Standard+3.3.5

=Design and use highly effective assessment strategies that link to the learning outcomes articulated in syllabus documents. =

In designing effective assessment tasks it is vital that we ensure that the student understands completely what the task is about and how to complete the task successfully. Enriching formative tasks are essential if the following summative assessment task is to be meaningful and coherent to the student.

The HSC Biology course requires that each student carry out an open-ended investigation in each year of the course and I often use an investigation of enzyme activity from 9.2 Maintaining a Balance, as it provides great insight to experimental method. In order to prepare my students for this task they first undertake the [|Enzyme PrePrac] which gives them experience in the skills required. The actual [|OEI] is carried out as an individual task with a high level of teacher feedback along the way. This feedback is a strategy which allows students to assess their own achievement of the learning outcomes. I do not use this as an HSC assessment task, but as a rich, authentic investigation during which my students are able to see the value of and intricacies in the scientific method.

As a part of preparing our year 10 students for their School Certificate examination I wanted to ensure that they had given thought to the Prescribed Focus Areas outlined in the NSW Syllabus. At the time I was supervising a practicum student and felt that it would be a valuable exercise for him to design, set and, possibly, mark an assessment task. During discussion I realized that he had had some experience in marking factual ‘tests’ but none in marking more open ended responses.

Initially I asked him to extract the content areas and relevant PFA’s from the syllabus (see [|Yr 10 topics - PFA's]) we then worked on how to put these together as an effective task. The marking rubric was designed as the [|Yr 10 PFA Task] was being finalised. The factual knowledge that we expected students to include was derived from the [|Waves - Learning Outcomes] document, based on the NSW syllabus, which each student was issued at the beginning of the topic. The students were issued with their assessment advice and were allowed 2 lessons in which to carry out some research and ask advice or explanation on the ‘scientific knowledge’ involved with their research topic. [Unfortunately my practicum student did not get the opportunity to mark all the tasks, but the rubric worked well.]