The Future for Controlled Assessments
Controlled assessments have dominated a large proportion of Year 11 time in recent weeks and months. As an extended activity we rely on students to be confident in their own approach to answering the question through their own research. Through the design of controlled assessments students require to be independent learners from their teachers, other friends and people at home. Towards the end when students reach the "high level" parts of controlled assessments they are even independent from the internet and the only safety net is their own research. What a great way to enforce student independence.
The worry we have is that learner independence should be a skill that students develop throughout their time at school and there has been nothing more frustrating this year than seeing students struggle when there is no room for interventions by the teacher. So as a department we decided to take action to ensure that all our students are prepared with the skills required to be successful with the controlled assessment process.
Developing learner independence is a long process and will be the basis for posts at other times on this blog however what is important is allowing students the chance to feel confident in their approach to researching and analysing.
So the key steps we have decided to do:
- Informal but structured research based projects at KS3 where the focus is on creating a hypothesis and working towards finding out if it was true or not. KS3 projects will also focus on generating accurate and appropriate graphical representations depending upon what data they have. Allowing students to make guided decisions at this age will allow them to make informed decisions when they are on their own.
- During Year 9 and 10 we have planned to take a more active approach with the method making process and analysing of data. Students this year have again struggled with explaining why they are doing the methods that they have decided are appropriate for the information they need to find out. We decided to plan lessons that look at research design and when/why we use different methods depending upon different data required, again allowing students to make mistakes during this low pressure year. Again inferring what they can do in Year 11 when on their own.
When analysing data sets students get into the routine of manipulating the raw data into patterns and %s and use the acronym HLGTA to help them with their explanations.
Another line of investigation we are going to try is to see if students can access the regulations of controlled assessments tasks with different media such as movie maker or a verbally given power point presentation. Only ideas at this stage though, we will be having conversations with the chief examiners in the coming weeks to see what we can do.
Who knows if this will work? Only time will tell. However, the key thing is to give it a go.... what we can't have are students afraid in their own ability to access the requirements of the controlled assessment process.
For now, Year 11s can take a breather.... but watch out the rest of you!
