't given a licence. Didn't meet the required standard. It didn't do mean any harm, and it meant I had to improve to get a full licence.

I would go as far as to say that it is critical that we all know we can fail at certain things in life, and that it's just as critical that we learn how to deal with it from a young age.

It's not even harsh, it's common sense, it's survival, sort of.

spurious

PureClareGold wrote: »

Can't change anything working for JCT. Would have to be NCCA or SEC

I don't know if even the NCCA can do anything. Their recommendations have been ignored again and again. It's like the Department's Brexit...'we've started and we will bloody well finish it'.

There are already children who struggle with OL JC. They will be lost.
There are children who find HL very easy, they will be bored stiff.
Who does the new set up serve? Not teachers, not students, not schools.

Qui bono?

The money saving bean counters in the Department. There is certainly no educational basis for it.

picturehangup

maynooth_rules wrote: »

The common level issue is infuriating. The Jct team like to push the idea that they care about teachers opinions and always take them on board. Every single teacher that I have spoken to have all disagreed with the idea of common level exams, yet here we are.

I attended a JC day in my subject not too long ago, one which has only been recently introduced at first year level. There are many flaws/omissions, hence, I decided to point these out via a lengthy email to someone on the JCT. I am still waiting for a reply.

Had I praised the new programme, I am sure I would have heard something by now. I won't be holding my breath. Henceforth, I will be not giving these presenters an easy ride of it. They are trying to brainwash us into accepting and even celebrating mediocrity from our students.

We have a day for 'Wellbeing' coming up soon. I am not going to sit there and passively accept the horse crap any longer. If they are professional teachers and selling the rest of us nonsense for whatever self-serving reason, they will have to take what they get. Enough is enough. :mad:

maynooth_rules

Are teachers concerns ever going to be taken on board in regards to this?
Virtually no teachers support the grading method (student getting 21% now 'partially achieving', students who scrape into a 55 get the same statement as a student who works their arse off and gets a 74).
Also, Common level papers seem to have no support from any teachers I have spoken to, yet most subjects are being subjected to it.
Had 2nd cluster day last week. Thankfully we were treated a little more like adults at this one and there was less use of post its and bloody dotmocrachy. But it is soul destroying as a teacher to get so much information about CBAs, yet told that the end of course exam, 90% of the course, you just have to sit back and wait till a few months before the exam in 3rd year to have any clue whatsoever as to what the structure can be. It really feels like we are failing our students with this new JC. And as a parent of a boy who will have to sit this in a few years, I am very worried.