Consistency of moderation

1. Consistency of moderation Technology subjects (7-12)

2. What is consistency? • Consistency of teacher professional judgement refers to the degree to which judgements about a student’s performance are independent of which teacher is assessing the student.

3. What is moderation? • Moderation is a process where teachers compare each others judgements to either confirm or adjust them. • The process involves close collaboration to establish a shared understanding of what achievement of syllabus standards looks like and whether or not the student has demonstrated achievement of the syllabus standard. • Teachers can use moderation processes to assist them to make judgements that are consistent and comparable.

4. What are the benefits of moderation? Teachers moderate to: • develop shared or common interpretations and expectations of what constitutes achievement of syllabus standards • develop shared understandings of how well students have achieved the syllabus standards • develop accuracy and reliability in making judgements • ensure judgements fairly reflect student performance • enable greater confidence in the reporting of assessment judgements.

5. Moderation techniques: Getting the task and the criteria right Collaboratively plan with other teachers of the course. • Make sure the assessment task focuses on significant understandings and skills in the syllabus, not fragmented, low-order learning. (What do I want the students to learn and why does this learning matter?) • Ensure the task is sufficiently open-ended to allow students to demonstrate performance from outstanding to basic levels. (What do I want the students to do?) • Set assessment criteria that focus on significant learning for students and allows recognition of a range of performances. (How well do I expect them to do it?) • Review the suitability of the assessment criteria by anticipating what responses students might provide. (What will high quality student work look like?) • Make sure students and teachers have a shared and consistent understanding of the requirements of the task and what types of responses will be valued.

6. Moderation techniques: Getting the judgement right • Review the task and the assessment criteria, discuss the features of student work you think each criteria is referring to. • Dedicate sufficient time to the group of teachers delivering the course to undertake a moderation of judgement process. • Ask each teacher to do a preliminary marking of their own students’ work but use moderation processes to review consistency. Ask each teacher to provide a sample of high, sound and basic work. • Each teacher might like to talk about the features of the work they have provided and explain what grade they would allocate and why, followed by discussion and review. OR • The group might choose to each mark each others sample work and then discuss similarities and differences of opinion, and review. • Review and revise grades, if necessary, prior to returning work to students. • A different approach can be double-marking. Many technology teachers have had significant experience with moderation processes through HSC marking and in particular the marking of practical projects such as Design and Technology. Model these practices. • Collaboratively agree on the marking scheme for the whole task and then each teacher marks a part of the task.

7. Moderation issues in technology subjects • Technology teachers are often the only teacher of the subject in the school…how to moderate? • Form a group of teachers in the local area who are prepared to collaboratively develop and moderate the assessment of a task for students. • Undertake the above process online and share student work online, thereby reducing the need for a group of local colleagues. • Ask another technology teacher at the school to act as a critical friend to your judgements.

8. Contacts Lyndall Foster Lyndall.foster@det.nsw.edu.au (02) 9886 7623 Bill Blake bill.blake@det.nsw.edu.au (02) 9886 7542