The start of the Spring Term is always a busy one for me. As a Computing and ICT teacher, my subjects have a great deal of controlled assessment and coursework. Long assignments certainly have a part to play in assessing these subjects. There is no other way of assessing the learners ability to analyse and break a large problem down into smaller parts that themselves can be solved. This is the time when the learners need to get their tasks finished with as many marks as possible. Once the learners have done their bit, I need to get a sample of their portfolios prepared to send to the exam boards.
Recently I was talking to a friend who is high up in the international construction business - I think he spends as much time flying as he does with his feet on the ground. He was saying that if he saw a workload bottle neck coming he would rearrange tasks and organise it out of the way. He saw immediately that in my job that organising the bottle neck away was not an option. Preparing these controlled assessment and coursework portfolios is certainly one of these workload bottle necks that cannot be organised away.
Over the last few weeks, at a conservative estimate, I have spend 50 hours getting these portfolios together. The work needs to be marked, and the marking annotated to explain it to the moderator so that I can justify the marks that I have awarded. The portfolios need to be put into the format that the exam board demands. Then the portfolios can finally be sent off to the moderators.
Certainly, the exam boards need this task to be completed on time in order for their systems to function and for the results to be available on time in August so that universities can issue offers and students can start their courses in the autumn. But...should this be the job of a teacher? As I have said, I can see how this benefits the exam board but I cannot see how it benefits my learners - at all. This is a terminal assessment and there is no time for the learners to make any improvements to their work - the exam board deadline looms. Effectively I have used 50 hours working solely for the benefit of the exam board, that time could have been used profitably to benefit my learners in many different ways, through lesson preparation, formative assessment, development of new courses, arranging out of lesson experiences, etc, etc, etc.
I will never get those 50 hours back - and neither will my learners ever benefit from them.
Recently I was talking to a friend who is high up in the international construction business - I think he spends as much time flying as he does with his feet on the ground. He was saying that if he saw a workload bottle neck coming he would rearrange tasks and organise it out of the way. He saw immediately that in my job that organising the bottle neck away was not an option. Preparing these controlled assessment and coursework portfolios is certainly one of these workload bottle necks that cannot be organised away.
Over the last few weeks, at a conservative estimate, I have spend 50 hours getting these portfolios together. The work needs to be marked, and the marking annotated to explain it to the moderator so that I can justify the marks that I have awarded. The portfolios need to be put into the format that the exam board demands. Then the portfolios can finally be sent off to the moderators.
Certainly, the exam boards need this task to be completed on time in order for their systems to function and for the results to be available on time in August so that universities can issue offers and students can start their courses in the autumn. But...should this be the job of a teacher? As I have said, I can see how this benefits the exam board but I cannot see how it benefits my learners - at all. This is a terminal assessment and there is no time for the learners to make any improvements to their work - the exam board deadline looms. Effectively I have used 50 hours working solely for the benefit of the exam board, that time could have been used profitably to benefit my learners in many different ways, through lesson preparation, formative assessment, development of new courses, arranging out of lesson experiences, etc, etc, etc.
I will never get those 50 hours back - and neither will my learners ever benefit from them.
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