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November 2011

Contents

• Assessing independence
• Holistic judgements
• Programming and algorithm standards review
• Assessment conditions
• Best Practice Workshops

Assessing Independence 

Achievement standards 91071, 91073 and 91081 require students at merit to show accuracy and independence in the way they implement their outcome.

“With independence” means the student:

• owns the practice (acts as if responsibility for achieving a quality outcome sits with them)
• plans effectively, thinks ahead, is well organised, self starting, self managing
• makes decisions but may occasionally confirm this with their teacher/peers
• books any equipment needed ahead of time
• brings required materials when needed
• carries out appropriate checking and testing and takes corrective action as necessary
• recognises and deals with issues promptly instead of allowing them to blow the timeline
• is able to describe what they are doing, why, and where their project is up to.

It does NOT mean that they:

• are unable to ask for help with technical (for example, faulty equipment) issues
• are responsible for supplying resources that the school should be providing.

There is no step-up on “independence and accuracy” for excellence.

The student developed outcomes will not indicate that a student is at merit or excellent grade.  It is the way they carry out the procedures that will determine whether they are at merit or excellence. It is most important that the teacher is able to justify their judgement to the student, parents, the moderator or whoever else may question the judgement. A modified TKI assessment schedule that includes examples of possible evidence that matches the student developed outcome could make the teacher validation of grades process very straightforward.

Holistic Judgements 

The following statement appears on all the ‘Final Published Resources’ schedules on the MOE TKI website:

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidence provided against the criteria in the Achievement Standard.

This is a change from judgements for the old achievement standards, which required each achievement criterion to be graded with the final grade being the lowest judgement made.  The focus is to look for evidence across all the assessment material and to determine whether the body of evidence sits at Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence. Teachers should also consider the critical pieces of evidence for Achievement and the complexity of the reasoning for Merit and Excellence.  

The annotated exemplars on the Technology subject page give examples of how such holistic judgements have been made.

Programming and algorithm standards review 

Achievement standards 91075 Construct an algorithmic structure for a basic task and Achievement standard 91076 Construct a basic computer program for a specified task are both under review.  The writers are working hard to ensure the reviewed standards are ready for the 2012 academic year.

Assessment Conditions for the 'Implement/Skills' standards (ie 91071, 91073, 91081) 

To achieve these standards with higher grades, students are required to demonstrate independence for merit and also efficiency for excellence.

Moderators are seeing a number of teacher-derived assessment tasks which require students to work 'under test conditions, no talking' etc and with a specific time limit of, for example, four periods.   Under these assessment conditions, effectively all students would be working independently and would therefore have to, at least, be awarded a merit grade. An assessment task should be such that students can achieve at any grade level.  

It is recommended that, rather than apply the conditions described above, students are given an extended period of in-class time to gather the evidence to demonstrate their skills.  For example, the assessment resources found on TKI follow the recommended time allowance (for teaching, learning and assessment) of ten hours per credit of both in-class and homework time. These resources reflect the intent of the standard, which is that the teacher conferences with the student and supports them as they work to produce the specified outcome. Such conditions better provide the opportunity for students to demonstrate independence and efficiency of time.  A student who asks for assistance from their teacher and/or peers would therefore be performing at an achieved level as they are not working independently.

The Conditions of Assessment documents can be found on TKI in the NCEA internal assessment resources area.  They contain specific information for individual internal achievement standards.

Best Practice Workshops 

A workshop has been scheduled for 22 November on the North Shore in Auckland. 

If you wish to register for this workshop go to the Best Practice Workshops page.