Education

[andrewducker]

I disagree with this.

Basically, at the moment you can take some GCSEs in modules. You study a part of it, take the exams for it, move onto the next part when you understand it well enough to pass the test. They're being scrapped and the emphasis returned on studying for two years and then taking exams at the end.

Which to me sounds the wrong way around. If you haven't grasped part 1 of a subject, then the best way to gain understanding is to keep plugging away at it until you do understand it, and then move on to the next part, which will almost certainly be more advanced _and_ built on the first part.

I've seen people do badly at maths because they were just taking 10% longer to grasp something, but before they could get it entirely straight in their heads they were whisked onto the next part, meaning that they never managed to properly understand any of it. The idea that this is a superior method of learning seems entirely counterintuitive to me.

Comments

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I agree with it, wholeheartedly. In effect, when GCSEs went modular, the syllabus shrank to accommodate this, just as it shrank at A level to accommodate the two tier exam system that cam in with Curriculum 2000.

It might seem counterintuitive, especially if your school experience was good and you did your GCSEs a long time ago, but in fact that modular system hampers the majority of pupils. The top ones get a good grade in the module straight away; the middle ground get middling or low marks, but can fudge it because they know they get another shot or are pushed to resit to improve the grade; the ones at the bottom just keep plugging away resitting part 1 at every opportunity. So in the classroom, the teacher always has to make time and create startegies for the constant round of resits, demotivating the top and a lot of middle ones quite often making bugger all progress with the bottom ones.

In effectively modular A levels, pupils can be examined from the January after they start. Their writing, reasoning and anaalytical skills should improve massively over a two year course, but if they are examined four times along the way they never get to apply the improvement to the whole course, to join up the dots between linked aspects of the same subject. Everything is in discrete, revisable nuggets. A significant proportion of ENglish, humanities and science exams are now little more than reading comprehension tests to facilitate this system.

[andrewducker]

I had a miserable time with my GCSEs, largely because I got behind on some stuff, and there was no way for me to catch up, because I was now having to concentrate on stuff that I didn't have a hope of understanding, because I hadn't grasped the basics.

Edit: I can definitely see a problem with increased overhead. I suspect modular learning works better when self-directed, with teachers offering support, rather than when teachers are actually, well, teaching.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

But re-examination wouldn't slow up the course to allow you to catch up. In fact, it actively prevents decent teachers from addressing the needs of pupils who do need to catch up, because they have to be completely focused on the next exam for the whole class.

You'd probably just bimble on with Part 2 regardless then be given a couple of extra sessions on Part 1 before the resit. That wouldn't matter, though, because you could resit Part 2, couldn't you?

Also, given your age, you are basing your opinion on a GCSE scheme that was linear, not thematic as it is now.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> So in the classroom, the teacher always has to make time and create startegies for the constant round of resits, demotivating the top and a lot of middle ones quite often making bugger all progress with the bottom ones.

That sounds like a recipe for total crap.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I'm unconvinced that modularisation is an entirely good idea, but not because it allows the pupils to resit a bit of the subject as many times as they need to - indeed, I don't really have a major problem with that, and can certainly see the advantages of giving a second chance to someone who just needs a little bit more time to get their head round a subject.

As usual, I think Michael ("SF fans are unattractive") Gove has missed the point completely. It's almost as if he's not interested in supporting and improving education, but merely saying the sort of things the bedrock Tory voters want to hear. ("Make them do proper subjects in a traditional way", "bring back the cane", "demoralise the teaching profession", etc.)

The main worry I have about modularisation (which may be completely unfounded) is that it could potentially cause an otherwise coherent subject to be regarded as a collection of disjoint topics, by breaking the links between those topics. If there are actually some important two-way connections between topic A and topic B, then by treating topic A and topic B as different modules (which some of the pupils might not have taken), you risk losing (or at least not having time to adequately discuss) the links between those topics, to the detriment of the pupils' understanding. (It's entirely possible that this doesn't happen and that the modularity has been set up to avoid this kind of disconnection - I'd be happy to be reassured and corrected by someone who knows more of the details than I do.)

My other concern, which I think does happen to at least some extent, because I see it a little bit in some of the first-year undergraduate students I teach, is that modular GCSEs and A-levels can foster a culture of "learn this topic, pass the exam, forget it and move on to the next bit". I think there's a lot to be said for requiring the pupils to keep an entire two years' worth of understanding in their head at the same time.

But I'm sure there are ways of avoiding these two potential pitfalls while still keeping the benefits (flexibility, resits, etc) of a modular system.

[andrewducker]

They should only be able to forget the early stuff if the later stuff doesn't build on it.

But I could understand wanting to put an exam at the end to make sure they hadn't forgotten the earlier work.

Absolutely you wouldn't want to make the course incoherent by breaking things up that were larger. I wonder how hard that would be.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

They should only be able to forget the early stuff if the later stuff doesn't build on it.

I remember none of the first three cosmological courses I took, yet I got a first on the fourth which builds on them. The reason I did this is because examinations test memorisation and not ability to do the subject. If you want to actually teach, scrap exams first, then worry about how coherent the syllabus is.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I see it a little bit in some of the first-year undergraduate students I teach, is that modular GCSEs and A-levels can foster a culture of "learn this topic, pass the exam, forget it and move on to the next bit".

Only the first years?

We have end of semester exams here, so the students can adopt a perfectly rational strategy of cramming for exams every fifteen weeks, content in the knowledge that they'll not need to remember fine details beyond that. We've had enough problems with students scraping through the first year and then flunking their second year that we've instituted a policy of core (must pass with >40% to progress) modules in the first year (previously a high average would permit the odd failure <40% but >25% to be overlooked).

