VCE Essentials – diving into the deep end

1. VCE Essentials – diving into the deep end Creating Assessment Tasks for IT Applications Unit 3 and Information Technology Unit 1 Roslyn Meadows Bentleigh Secondary College Roland Gesthuizen Westall Secondary College

2. Why assess? Assessment is a powerful tool. • Assessment of learning • Assessment for learning

3. Principles of Assessment- for the students Assessment should help students learn • What do I already know? • What do I understand? • What else do I need to know? • What else do I need to understand? • How will this help me to progress? • What do I needto know and understand to progress?

4. Principles of Assessment – for the teacher Assessment can help teachers to know: • What aspects of this unit/outcome did I deliver well? • What did students grasp quickly? (less time) • What did students find difficult? (more time) • Were the resources I used clear and easy for students to follow? • What questions did students have? • How can I extend their learning next time? • Can my assessment task be improved?

5. Another principle… • Students need to understand clearly what is expected of them in assessment tasks • what do I have to do? • what do I have to do to be successful? • Give them a practice SAC at the beginning of the unit and have them work on it for homework as their knowledge and skills develop • Before the SAC try to go through some better, some not so better in class, or put them on the intranet for all to view and consider, or use teams to look at each others’ work and share knowledge and skills

6. When we assess, what are we measuring? • Is a question worth asking? • Will it help discriminate performance? • Will it help provide the evidence to demonstrate the outcome?

7. Assessment can: • help teachers (& students) monitor individual learning progress • help teachers obtain evidence about the effectiveness of their own teaching • provide information on student learning

8. Techniques for designing tasks

9. Assessment must be consistent with the study design • Key knowledge = what students need to know • Key skills = what students need to be able to how to do • Knowledge, Skills, Conditions- what is taught and learnt

10. SAC’s and their respective weightings are IMPORTANT • Unit 3 School-assessed Coursework = 25% • Outcome 1=50 marks/100 for Unit 3 • Task 1=40 marks, Task 2=10 marks • Outcome 2=50 marks/100 for Unit 3 • Task 1=30 marks, Task 2=20 marks • Unit 4 School-assessed Coursework = 25% • Outcome 1=60 marks/100 marks for Unit 4 • Task 1=35 marks, Task 2=15 marks, Task 3=10 marks • Outcome 2=40 marks/100 marks for Unit 4 • Task 1=40 marks • End-of-year examination = 50%

11. From the Assessment Handbook • To achieve an outcome the student must: • produce work that meets the required standard • submit work on time • submit work that is clearly his/her own • observe the VCAA and school rules. • If a teacher judges that all outcomes are achieved, the student satisfactorily completes the unit. • Read this booklet – is your school doing the right thing?

12. ‘Know’ and ‘do’ IT Apps Unit 3 Outcome 2 Design, create and evaluate a prototype website that meets an organisation’s needs of sharing knowledge and collaborative problem-solving within a virtual team environment, and explain the requirements of the networked information system that supports the use of this website. To achieve this outcome the student will draw on knowledge and related skills outlined in area of study 2. Key knowledge This knowledge includes • organisational goals and objectives and how these can be achieved through networked information systems; • an overview of types and characteristics of networks, and functions of network operating systems; • types of information systems and settings in which they are used; • suitability of types of transmission media to support local and remote communication, including cabling and wireless links; • characteristics of collaborative problem-solving practices and knowledge sharing practices within virtual teams; • design elements that influence the presentation of on-screen information products; • characteristics of high-quality user interfaces and effective information architecture of websites; • design tools for representing websites including storyboards, annotated diagrams/mock-ups, layout diagrams, site maps; • techniques and procedures for manipulating information in order to create working prototype websites; • techniques and procedures for managing and transmitting fi les used in a virtual team environment including encryption, access hierarchy, regular backups, virus-detection software, classifying and naming fi les into appropriate directories/folders, version control; • criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of websites. Key skills These skills include the ability to • identify the needs of the virtual team; • select and apply appropriate tools and techniques to represent the user interfaces and information architecture of websites; • select and apply appropriate design features for websites; • use web authoring software and select and apply suitable functions, formats and conventions to produce prototypes of websites; • apply techniques and procedures for effectively managing the production and handling and protection of data and information; • apply criteria to evaluate the extent to which the prototypes meet the needs of the organisation; • describe and justify the hardware and software network requirements of the organisation to support the virtual teams; • describe the hardware and software that is required by individual members of the virtual team to participate in knowledge sharing and collaborative problem-solving in the virtual environment. ‘I Know’ details ‘I can Do’ details

