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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

sorry 2 years - blame the duff mitt!

[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]

My GCSE mathematics teacher spent the vast majority of my Year 10 teaching us A-Level stuff he thought was interesting, and we spent the start of Year 11 covering statistics with a trainee teacher. The second half of Year 11 saw us learn the entire GCSE maths syllabus in about six weeks and then we started doing past papers endlessly until we sat the exam. I believe the entire class received A* grades (I certainly did, that intensive method of teaching suited me just fine).

[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).

[andrewducker]

Ooh, what does "thematic" mean in this context?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

We distinguish between compulsory (must take) and core (must take and pass) modules. Students must refer (resit exams at end of year) if they fail a core module, fail any module with <25%, or have a failing average.

Provided that a student a) gets >25% on an optional or non-core module and b) has a high enough average, they do not need to refer.

Referral exam marks are capped at 40%; they're there to redeem failure, so students can't opt to take referrals voluntarily in the hope of improving a passing mark.

We also give students a resit right (repeating a year).

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Same as at Leicester, except that you cannot retake a year without significant extenuating circumstances and there is no distinction between a course you must take and a course you must pass. (At least for the Physics department.)

[andrewducker]

25% seems awfully low to be a pass, to me. Are the exams just incredibly hard?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

25% isn't a pass, but 25% is the difference between a fail and a worrying fail.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

What John said - a fail is <40%. A fail with flying colours is <25%.

[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.

[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.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

scrap exams
Hurrah! Yes! Scrap exams!

I hated sitting exams when I had to do so, and it turns out that in addition I hate setting them, proof-reading them, and marking them too. I spent about fourteen hours last Wednesday, from about 9am until about 11pm, marking first year linear algebra exam scripts. I had occasional short breaks for a sandwich, glass of water, and the odd glance at FriendFace or Jitter, but apart from that, marking exams was pretty much all I did that day.

[andrewducker]

Part of me wonders what would be the best thing to replace them.

Would coursework followed by a 15 minute viva be enough to tell you what grade a person deserved? I suspect it would be a pretty damn good job (I can generally tell a good coder from a bad one sharpish), but I'd want to do some testing to make sure...

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I don't know what would be the most sensible thing to replace them with. (I'm perhaps not yet in the most objective frame of mind to answer that question - it'll probably take me another week or so to properly recover.)

But I'm sure there are sensible alternatives - the one you suggest sounds like a pretty good one if organised properly.

The ex-student I was grumbling about last week came to see me the other day to discuss his options, and to (unsuccessfully) try to persuade me to write him a glowing and positive reference. He said that he thinks he's failed his latest resit because the style of the questions was very slightly different to last year's exam. I tried to explain that (a) the syllabus hasn't changed for the past decade or so, and (b) the exam isn't there to test how good he is at question-spotting or exam technique, but to gauge how well he understood the subject matter. Regrettably, I think this is a particularly common view, though.

[andrewducker]

Yes - exactly. Exam technique shouldn't be important.

Of course, some people aren't good at Vivas either, I suspect, and we'd end up with viva coaches if everything switched over to them!

[andrewducker]

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

[innerbrat]

That too. I wouldn't say you need classes where all students are at the exact level of understanding, because students help each other understand. But it would be nice if GCSEs were something you eanred when they were completed, not a grade attached to your forehead when you're 16, regardless of anything else.

But, as mentioned above, it's more important for this Government to focus on delineating the deserving from the undeserving. They don't give a damn about educating.