[Year 12 SofDev] Holiday questions to ponder (or ignore)

[Andrew Shortell]

Hi Mark
Your questions are wrong

1 should be what is the purpose of section A
A: in the old days there was no section A. Then it was seen that the spread of marks was not as good as the statisticians liked so other subjects bragged about how multiple choice allowed students to get some marks and yea verily it was seen to be true.  I.T. Was unhappy. And so IPM /ITA got MC and yes it was better and so sof dev got it too.
The section B was left even though it had been developed to allow students to get marks. 
Truly the use of case study is the simple and pure way to get students to demonstrate a full and complete understanding of the purposes of software development and the way in which it is done.
However few students have the requisite full and complete understanding and so case study by itself was not an adequate method to spread the student marks On the continuum. Section, b was inadequate too.
In ITA the extended answer questions were ditched because they were not good discriminators. In. Sof deve there is a strong rearguard action to retain case study

I believe in the case study because it is how the subject is taught and it is an excellent problem solving approach attacked in a methodical manner leading to a logical conclusion in the context of a curriculum designed to imitate the real life process which tragically nowadays is outsourced to people who do not have the passion to create code that is technically excellent and artistically admirable.
(in just one good sentence too!)

2: see above. It is still the wrong question
Correct question: why have we added in section B and section A?

3: 90 marks 90 minutes
100 marks - easier to add in the MC without destroying the integrity of the case study (for which I was glad) 

History is important and when you are old and have actually lived through through it it is a lot easier to remember .... And yes I do know that you (Mark) are 6 months older than me. (&Robert is even older  *chortle from a Shortell)  What I hate is that it will be years before I can afford to retire
Partly because I like holidays. E.g. I am in Bali and it is only 28 degrees compared to 10 at home!

Any further questions?

A

Andrew Shortell
Educator
CRC Melton

shortell at get2me.net (lists)
andrew at get2me.net (personal)
@acsbear (twitter)
VITTA CoM member
Skype: acshortell

Sent from my iPad

On 01/07/2013, at 2:39 PM, "Robert Hind" <robert at yinnar.com> wrote:

> Be careful Mark!
>  
> As I say to my wife when she says "I was just thinking . . ."
>  
> "Don't think too much, it can be dangerous."
>  
> Robert Hind
> Retired
> Ex Traralgon and Ashwood
>  
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
>  
> From: Mark
> To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
> Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 4:06 PM
> Subject: [Year 12 SofDev] Holiday questions to ponder (or ignore)
> 
> Hi all.  In a moment of reflection during exam writing, some fundamental thoughts occurred to me...
> 
> 1.  What is the purpose of section B of the SD exam?  
> 
> - Could its content not be examined in section C just as easily? 
> - Section B seems to me to be the alcoholic uncle who is reluctantly invited to Christmas lunch to fill an empty seat, or because he's always been invited in the past, though no-one can remember why. 
> 
> 2. Why are most of the SD marks based on a single case study, whereas ITA is not?  Just out of curiosity, I'd like to know how this tradition began.
> 
> 3. Why is the IT Applications exam worth 90, and the SD exam worth 100? 
> It's not a biggy, but such inconsistencies nag at me.
> 
> --
> Mark Kelly
> mark AT vceit DOT com
> http://vceit.com
> 
> Day 19, I have successfully conditioned my master to smile and write in his book every time I drool.- Pavlov's Dog
> 
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