[Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course

Thu Mar 30 05:39:21 EST 2006

I partly agree with you Robert, but for me the fundamental problem is
getting students to actually READ the question.
Then the next problem is to compose an answer that actually answers the
question.
If a student knows 70% of the coursework and gets 70% on the exam, then
in my mind he has achieved 100% at exam technique.
My very great sadness comes when a student knows 95% of the coursework
but gets only 60% on the exam. For that student, the weak link is their
exam technique.
Your "isn't it sad that education is reduced to this!" suggests that
conquering the challenge of good exam technique is not a 'good' use of
educational endeavour. With this I cannot agree, because I believe that
students who have developed the ability to really understand questions
and to accurately formulate their existing knowledge and understandings
into a good answer to THAT question, are significantly better prepared
for many other challenges that life will throw up at them in their
future social and working lives.
<<Dusts off soap-box for more bursts that may be coming...>>
Regards, Keith

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:59:56 +1000, "Robert Timmer-Arends"
<timmer at melbpc.org.au> said:
> Hello Andrew and Kevork
> 
> isn't it sad that education is reduced to this! (which I hasten to add is
> not a criticism of either of you - it's what the system demands if we are
> to
> do the best by our students)
> 
> Regards
> Robert T-A
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrew Shortell" <a.shortell at braemar.vic.edu.au>
> To: "Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List"
> <is at edulists.com.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:42 PM
> Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
> 
> 
> Hi Kevork
> 
> That approach works well
> I have always taken the attitude that the IS exam is often the student's
> last exam so all study for it is left until after any other exams and
> then they have generally lost the urge (to do anything at all)
> 
> So in the first week of the year we look at the exam from last year as a
> class , in class time and explain what was answered well and poorly. If
> anyone knows the answers to any questions that is great but then I
> remind them that they must refer to the case study and award their
> answer zero because they don't.
> Thus from week one they are reminded to refer to the case study.
> Then when we intro the SDLC I explain that this is question one in part
> b. Then I say that we have already covered a lot of section a and are
> moving along.!!
> 
> Then practice exams after the SAC 3  (u3o3) in that dreadful time slot
> between the midyear exams and the "break from scheduled classes" ( -
> after all yr 12 get the mother of all holidays in November!!).
> 
> I aim to finish all SACs and theory by the 3rd last week of term 3. Then
> nearly every double is a practice exam in class time. Even though a
> double only goes 90 minutes most of them learn to pace themselves
> through the exam (2 doubles per week 3 weeks in term 3 and 3 weeks in
> term 4 = 12 exams.)  Then I give them solutions to each, they take them
> home, read, analyse, come back to the next class and ask whether their
> answer would get any marks and we analyse the more difficult questions
> as a group.
> 
> There are still plenty of other practice exams and I send these home for
> weekend work and "break from scheduled classes work" (see mother of all
> holidays comment above).
> 
> Not every student makes a lot of effort -- sadly for me and for them but
> it works better than hoping they will practice without me standing over
> them!!.
> 
> Also the double in which they are doing the exam I will go through and
> mark the last one for questions.  Note that I do not correct -- just
> mark which is a lot faster. Thus you can do 15  in the ninety minutes --
> that is six minutes each -- more than enough to see if they have
> referred to the case study and just giving a quick mark. If they want to
> know why then that is part of the discussion class!
> 
> In a class of say 20 I would get maybe 14 do this seriously. The others
> realise (eventually) that they are being left behind and either do
> something about it or prepare for a not so good mark. It can be a good
> time to contact parents and voice one's concern about their exam
> preparation!
> 
> Most teachers of other subjects do not begin exam prep until term 4 so
> my students have had three weeks (minimum) of preparation without
> distraction.  (ROFL)
> SACs in other subjects are the biggest problems - students prioritise to
> them quite often.
> 
> Remember that with stat mod'n the class competes for their position on
> the class ladder but for the exam they work as a group to bring up the
> low performers and to raise the high performers so everyone needs to
> encourage the low performers to work harder and support the high
> performers so that they achieve well.
> 
> {    ;-) falls off soap box and staggers off to try to make these ideas
> actually work }
> 
> Andrew Shortell
> Braemar College
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
> Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
> Sent: Wednesday, 29 March 2006 9:39 AM
> To: is at edulists.com.au
> Subject: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
>      Call me crazy but I am going to do things differently this year.
> 
>  I have been frustrated for some time with the fact my students always
> do worse in exams than in SACs. Exam prep is always crammed into the 2
> -3 weeks of term 4 ( maybe 10 periods in total ) and despite the fact
> there are at least 6 exams for each past year as practice ( VCAA, 3 x
> VITTA practice, IARTV, Chem Associates ) times at least 10 years = 60
> exams the results don't seem to quite reach  expectations.  I am sure
> this is due to the huge cram that goes on with other subjects as well
> and students may only actually do about 5 or so exams as their real
> practice and really, how much one on one do the students really get with
> each teacher ?
> 
>   So this year we are going to spend 3 weeks in each of Term 2, 3 and 4
> = 12 weeks on exam preparation by doing exams in class and marking in
> class and recording student performance and progress. What we lose in
> time for SACs, theory and programming, we will trim and cram these
> rather than the exam.
> 
>   I'll let you know how it goes after the results come out in December.
> 
> 
> Best Wishes
> 
> 
> 
> Kevork Krozian
> IT Manager , Forest Hill College
> k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
> http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
> Mobile: 0419 356 034
> 
> 
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> 
> 
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> IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by
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> Teachers Association Inc
Keith Richardson
Leibler Yavneh College
Elsternwick Ph (03)9528 4911
keithcr at fastmail.fm