An edited version of the letter below was published in The Courier-Mail of Thursday 22 January 2015. It was submitted in response to an opinion piece by Professor Geoff Masters and Dr Gabrielle Matters that had appeared in the paper the previous day. Underlined words were deleted and bracketed ones inserted. They also adjusted my paragraphing. The paragraph breaks below are those of the printed version and differ a little from what I submitted. The paper's heading for this and another letter was "Inconsistencies will test reforms".
Year 12 assessment system
ACER (Australian Council for Education Research) researchers Geoff Masters and Gabrielle Matters respond to some criticisms of the recommendations arising from their review of the state's OP system ("Assessing the value of changes to Year 12 examination system", 21 Jan).
A problem with reviews like this is that the recommendations are usually designed as a comprehensive package. Unless most of the proposals for change are adopted together the intended integrity and balance will not be achieved in the new system.
Unfortunately, governments often cherry pick the recommendations, implementing some that are considered relatively easy and politically attractive while ignoring others that are more difficult and expensive.
In their report, Masters and Matters propose that, instead of the 25 steps of the current OP scale, student achievement in Year 12 should be reported on a "more fine-grained" 60 point scale. In itself, this seems to make good sense.
Curiously, however, performance on each of the proposed 3 (three) school-based assessments is to be graded on a 10-point scale. In some subjects like English, this is less fine-grained than current practice. In many schools individual assessment tasks in English are, in effect, marked on a 15-point scale with each of the 5 (five) levels of achievement sub-divided into 3 (three) bands (mid, upper and lower).
In other schools, teachers grade individual pieces of work on a 50-point scale with 10 internal steps within each of the levels (level) of achievement. This seems to suggest (suggests) an internal inconsistency in the reviewers' thinking.
Garry Collins
Immediate Past President, English Teachers Association of Queensland
Tags: Assessment |
March Seminar 2021: Challenge and Change: Doing things differentlyWe are delighted to announce that we will be back with face to face professional learing events in 2021 - usual format but with some important changes: the March Seminar will be a full day event; the AATE-ALEA National Conference will be held in Brisbane in July and consequently there will not be a state conference. The Program Our fi... |
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Grammar at Hervey BayA grammar workshop will be held at Hervey Bay State High School to assist attendees to develop their understandings of grammar in order to fully comprehend and to effectively teach the Australia Curriculum: English (AC:E). Also highly relevant to Years 11 & 12. This will be an updated re-run of the activity conducted in both 2018 and ... |
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May Masterclass 2021THE CHALLENGE OF TEACHING ANALYSIS: DO WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR PRACTICES? Teaching the process of analysing texts in order for students to produce a spoken or written response remains amongst the most exciting and difficult challenges we face as a community of English teachers. Building on lessons from ETAQ's 2020 student and teacher ev... |
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JCU SpectacularJoin Dr Claire Hansen for a two-hour session on teaching Macbeth. We'll dive into an exploration of the language of Macbeth and teaching strategies to engage students with Shakespeare's Scottish play. The workshop will also explore learning activities for Macbeth created by the Shakespeare Reloaded project. This session will... |
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Grammar DayETAQ will be conducting another of the very successful grammar days on Saturday 29 May 2021. The venue will be Elanora SHS; any one who wishes to come is welcome. |
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