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Continuous Assessment LC
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09-05-2020 8:02am#1
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Apologies for the long post. There are a lot of ideas I want to flesh out though.
I don't think a sort of semesterisation would really work, because I think the external element of examinations is important for the integrity of the process, so we'd need the marking to happen during the summer, but I'll get into the solution later. Having research make up certain sections of subjects should still work though, I think.
Yes, things could go in that sort of way, though in my model, the junior and senior cycles might not be entirely separate anyway. I'd be inclined to say that there would need to be certain core subjects (probably just Irish, english, and maths, though maybe some others) that are required in order to get a leaving cert, but then that students could concentrate on taking certain subjects to as high a level as they can manage, while possibly taking a few more to a lower level for a more general education.rainbowtrout wrote: »If you were still looking at a senior cycle independent of the junior cycle you could structure it so there were two compulsory modules in seven subjects, so fifth year would take place relatively similar to what we have now, but once you have done fifth year (and attained the compulsory requirements in English, Irish, Maths) that you could then specialise in four or five subjects for LC.
The big stumbling block I'm struggling to get around myself is how to ensure that everyone still has a full timetable without just sticking them into classes they consider themselves to have already passed. If, for example, we considered level 3 maths to be the equivalent of leaving cert ordinary level, but that a strong student could have done that by the end of 3rd year or 4th year, and still have two years to go, it might be difficult to organise a timetable for that student if they don't need maths for the course they want, when a lot of people might still be doing maths.
I agree that the logistics could be difficult, as I said above. I'm struggling with that bit myself. In my model though, yes, students would move ahead of those in their year, if some pass and some don't. That, again, is along the same lines as my point that it doesn't make sense to move on in maths when you only know half of the material though. It also doesn't make an awful lot of sense to group students entirely based on age.mirrorwall14 wrote: »... do students move classes if they jump ahead of peers? Could be difficult enough to manage which student is doing what
I have third year higher level maths students who'd mop the floor with some of the 6th year ordinary/foundation level students, and I don't feel that it was of any benefit to those 6th year students that they were forced to move on in maths with their classmates. In many cases, that probably applies to them in seveal subjects, and it would have been better for them to repeat 5th year. Or probably 2nd year. The problem is that in our current system, there's both a stigma attached to repeating a year at all, and then, they'll also run out of time anyway, as the weakest students would probably need to repeat more than one year, and wind up 21 or 22 by the time they're doing their leaving cert, which is clearly an unsatisfactory situation.
In my model, if you don't get 80% in your level 2 maths in second year, you go on to level 3 in the subjects you did get 80% in, but the chances are you're staying in level 2 maths with a few others anyway, along with a few new second years who got the 80% in level 1 maths, while a lot of the 2nd years are still going for their 80% in level 1. You would hope that there wouldn't be too many stuck on the same level for too long, but as the groups get bigger, you could still work on keeping them age appropriate so that if we're calling level 3 the equivalent of leaving cert ordinary level (or foundation, or whatever) that you don't have 18 year old 6th years in with 15 year old 3rd years, but you could have 18 year old 6th years doing the same exam as 15 year old 3rd years at the end of the year, if that's their level.
This year's experience is part of what has me thinking more about this lately. In my model, in the event that all exams had to be called off in a given year, it would be easier to implement them on a smaller scale in the middle of the year, because the exams should be shorter, and students could also afford to skip a year, and maybe be allowed to take two modules the following year (say, where they might have only qualified for maths 3, that they be allowed to take maths 3 and maths 4, if their teacher thought they were able for it).randylonghorn wrote: »And I think it's very important that any changes are directed at real improvements (bearing in mind this year's experience) rather than just a knee-jerk reaction to this year's experience.
It would also mean that the 6th years wouldn't be stuck taking predicted grades because their next highest standardised exam was 3 years ago - most of them would probably be up to level 4 or 5 in a few subjects, and those are likely to be the subjects they want to bring on to college anyway, and those not going on to college might not be far from the minimum they need to "get a leaving cert" anyway either.