13. Coursework Assessment What is taught? What is assessed? • Not all of what we teach will be tested, kids will learn lots of stuff that will never be tested What is assessed in SACs? Key knowledge AND Key Skills!!!! But the EMPHASIS is on SKILLS (eg creating the website)

14. What is taught? Design tools for representing websites including storyboards, annotated diagrams/mock-ups, layout diagrams, site maps What is assessed? Site maps, Page layout diagrams

15. If we don’t assess all that we teach why do students need to learn it all? • Not all of what we teach will be assessed, but much of what we teach is needed to give students an understanding of the ***BIG PICTURE***

16. Designing the Assessment Task • Task 1 –Description - A prototype website. • Designing the assessment task • Teachers should develop an assessment task that allows the student to: • analyse current organisation practices, design a complete website and develop the website component (prototype) that supports collaborative problem-solving and knowledge sharing • apply appropriate software capabilities of web authoring software, … to create a prototype website • have the opportunity to demonstrate the highest level of performance (ie it must CHALLENGE your best students, but not be totally beyond the capabilities of your weakest students – this is not always easy!!!)

17. Designing the Assessment Task • Task 2 - Description • A test OR written report that focuses on the evaluation of the prototype and the recommended network requirements for the organisation and one team member: • Designing the assessment task • Teachers should develop an assessment task that allows the student to: • apply developed criteria to evaluate the extent to which the prototype meets the organisation’s needs • describe and justify the network requirements for the organisation and the equipment requirements for a virtual team member • have the opportunity to demonstrate the highest level of performance.

18. Assessing students’ work • Resources and scheduling • Schools may determine the conditions for the task including access to resources and notes. Students should be advised of the timeline and conditions under which the task is to be conducted. • Performance descriptors • The following descriptors provide a guide to the standards expected when setting and marking assessment tasks. They describe the knowledge and skills typically demonstrated by students who have achieved scores within each range on the assessment task/s. (see Assessment Handbook)

19. VCAA 2007 School-Assessed Coursework Report http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/infotech/it-applications/assessreports/2007/itapp34sacreport.pdf Download it Read it Learn from it

20. What did the audit show • Many schools used commercially prepared Assessment tasks with varying degrees of success • Some made no attempt to check whether the commercially prepared task met the requirements of the outcome according to the study design • Some schools made no attempt to adapt the task to their own students’ experiences/life

21. What did the audit show …(2) • Schools that designed their own tasks generally created assessment tasks of a very high quality (Why?) • Schools that designed there own tasks generally created tasks that related to students’ lives/experiences in some way (Why?) • Sometimes the task given to students gave too much assistance eg table names, file management procedures, evaluation criteria etc • Some schools did not give correct weights for different tasks within the outcome

22. Lessons from audit • Assessment Tasks need to: • Conform to study design task types • Outcome must be able to be demonstrated • Excessive assistance should not be given • Scenario needs to engage students • Correct weighting of individual tasks (ratios) • Key skills typically describe what must be incorporated into the task

23. Where can I get suitable SACs? • VITTA CD and website www.vitta.org.au • Commercially available eg QATs • www.edulists.com.au mailing lists • Create your own • Whatever you use MUST be checked by YOU against the study design for conformity • Try to choose or design a task which is RELEVANT to your students (city/country? Students’ experiences? what have you emphasised? what software did you use?) • Use the edulists or specific users of these lists to request constructive criticism and evaluation of the tasks you propose to use. • Use other peoples’ tasks as practice SACs • Units 1 & 2 – you are more free to move outside the square – but be aware that you should still conform to the Study Design

24. How do I create a SAC? • Most SACs consist of a scenario and tasks • Very often there are excellent SACs available in terms of the tasks, questions, allocated marks etc You don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel • Usually the scenario is what needs to be replaced • Be on the lookout for a scenario which is relevant to your students, what you taught (emphasised – we all have our own strengths and weaknesses), software you used etc • Remember to CHECK the task against the Assessment Handbook guidelines

25. Go to the VCAA website http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/infotech/infotechindex.html for Study Design, Assessment Information and other resources Curriculum Corporation DVDs http://cms.curriculum.edu.au/assessment/default.asp

26. YOUR task for today is to... • Break into teams of 3 – 5 people • Brainstorm –What makes a good assessment task? • Examine a number of tasks (available on www.vitta2008.wikispaces.com ) and critically evaluate them – what is good? (keep?) and what is not so good? (delete?) • Check marking scheme conforms • Brainstorm ideas for scenarios • Create your task • Before you go – email your completed task to meadows.roslyn.m@edumail.vic.gov.au