Markers’ Meeting
7:19 pm on the 4th of June, 2007I had the great opportunity to observe an SQA markers’ meeting in Glasgow today.
It’s all very hush-hush, and I can’t say what was covered, but it was a really worthwhile thing to go to. There are of course lots of underlying issues about whether these assessment methods are appropriate, but for me as a teacher who is just about to start teaching courses that do get assessed like this, then being able to see how different questions get marked was incredibly useful.
I believe it was a very private process until quite recently which seems pretty funny, I don’t know what the reasons for it were but I think it is much better to make it open and accessible. One thing I wonder though is if being open about how different types of questions are marked might lead to teaching more to the exam than actually teaching the subject.
Another point that came up was that most Graphic Communication classes spend, perhaps, about 70% of their time on drawing boards, when only about one third of the marks comes from it, and more importantly after school the chances of the pupils seeing or using a board again are very slim. This is something I’ll come back to in another post. The spin-off from this point is the relevance and worth of the Graphic Communication courses in the first place.
Tags: assessment, exams, Graphic-Communication, marking, sqa
June 5th, 2007 at 7:17 pm on the 5th of June, 2007
But is the 70% on drawing boards necessary? I.e, if the pupils didn’t spend amount of time would they be much more likely to ‘fail’ that part of the exam? Defenitely with things like Inventor, I’ve noticed how much quicker kids are at ‘learning’ software.
Would have liked to come to the meeting, though you’re right, I’m sure there is a lot of teachers out there who would like the time to go to such a meeting.
On the note about Graph comm becoming outdated the way it is taught, a funny image popped into my head: the pupils from Islay, in class with a drawing board, pencils and rubbers…. and their Samsung Q1’s. Hmmm?
June 5th, 2007 at 8:29 pm on the 5th of June, 2007
I have mixed feelings about how much time spent on boards, my main thought is that spending time learning different methods of construction is the platform for understanding and interpreting drawings - things like true length can become more clear when you have to go through the process of drawing them. The other argument is that through 3d modelling, or a real model, pupils (perhaps) grasp how different views tie together.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:53 pm on the 5th of June, 2007
Its not just Graphics that has these issues.
The Product Design Higher specifically stops pupils from creating Orthographic Drawings from a model.
I understand where it came from but I see as a limitation for the very near future
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