[etni] A modern approach to school assessment (Australia)

Hi People,
 
Something interesting that is happening Down Under I thought you might be 
interested in. (See article below). In some ways not much different from the 
kinds of things that are happening in our English classes.
Hugs,
Judy
Judy Yaron
National YALP Coordinator
Yachad Accelerated Learning Project (YALP)
61 Spring Street
Melbourne 3000

Office Phone: +61 3 9654 9064 
Mobile (Australia): +61 4 296 974 83
Mobile (Israel): +972 528 593 694
Fax: +61 3 9663 8425
Website: www.yalp.org.au
Email: judyyaron@xxxxxxxxx
School takes modern approach to student exams
 
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/transform.pl?telstrawallaceml2html&wap&telstra&imode/2341657
Not long ago it would have been called cheating, but students at a Sydney 
girls' school are now being encouraged to take their phones, laptops and MP3s 
into exams and even phone a friend if they want help with a question.
 
The new style of exam is being trialed at the Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC) 
where teachers say it is a better way to assess the online and verbal 
communication skills that students need to function in the modern world.
 
The students themselves say having access to their phones and the internet did 
not make the assessment tasks any easier and tested their time management 
capabilities to the limit.
 
English teacher and project coordinator Dierdre Coleman says in a very 
time-limited assessment task, students can bring notes into class. "They can 
bring their laptops so they can access the internet or social networking sites 
and they can also bring their phones to phone whoever they have set up to talk 
to," she said.
PLC headmaster William McKeith devised the experiment after the hearing the 
views of international education consultant, Marc Prensky, who advocates the 
use of modern communication devices in exams.
So far, the students have had to complete two assessments, both 40 minutes long.
 
The first required them to write a sonnet. The second was an assessment based 
on a critique of persuasive language and all information had to correctly 
sourced so as to avoid plagiarism. Ms Coleman says the students responded in 
differing ways."Some girls looked up rhyming sites and some, I suppose, phoned 
for suggestions, reflection on what they were doing and some simply wrote it 
pen and paper," she said.
Most the students used the internet and mobile phones, but several opted not to.
 
Juliet Brown is one of the students who chose to take advantage of the 
technology. "For the first one we had to write the sonnet. I looked up, you 
know, rhyming words and I used dictionaries and thesauruses and things like 
that to help me really explain what I was thinking," she said. "I also text 
messaged my dad who used to be an English teacher who really gave me some ideas 
on what kinds of things were associated with sonnets in the tasks that we 
given."
 
Ms Coleman says there is no difference between the results of those who used 
technology and those who chose to use traditional methods.
 
Student Annie Ashie used the internet and her mobile, but she says the use of 
technology in exams presents its own difficulties, especially when it comes to 
time management. "I found it really difficult to prepare because I had so many 
choices in front of me - calling on the internet or using my laptop, or just 
writing on pen and paper," she said.
 
Ms Coleman says purely memory-based assessment is increasingly irrelevant in 
the modern world.
"We are looking at assessment tasks that actually hone their skills in finding 
information, assessing the reliability of the information and then citing it 
correctly, so they are not involved in plagiarism and understand the difference 
between that, and how they have to manipulate that information in an assessment 
task using higher order thinking skills to answer the questions," she said.
 
Sydney University education professor Peter Reimann says educational 
assessments have to start taking modern technology into account. "Computers and 
the internet and other digital resources are now routinely used in schools and 
classrooms," he said. "Students are encouraged from primary school onwards to 
make very active use of those resources and tools, yet when it comes to 
teaching, when it comes to assessments and grading... [we are] removing those 
resources from them and going back to a 19th century mode of testing which is 
with a paper and pencil and all resources gone.
 
"I think in principal it's high time that we started seriously thinking about 
of the assessment and what it means using technical and knowledge resources 
that come for instance with the internet."
PLC says if the trial is successful it will be extended to other subjects.

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