First time setting an exam; seeking advice...

Lord TSC

Doing my PGDE this year, and I've got a CSPE second year class to myself. I've been told I'm to set their Xmas exam myself, since all the second year classes have done different things, based on their action projects.

The class are mixed ability and thats something of a concern for me. There's some really bright kids who will walk to A level grades in their JC. Likewise though, there's some really bad ones, including one who needs a SNA, who I know won't be able to cope with any sort of written exam I give them.

With other classes, like English, the groups are streamed so I know what level to aim it at, be it Honors or Ordinary. But because CSPE is Common level and the group is mixed, I don't really know what level to hope for. Do I make the test challanging, knowing full well some students will fail it? Do I try and make sure they can pass it ok, but then leave my better students feeling unchallanged?

My gut tells me I should just aim for the former, and I am considering taking a question from the previous JC papers on what we've done so far. Anyone got any advice on this matter for a newbie though?

spurious

Getting an old question from an exam paper is best. Setting your own questions often leads to an exam being way too hard or too easy. Adjust your marking scheme if it turns out they are all getting too high marks.

As in the 'real' exam, give a large percentage of their marks for their action projects (is it 50%?? I'm not sure, it's been so long since I was dealing with CSPE). This is where the non-literate child has as good a chance as any.

Were there bright children who messed during the activity/project/trip? Mark them down substantially for that. By substantially, I mean enough to rattle their cages, not just a few percent. Were there kids who tried their absolute best even though what they produced was pretty poor? Mark them up. There really shouldn't be anyone failing CSPE unless they have left out parts of the exam.

Bright kids (and boards.ie is full of them) see CSPE as a silly exam that 'everyone gets an A in'. Of course not everyone gets an A but literate kids have no excuse to not get an A or B. The CSPE exam requires a relatively high level of literacy. Make sure any of the weaker kids get a good boost by having questions they can answer. Make sure the language in your paper is understandable.

It's quite easy to weight your marking scheme so that only those who really deserve to fail do - there are not many kids who really deserve to fail.

RealJohn

Can't say I know an awful lot about CSPE but what I aim for when setting my exams is that I structure the paper in such a way that there are enough relatively easy questions to make passing a realistic goal for the weaker students and enough harder questions that the stronger students will still have to be on the ball if they're going to get an A.

Past exam questions are also useful but obviously, they're already set with a set marking scheme so they're slightly more inflexible.

Coolio

I'm not so sure about marking guys down as a way of disciplining students or giving others unrealistic expectations by marking them up.

Ultimately they will all be marked using the same marking scheme so that is how you should treat the exams you give them.

Treat them all the same. What you need to aim for is a paper where everyone in your class can pass it but that it is difficult to get an A as it is now in the State exams. To achieve this, use past exam papers but allow more marks than normal for the easier questions. Also the poster sections of the papers allows for the weaker student to score well because most of it doesn't require prior knowledge.

spurious

In Junior Cert, in most subjects well over half the children sitting the exam get an A, B or C grade in the Higher level paper. Doing well is the norm.

I make no apologies for allowing children who have not experienced success in an exam situation achieve it in a classroom test, even if it means manipulating my marking scheme. For 25 years I have taught children with reading ages of 6-9 to the Junior Cert.. They pass my subjects because they go in believing they can. They are sometimes the only papers they pass. Experiencing success in teacher-set tests goes a long way to believing you can and sticking at the actual exam in June. If you don't believe you can, you give up at the first hurdle and leave after half an hour. Any corrector will tell you at Junior Cert., the kids do not fail because they do not know the stuff, they fail because they leave out questions.

Self esteem is the most important thing we can give the kids we teach.

Coolio

spurious wrote: »

Any corrector will tell you at Junior Cert., the kids do not fail because they do not know the stuff, they fail because they leave out questions.

Self esteem is the most important thing we can give the kids we teach.

I'm not sure you can say "any corrector". I've seen plenty of papers and can safely say alot of kids fail because they didn't bother opening their books from one week to the next, threw their copies away when they were finished and because alot of us are adopting the American style of parenting/teaching: Everyone is great and everyone is the best!!

What this leads to, as I've said already, is over-confident, unrealistic students who have no sense of where their true ability lies and are given unrealistic expectations by their parents and teachers.

I'm not for one minute suggesting we attack their self-esteem but neither is the opposite approach appropriate. Students who expect to achieve without working will leave our education system expecting things to be just as easy in the "real world" and we do them no favours. We need students who are able to take responsibility for their own learning through self-discovery. What we have currently are students who rely 100% on their teacher to lead them through and not be facilitators and we are all to blame for that.

spurious

I don't know of a subject at Junior Cert. where the main reason for failing is not candidates leaving out questions or parts of questions.

The over-reliance on text books and notes is killing independent learning in schools. Even a subject like CSPE has a text book now. It was never intended to. You just have to look at the LC board here - people asking how many pages of a history essay to 'get an A', never mind answering the question.

Powerhouse

spurious wrote: »

Any corrector will tell you at Junior Cert., the kids do not fail because they do not know the stuff, they fail because they leave out questions.

This is a bit trite. Presumably the reason kids leave out questions is that they don't know the stuff.