Here are some of my thoughts on the new syllabi, past syllabi.
1. The implementation is poorly organised and does not support to the teachers at the chalkface. We look unprofessional and there are many unanswered questions. Minor points like HOW do we assess? The difference between the grades in the syllabi is too minor. It seems like there is no difference at all! WHY go to criteria based marking? WHEN was the support given to teachers who have started teaching the new syllabi? (We were offered support in Semester 2 this year. Hasn’t the horse bolted already?)
2. The syllabi are airy-fairy, vague documents. Why are there not more exemplar assessment tasks, exemplar programs etc? (There is one on the website) How about exemplar spreadsheets to help with assessment? Teachers all over Queensland will be writing their own, each time re-inventing the wheel. What a waste of our time. Most of us teach 5 other classes.
3. The requirements of the syllabus make writing assessment tasks a nightmare. Have we satisfied this criterion? This one? Or maybe that one? Simply: I want to assess my students fairly in pure and applied maths at varying levels of difficulty.
4. Use of ‘buzz’ words, sometimes confusing students and used in trivial questions to satisfy panel that criteria have been covered.
Have we come to this?
Sample question for 2010 and beyond, year 12 Maths B.
(a) KAPS 2 + 2 =
(b) MAPS
Extending and generalising your result to (a) or otherwise, show that 4 + 4 = 8, except when your answer to (a) is incomplete.
(c) (Real-life application) A carton contains 12 eggs. In counting the eggs, what are the strengths and limitations of the model stated in (b)?
Evaluate the validity of the argument that eggs would be better packed in cartons of eight.
5. The system seems open to rorting. Panellists are not to know what goes on in the class room. I do not trust what other schools do, under unrelenting pressure to get better results from their students.
6. Panellists are not paid professional rates of pay for their overtime work. At one in-service I attended, someone from the Board was bragging about the low cost of their system!
7. I worry about the constant ‘lowering of the bar’. At a recent meeting (organised by confused teachers in Toowoomba, one a state panel member) it was suggested that if a student attempts (say) six questions of C level and succeeds in one, then that student has achieved a low C. It was thought that this was good because ‘more students could get a C’. I do not agree. Surely it would be desirable for more students to earn a C. I hope that our C students do not wish to be employed in a parachute packing company following their outstanding success in Maths B.
8. There are many, varied plans to rank students. We are, remember, also required to rank them. Some schools are using marks, some grades. Some allocate a numerical scale to A, B, C, D, and then add the points. Hmmm.
9. I searched the Standards associated with exit criteria, in KAPS the word “correct” does not appear. In MAPS the words “appropriate”& “solve” are missing. They are hidden behind the term “algebraic facility”, in the glossary of terms.
10. Marking communication: The elaborate tick boxes that some schools have developed so that panels don’t have the effrontery to question C & J marking do not work!! I have worked at several schools where teachers grade C & J on gut feeling + levels of justification in MAPS q’s, then tick the boxes later. This is dishonest, and using a method purely designed to get past a panel members! It seems sadly reminiscent of the ‘machine that goes beep’! I can imagine John Cleese examining my work. At some stage he stands eureka like: “They’ve got tick boxes!” Panel seem to want teachers to be more specific than the vague syllabus. In the past we graded communication by giving marks for working. For a while we did both. Some schools still will, using the new syllabi. Isn’t that giving C & J twice the weighting it deserves?
11. The hundreds of meetings: these have been information dissemination. I have been to two. One was a warning of what was coming. At both, around the tea-urn, most teachers seemed unhappy. Some young teachers were talking of getting out of teaching.At the first meeting I attended the presenter kept covering her QSA nametag to answer questions, as if to say, “as I represent the QSA, I can’t really say this, but just ….” What? The QSA presenters don’t even want to follow QSA policy? At the other meeting the presenter told us that it didn’t matter what the national curriculum said, we would still be assessing this way. What? The QSA is its own empire able to ignore the National Curriculum? Does Canberra know?