Course work and AfL
KS4 and AfL seem to have a rather mixed relationship. In many respects, assessment for learning works well in many classrooms. Teachers are explaining examination criteria in detail, they point out what else needs to be done or learnt. When it comes to coursework however, there seems to be some difficulty in developing good practice. “Letting students get on with the work” seems to be given preference. I wonder, whether we should lobby the QCA to include in the examination criteria the following aspects:
- can give feedback to a fellow student and apply examination criteria to their work
- can break the task into manageable chunks
- can allocate appropriate amounts of time to each task
- can complete a weekly tracking document, which shows what they have done and what they will do next.
Maybe I’m wrong and students are already assessed on this. Maybe doesn’t need to be explicit?
jwoodhouse said,
March 7, 2006 @ 15:19
As an old cynical English teacher, I’m afraid that I think we need to clarify the rules around exam coursework before we entangle it any further. English GCSE used to be examined 100% coursework. This was (probably rightly) thought to be too open to both genuine differences in opinion between teacher/markers and to out-and-out cheating. We now have written coursework accounting for 20% of the final mark and a widespread uncertainty about where the boundary lies between teaching through coursework (a ‘good’ thing involving AfL), and intervening to such an extent that the finished product is not ‘the candidate’s unaided work’ (a ‘bad’ thing which undermines the fairness of the exam).
All this without the problem of plagiarism via the net.
In my view we need to think very clearly and honestly about the purpose and use of (a) assessment OF learning (particularly public exams) and (b) assessment FOR learning. Exam coursework muddies the water and will, I believe, not be around for too many years.