Class differentiation in Level 2 Chemistry

For Term 3 I have split each Chemistry class into two groups. One group of the academically focussed students, and another of the students who are happy to just get their 14 credits. The academic kids are going to work on both remaining externals, and the others on one external.

Parents have been contacted to ensure that it is clear what their child is doing, and have been asked to respond to me to acknowledge that they are in agreement with the choice that they are making.



<Date>


<Parents>
<Postal Address>


Dear <Salutation>

Re : <First Name> <Last Name> <Class>

From this term in Chemistry, and for the remainder of the year the classes within the course has been split into two working groups. One group comprises the students who are planning to take Level 3 Chemistry in 2018, and may be planning a career or further study in which they may use Chemistry ("The L3/Career" group). The second group are students who have decided that Chemistry does not feature in their future plans, and are aiming to get enough credits at Level 2 to pass the course, but do not plan to take their study of Chemistry any further (dubbed the "I just want my credits" group). So far the students are self-selecting the group they want to be in.

The L3/Career group will be working at a quick pace through two Externally assessed Achievement Standards, 2.6 Chemical Reactivity, and 2.5 Organic Chemistry. It is necessary that this group is diligent about keeping up with the work, and this will require regular homework.

 The "I just want my credits" group will be spending their time learning Organic Chemistry and revising the 2.4 Atomic Structure and Bonding standard we covered last term.

All learning for externals should be completed in time for the school exams in Week 9 of Term 3. After the school exams we will tackle the final internally assessed standard 2.7 Oxidation and Reduction.

<First> has yet to choose a group. Please discuss with <First Name> which group <he> will select to be in to ensure that you and <he> are comfortable with his choice.  I also ask that you confirm that you are aware of <his> choice in a response to this email.

Yours faithfully,


<Teacher>
<TeacherEmail>

Ongoing Inquiry into the Geology assessment for Year 10's

The last couple of days I have been watching and marking presentations from my year 10 class on a Natural Disaster. 

The quality of presentation is much higher than last year. This is a combination effect from having a more literate and engaged class than I had last year, but also having provided greater scaffolding for the students. From the scaffolding they have a better understanding of what is expected of them, and the detail to which they need to go.

Some students are, as expected, only doing enough for the minimum. Others have really been focussed on the higher levels, and been motivated by the clear outlines. The hardest part for many has been presenting to the class, however as scary as it may be, presenting is a valuable skill for them to practise.

In addition I think I will give them a modified re-submission opportunity, modelled on how they will be assessed at Year 11 in NCEA Level 1. Modified, in that I will be showing each student what on the rubric that they missed, and perhaps helping them to research their way to a better grade. In this way they will hopefully develop a better understanding of how they may use rubric's to check their assessments for sufficiency.
The aim would be to have them better craft their assessments to meet the criteria at every level .

Creating Assessment- Year 9 Astronomy

This morning I was putting together the assessment for the Year 9 Astronomy unit. The unit needed to be redone in order to ensure that we were effectively assessing at curriculum levels.

The new test has been compiled from the Assessment Resource Bank's resources of properly aligned assessment tasks. I started with a standard from Level 3,  many from Level 4, some from Level 5, then I adapted a NCEA Level 1 task for the Level 6 component. This will really make it straightforward to assess the level of thinking that our students are doing.

The Test

The Marking Rubric

Year 10 Geology Assessment

I have been reevaluating the assessment for the Year 10 Geology Unit. Although the assessment task itself is a good one, it needed more scaffolding to help the students to understand what is required.

I have spent some time putting together scaffolding resources to support students in this process.

I decided to give the students an exemplar of what was required to get to excellence standard, and along the way I also made a resource showing how I thought through the requirements, and another on how I recorded my information prior to putting my final document together.

When introducing the assessment task I showed the students all of these things, and talked through them with the students, before giving them access to them on Google Classroom.

The exemplar was also highlighted to identify which parts satisfied Level 4, and which Level 5. The student were informed that the expectation is that at Year 10, they need to be working at Level 5 or "Merit", but many students are aiming for the Level 6 assessment grade.

This is a continuation of the revised assessment task I created in 2016 in response to the absence of a reliable assessment task.

Revising assessment tasks

I was responsible for the research task component of the new Year 9 curriculum in the first term. Now that I am marking the task I am adapting it. As it was the first time that we have used it we have discovered some changes that need to be made to be streamlined.

The students have not been very good at picking out the important parts to achieve at a higher level. On reflection I plan to make it clearer in the instructions what they need to do and when it needs to be done.

