[Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

Thu Nov 16 14:53:43 EST 2006

actually .. a good exam must include questions that only a few will get
other wise there is no discrimination between scores at the high end

That is for any exam .. not just one that is used for Uni entrance.
Ranking of students is important otherwise students have nothing to
reward them for either effort or Ability.
Also without asking hard questions the subject will turn into
Information Processing and Society .. for those with long memories.

HSC Computer Science it Certainly is not 

Royce Williams 
Round Square BoardWalk Co 
"We keep your feet Dry" 

	-----Original Message-----
	From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Shortell
	Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2006 1:09 PM
	To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing
List
	Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

	Hi Frank

	Past exams give you what the examiners have asked over the years
at an algorithm level.

	All of the SACs are statistically moderated against the exam.

	The lack of depth specified in the study design gives the
examiners incredible scope to ask at any level.

	Then consider how many students would answer it well.  

	Look carefully at the examiners reports over the last twelve
years. Look especially at the success rate on the algorithm questions.
Look at the questions concerned.

	Think carefully about the point of asking a question where only
a few percent of students get above zero. The point of the exam is to
spread students in to a long line using the filter of the knowledge
learnt in this subject so that they can be given a study score and thus
get put into a long line for uni entrance. 

	Cynical - yes , practical -yes 

	The practice exams with parameter passing - an attempt to lift
the bar. ( I know, I wrote that algorithm) 

	Eventually we will get to that stage. But first we have to
educate the teachers and there are teachers in this subject who are not
confident teaching parameter passing, linked lists, stacks, queues,
LIFO, FIFO, multi d arrays.  There is a lot of PD that needs to be done
before we can ask questions at that depth in the exam.

	Meanwhile I teach all of those, make it interesting and for
those students who are not up to it I make very sure that they can do a
bit more than the minimum that we have seen on the exam. Their SAC
results for u3o3 and u4o1 are not as good as the programmer students but
programming itself only makes up a small part of those SACs. Most of the
marks are in planning, documentation etc. The programmer students hate
those aspects and often leave them out.

	So it evens up....

	(Off the soap box and stagger off to lunch. I hate getting up at
4 a.m. to mark papers but it is the only quiet time in the house)

	Andrew Shortell

	Braemar College

  _____  

	From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Frank Van Den Boom
	Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2006 10:29 AM
	To: is at edulists.com.au
	Subject: FW: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

	I was a bit surprised to only get one response to the question
below a couple of weeks ago. Does that mean that nobody else finds this
difficult to judge?
	Imagine you were an experienced IT practioner and you came in to
teach this course with no prior knowledge of it and you were trying to
figure out what depth was required in programming. So you look at the
following :

	1. Study design - very hard to know (see comments in original
message) 

	2. 2006 IS exam - nothing beyond nested IF's - nothing involving
arrays, records, files. One question with a loop was only concerned with
identifying variable types, but not control or data structures.

	3. Previous exams - basic use of 1-dim array, basic looping

	3. VITTA practice exams - suggest you need to have a solid
understanding of arrays, records, file processing and parameter passing.

	4. Text books - cover algorithms for stacks, queues, linked
lists etc

	At the end of the day, past exams to me are the only general
indicator of the depth to cover. Is there a reason why the study design
can't spell this out more clearly?

	Frank

  _____  

	From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Frank Van Den Boom
	Sent: Wednesday, 25 October 2006 12:41 PM
	To: is at edulists.com.au
	Subject: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

	Today I started looking more closely at the revised study design
to plan for next year. One of the things that struck me is that it is
difficult to know what the minimum content requirements are in a number
of areas. For example-data structures. I don't think it specifically
mentions any particular data structure. U4O1 key knowledge includes
"methods of organising files....serial, sequential, random" which
implies the need to cover records. Arrays are not specifically referred
to and while, it would be pretty dumb to omit them, are 1-dim arrays
enough, or might exams expect ability to work with multi-dim arrays?
What about sets, pointers....

	Another KK point --> 'Forms and uses of data structures to
organise and manipulate data'. Which data structures?? What types of
uses?? - all the oldies like sorting, linked lists, queues, binary
searches etc are possible here.

	Now I know we have the flexibility to cover as much of this as
we want to for the kids who are really into it, particularly for those
who already have a reasonable programming foundation as they enter the
course. But what I don't know is what the minimum requirement is. This
becomes more important when most of your group have little to no
programming experience.

	What do you think about this?

	Frank

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