I make the point of telling my tutees that I only had end of year exams, and that not only did only ias's final year exams count towards her degree classification, but she also had a genera; paper which examined everything she'd done in the previous three years.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

If you fail a single module or core exam at Leicester in first/second year, you're off the course, regardless of how high your average might be. However, because option exams make up less than a module, you can get away with failing them (as you can get a pass in the option module without passing all the option exams, IYSWIM).

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

or you get people like me who would probably slack most of the 3 years and do a mad dash at the end to get the exam. As is many people's uni strategy

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

sorry 2 years - blame the duff mitt!

[fjm.livejournal.com]

This isn't a decision about teaching, and to understand it that way is to miss the point. This is about what assessment is for. Currently assessment is to try to encourage kids to reach a particular standard, and for that, whatever I think of the pros and cons of modularisation in other terms, it's a good move.

But Gove and his ilk want to move back to examinations as a means of selection, and modular exams have a tendency to flatten results.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I recommend The Player of Games by Iain M Banks as a criticism of any and all systems of assessment.

[innerbrat]

I agree with anything that reduces the number of exams a student has to sit, and replaces exam training time with time spent learning and understanding the subject. If I could replace all GCSE exams with teacher assessment and project/portfolio work, I would. Sitting exams is not a life skill.

Bad teaching that leaves struggling students behind is not a result of examination method; I'm sure there are plenty of students who fall at the first modular hurdle and never catch up because the teacher's too busy focusing on the next mmodular exam.

[andrewducker]

Which is why I don't like teaching based on age, it forces people forward when they aren't ready.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hm. I agree with you that one of the most major problems in teaching is that it's easy to get behind, and then impossible to catch up because the teaching is inevitably pitched at an average. And I agree that the proposal doesn't seem especially well thought out.

However, I don't know whether or not modularised learning is likely to help people grasp topics. The stereotype I have is that modularised learning is more likely to lend itself to memorising specific techniques, since there's fewer of them at once, but that stereotype almost entirely comes from highly technical people in fields they excelled at, who are far far from representative.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> You study a part of it, take the exams for it, move onto the next part when you understand it well enough to pass the test.

Is the system really that flexible? Doesn't the whole class just get moved on to the next module?

I was always against modules on the grounds that it meant working all year through, whereas someone like myself could otherwise just slack the whole year and then gen up at the last minute.

[andrewducker]

See, that just makes it obvious that it's a vastly inefficient system - if what we want is a system that educates people to the level of which they are capable.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Interesting discussion. I don't know what my view is (still), but at least I'm more informed now.

[andrewducker]

I think my problem is that I want to change the system so far from how it currently works that I'd need to write a much longer post just to describe it (and then I'd need to put a lot of effort in to come up with something that was fairly cohesive and not full of holes.)

[fearmeforiampink]

I'm reminded of my friend who studies law at Oxford, and the entirety of his degree classification was based upon 9 exams in 5 days at the end of the third year.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

If GCSEs were about producing people who understand things ... the world would be a better place. Sadly, I think the people currently in charge think they are for choosing an elite. The further they got away from that the more they got rubbished for "dumbing down" and such like. Elite private schools are opting out of the system and starting to use alternative exam systems which are less based on continuous assessment and return to the blitz at the end ... sorts the (one-to-one tutored) men from the (35 in my class) boys.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I like modular system.

I think they would probably work better if progression was based on proven ability rather than age.

I think for them to work well within each course they need to build up from foundation knowledge and techniques to advanced. I offer the CIMA syllabus as an example. I’m not convinced that themes necessarily work beyond giving some useful colour to the learning experience.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, of which I am an associate has a modular system for its professional qualification. It was vertically and horizontally divided.

When I was studying the syllabus was divided into about 17 modules at 4 levels of difficulty with a Case Study as a final, final paper (technically three levels but everyone knew that the fat middle section was really two sections). Modules in higher stages were dependent on modules in lower stages. For example you couldn’t sit Decision Making or Performance Management until you’d passed Management Accounting Foundation. You moved up the syllabus

The syllabus was divided into strands horizontally. There was a strand on management accounting, financial accounting and organisational management (things like project management or finance systems).

You had to have sat and passed all foundation and intermediate modules before you could sit any Finals. You had to have sat all Finals before you sat the case study.

All modules were examined with no course work.

Broadly the vertical syllabus moved from theory to specific application to more general application to problem solving. So a foundation question would ask you what are the main reasons for a variance from budget and a later final level paper might ask you “What’s wrong with this budgeting process? How would you fix it?”

The Case Study involved reading a bunch of material about a fictitious company with some business challenges and doing lots of research. On the day you were given some more information that changed the nature of the challenges. The question was inevitably “Advise the Board of Directors.”

My criticism of the CIMA Case Study is that the volume of writing required to pass was only slightly less than could be done in the whole time allowed so you were thinking and writing at the same for a very unstructured problem. I think a better test would have been to have added an extra couple of hours of pure thinking time and separate the two elements of Can you solve this problem? And Can you explain your solution?”


As a system of education I think it worked very well.

I was required to carry knowledge forward with me and learn how to apply it to increasingly difficult problems. I had to bring in knowledge from other syllabus areas, for example, in a question about the best way to set up Treasury function I might get a half mark for pointing out some of the organisational design and HR issues of radically changing from the existing set up or commenting on the ability of the IT systems to support the Treasury function.


The final Case Study tried to simulate the real life challenge of a senior finance manager. Here’s some information. Not all of it is true, relevant or important. What should we do?!


I am finding it scarily accurate.

[andrewducker]

Horribly busy, but I just wanted to say thank you for the comments you've left here. Very informative!