The post-assessment evaluation and reflection tool does not lend itself to Google Forms in the current format. In the future I will make two documents. One that is all instructions, including a time break-down, and one that they will use as a log and complete. In addition I would put a mostly blank document onto the Google Classroom assignment in order that all the files are in the same place.

The new Junior Curriculum - Research

The new junior curriculum is taking shape. The science department have worked on an outline for the year and for the units. We have decided how to structure the changes, and now we are working on a small section of the first unit each.
I am using my experience from teaching Social Studies for a year, specifically research skills, to plan the research component of the unit.

The research component will have basic research skills, and will include a research project. The initial project will be into a scientist. I have compiled a list of scientists they could research, and I have included a wide range of fields and cultures, with a focus on women and Maori. In addition I looked for ethnic minority scientists from Australia, Canada, and the US as these are cultures that some of our Maori students identify as being in a similary position to Maori, as exemplified by the support in the community for the Standing Rock native americans protesting the North Dakota pipeline.The intention is to make the students aware that science is for everyone not just old white men.

To encourage the students to be more introspective and thoughtful about the learning process, the will receive two grades for their piece of research. They will have one for the content of the research, and another for the process of research. What did they look for, what was successful. In addition they will be expected to do a reflection/evaluation of how they performed. I have set this up as a google form in order to make it manageable for staff to implement, but also to differentiate the questions the students are answering

Part of what we are trying to do is develop students into critical thinkers. The students are expected to compile a reference list, but for the higher level thinker I'm implementing a system to encourage them to think about the perspective of the source as an introduction to bias and to be wary of who they are listening to.

Peer Assessment

I tried  a new style of assessment and marking with my Year 9 class.

For the end of astronomy unit they had to research astronomical cycles and their effects on the earth. There was a limited scope for personal choice, as there was a number of cycles they could choose from. The real difference was for them to do the marking of each others assignments.

For this I gave the students copies of the marking rubric and explained how to use it. The students worked in groups to mark each other and to feedback and feedforward to each other. The purpose of this exercise was to get the students to link the intructions of an assessment with the marking of it, to start showing them how the two are together so that in the future they can better tailor their efforts to where it will make the most difference.

Students took to the exercise and were very positive in their feedback to each other. The marking was accurate.

Some students didn't submit their work, but the exercise will have shown them the work that goes into marking regardless and hopefully will encourage them to respect deadlines.

Ecology in a New Zealand context

I have been teaching the Ecology unit for Year 9's and the test is approaching. The test is focussed around introduced species and food webs, but the introduced species and food webs in question are based in British ecology.

For next year we should update it to include New Zealand examples. Possums as an introduced species would be relatively straight-forward to substitute I think and be able to keep the questions very similar to keep the task QUALMd

Possum's would also be animals that many of the students have experience with, especially those who are from farming and/or hunting backgrounds.

Priority Learners

The list for Priority learners has gone round again. It seems to be a blunt tool. Of the 8 or 9 students I teach on the list most of them are on there because they are doing so many externals that they haven't built up a lot of credits internally and so their counts are low.

Of the others I'm going to work two on one with the two who have not accrued any credits yet. It is difficult as they both have high absence rates compared to the rest of the class. I can work with that. What is really hard is neither of them will ask questions nor admit to not understanding when I ask them individually. If they cannot tell me what or where they are having trouble I struggle to effectively rectify their lack of understanding. Both students arrived into the class after the year started, so perhaps they have not integrated into the class culture as well as I would have hoped.

Year 9 Astronomy Assessment

The Astronomy unit has frequently not been completed for a number of years so there is no standard assessment for them.

I have decided to run an NCEA style assessment with my year 9's to introduce them to the style of research assignment they will have to contend with in the senior school, and I will use a comparitive mark schedule as well.
The students may choose the aspects of astronomy that appeal, and present in ways that suit them, within reason for both options.

Rethinking the programme

The formative for the Redox assessment has come back showing the students are not ready for the summative. I think I will need to reteach aspects, and give a lot more practice before many of the students are ready.
Coupled with the need for a number of them to repeat the other internals I am doubting if I will be able to get through the high number of credits that were initially planned. I have already removed a number of students from the final external assessment but now I am wondering if there will be enough time for the students who have been planning to do that assessment to complete it.

Different assessment

Since there is no department wide assessment used for the Earth Science I have decided to to use as assessment a research project. They can research a natural disaster of their choosing, then present information about it in their own way be that a song or rap, an animation, a poster or a presentation.
Assessment