An edited version of the following letter was published in The Courier-Mail of Monday 9 February 2015. Underlined words were deleted and bracketed ones inserted. The paper's heading was "School-based tests better".
1950s style exams don't suit 21st century
Norman Hunter (Letters, Feb 6) is to be commended for sensibly reminding readers that it would be unwise to update Queensland's tertiary entrance system by a knee-jerk reversion (reverting) to an outmoded past in the form of external examinations (exams).
If the Core Skills Test is to abandoned, it would be appropriate to substitute some alternative form of external assessment but this should be a minor component, worth no more than 25% (per cent).
External exams are high pressure, one-off activities while school-based assessment involves tasks done under a variety of conditions at several points in the academic year.
In the digital age, pen and paper handwriting marathons are not the appropriate way to measure student learning in quite a few subject areas.
And if there is to be any scaling, external results should be scaled against moderated school-based assessment, not the other way around.
Part of the previous government's response to the report of the Australian Council for Educational Research review was that some of the proposed new procedures be trialled in maths and science subjects. It is imperative that any trial also involves some humanities and social science subjects as well. Otherwise, we could end up with a system that does not suit a large chunk of the curriculum.
Garry Collins
Immediate Past President, English Teachers Association of Queensland
Tags: Assessment |
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. Most recently, the high-stakes nature of unseen examinations fo... |
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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 DayA grammar workshop will be held at Elanora State High School on Saturday 29 May 2021 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 ... |
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Teacher event - external assessmentThe second series of pre-external examination events will be held for teachers on Saturday 31 July as a face-to-face event and online. Recorded materials will remain available to all participants online until the examination week in October. Date Claimer giving further information is available for download ... |
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Student event - external assessmentFlexible modes of delivery will allow you and your students to engage with the materials at a time that suits you. Once again this event will be fully online to cater for all members and their students. This year the materials will come to you live in the afternoon of Wednesday 8 September and again in the morning of Saturda... |
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