On Saturday, I attended the best practice workshop with the NZQA moderator of Classical Studies.
As there are only three internally assessed achievement standards across Levels 2 and 3, we were able to discuss several exemplars and get into the details of the assessment process.
It was interesting to see the tasks that other schools are giving their students and the quality of work those students are producing.
We spent a lot of time on the research standards at both levels and there was a lot of discussion around the need for correct referencing and bibliography. As neither standard actually requires either we can only ask students to do both of those for the purposes of authentication. On teacher then queried why you would bother teaching those skills at all. I think that is really irresponsible. Classics is and will always be one of those "academic" subjects where students CAN learn those skills. Where else will they learn those skills if teachers don't take it upon themselves to teach them. I think it is a very important skill, especially if students are going on to university study. We should not be making it okay for students to, technically, steal other people's ideas and work.
When we looked at the communicate knowledge standard at Level 2, one of the exemplars was not achieved and the moderator admitted that it was her student and that she had given the work back to the student for resubmission. As we are all getting our heads around the rules for resubs, I asked her what she said to the student when she gave it back. She directed the student to go back to the standard and to look at the criteria carefully, and also to look at the task. Basically, the student's first submission did not follow the specific format carefully enough and did not communicate knowledge ON SPECIFIED ASPECTS OF THE TOPIC. A really important point to note when giving back work for resubmission.
I also asked about submitting links to student created websites for moderation. She said that they preferred student work in its original format, so yes to send links. Yay! She said she was going to check out who our moderator is (apparently there are about seven moderators for Classics around the country) so we can check where to send those links. I think sending the links typed on paper for them to type into their search bar would be fine.
One of the best things about going to these workshops is catching up with other Classics teachers and to chat about what topics they teach. As the only teacher of Classics at WHS, it is really great to have those professional conversations within my subject area.
Also, she took us through the NZQA subject specific page for Classics, which I visit often but I haven't checked out the clarifications or newsletter for a while so must remember to do that.
Learnt lots, mostly from the discussions, and came away with heaps of exemplars. Fantastic!