This is also somewhat mitigated against in my model. The modules are shorter, so so would the exams be, so instead of having say 10 maths papers to have marked every year as we currently do (1 foundation, 2 ordinary, 2 higher, for both junior and leaving), there'd only be 6/7/8/[whatever number the highest level is but definitely fewer than 10], and they'd all be shorter papers because they're examining less stuff. The level 1s might even be open to primary school students and let the primary school teachers act as examiners too.mirrorwall14 wrote: »Big stumbling block is the external assessment. We are a small country. We blame the teachers for everything. It is very hard to see how it works with internal assessments
Personally, I think one of the big failings of our current primary school system is that the students don't actually have any terminal exam or final standard to reach, so primary schools are under no pressure to do a good job, if they're struggling to - you can imagine the standard of maths and Irish in some schools would go up if inspection reports started saying things like x% of students achieve level 1 in maths at the end of 6th class. It could be optional for primary schools (and it might be an option for 1st years to start at level 2, if they reached that 80% standard), so that there isn't a lot of pressure on the students, but it would put pressure on the schools to improve their standards.
Apologies again for the length, and thank you to anyone who actually took the time to read it.
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I actually wouldn't be a big fan of the 4 x 25% breakdown tbh. I think Dec / Jan in 5th year is too early as an assessment point; they've come out of TY, they're getting back into more traditional academic study, teachers are getting to know them / their ability, starting to move through the course, and suddenly there's an assessment point looming.
Seems a bit too quick to me, I'd be more inclined to look at end of 5th Year as the first assessment point.
So, let's look at a fairly minimal change approach for the moment, i.e. where curriculum doesn't change dramatically, but we re-arrange the assessment model both to spread it out more and reduce the stress on (and of) the big terminal exam and to pandemic-proof it more (and I would always have been in favour of the first before any of this mess ever landed on us).
What about Irish? Currently 40% Oral in Spring of 6th Year, 60% Written in June 6th year (2 big papers).
So what if we allocate 20% to a written exam at the end of 5th year, 1.5 - 2 hours, no lit., language only.
Then Oral at 40% in say mid-December of 6th Year.
2 x 2 hour papers in June @ 20% each, one language, one lit.
(Yes, I have an underlying assumption that the concentration in LC should be on language, not lit.)
Now, we have no in-house exams for 5th years in Summer of 5th year, so I think it is reasonable as Mirror suggested to ask local teachers to invigilate (NOT correct, invigilate).
SEC should deal with corrections. Remember, we still have ~5.5 - 6 hours worth of papers in Irish over the two years, no big change there, just split out a bit more, so not that different in terms of correction costs, though a bit of carrot may have to be offered as with any new system.
End 5th year marks are returned to schools by beginning of September as end of year marks / how-am-I-getting-on feedback on a CONDITIONAL basis as is the norm in third-level (i.e. in this case it means that the bell-curve will not be applied until all marks are in, so there may be slight changes).
Also means teachers could focus mainly on language (written and oral) for the first year and a half, and have time between Christmas of 6th year and June to focus mainly on the 20% lit.
With other languages the oral is only 25%, so perhaps ...
End 5th year - 25%
Roughly end Jan in 6th Year - Oral 25% (to keep a bit of room between these and Irish oral)
June of 6th year - one (reduced length) paper - 50%
I'm not even vaguely familiar with curricula for the languages, so not going to put my head in a noose by suggesting what fits where!
History / Geography -
Both have projects for 20% already. As HQ said, these could be tagged to Dec. of 6th year, though actually I think they could be tagged to end of 5th year (I know schools who do this already) and submitted then.
Either way, I would be including another 20% option (or 25 / 25 if preferred) in the other assessment point.
And so on.
As I said, I think Maths is the one which desperately needs a better / more creative solution, even in the most "minimal change" model which this is intended to be.
Nor am I saying that "minimal change" is my preferred solution (I like where John's head is going!
) but I'm simply saying that even minimal change could mean ...
... students putting their heads down earlier in 5th year;
... less stress on (and because of) the massive terminal exams;
... more disaster-proof.0 -
Oh lord, John wrote an even longer book while I was writing mine!
As I said, above was approached from a "minimal change" POV, I'm not advocating for an MC model as such.
What I would suggest, John, is that aligning your thinking with the levels of the NQF might have merit.
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Some years ago I remember a comment being made in a meeting by someone (and I actually think it was Áine Hyland) to the effect that "we told teachers that they should try not to raise their voices in the classroom, and now they think they shouldn't raise them outside the classroom either!" 0
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