What practical assessment?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a high stakes accountability system will tend to prevent accurate teacher assessment.  Or at least, that is what Ofqual and the exam boards would like us believe.

Having talked to many teachers about controlled assessment (and having been involved in supervising coursework) I think that actually Ofqual and the exams boards are probably correct.  Current controlled assessment measures very little of a student's ability to skillfully carry out practical work, and is overly focussed on one (or at most two) practical experiences.  The time taken to ensure that the whole class completes the appropriate work, with the appropriate supervision eats into the time that could be used to teach content, or do other practical work.  (And involves numerous catch-up sessions after school and during holidays if my child's experience of year 11 science coursework is anything to go by). 

So Ofqual have, at one fell swoop, removed teacher assessed practical work from A-levels from 2015.  Instead, students will be expected to develop 12 practical skill sets through carrying out a minimum of 12 named practicals.  The skills are the same for all exam boards, but they are free to choose their own practicals.  The skills are given in appendix 5c of the subject criteria, but until the draft specifications are published (towards the end of June) we won't know what the practicals are.

Helen Rogerson published a blog outlining her view on the loss of practical assessment and I think that she makes a very good point. 

But...

What if the removal of examined practical assessment means that teachers will stop doing practical work?  If we don't assess practical work, then even though teachers think that it is educationally desirable, they might stop doing it.  Senior leaders might decide that if practical work isn't assessed then why spend large part amounts of money on science equipment and consumables?

This appears to be the view of the Wellcome trust, various university academics and SCORE.  

Again, I can see why they are worried.  It may be that practical science becomes limited to the 12 named practicals in the specs - much like the teaching of English literature appears to be limited to the books named in the new GCSE specs.  Teachers will plan for, and teach, only the practicals that they have to provide evidence of the students carrying out.  On the other hand, anecdotal evidence from teachers who have switched from GCSE sciences to iGCSE sciences have said that the removal of controlled assessment work has led to an increase in the amount of practical work that they do.

Before we can start to discuss the effect of the changes to practical work it would be helpful to know what practical work A-level students currently do.  Michael Gove and Ofqual have referred to reports of Universities complaining that A-levels don’t prepare students well enough for university.  It may be that, in some schools, practical work has already reduced to only that required to complete the controlled assessment part of the course.

In schools like that, it may be that having to do 12 practicals over the space of 2 years might actually be an improvement.

Without data though, we just don’t know.

To that end, I am intending to carry out some preliminary research into what practical work in science (and particularly physics) is currently planned and carried out at A-level in a number of local educational establishments.  I’m hoping that I will be able to revisit the schools as the changes to A-levels are made and see how they are responding to the new structure.

Watch this space!

Taking part in 'real' science.

A series of tweets this morning started me thinking about involving kids in science experiments.  The conversation started with a tweet about Chemistry in the Olympics on the new RSC site ‘Learn Chemistry’.  

The experiment is similar to ones which I have used in the past, especially when working on CREST awards or experience weeks with students.  The RSC experiment looks at the effect of a ‘sports drink’ on performance in a 100m run.  There is a comprehensive risk assessment, and suggestion that collaboration with the PE department might be appropriate, which I thought was good.

However, the experimental design itself wasn’t ideal – there was no real control condition or attempt at a blind (or even double blind) test.  Personally, I would probably have used each student as their own control.   The first measurement would be the time for the initial 100m run, followed by a timed rest during which they either drink water or the ‘sports drink’, and then finally timing their 100m run again.  The dependent variable would therefore be the change in time, rather than the average group time.

My main thoughts about the experiment though, were to wonder what the purpose of the study were.  It is purported to be a global study, with results being uploaded to the RSC website and displayed on a world map and in a bar chart.  But what exactly will this show?  Will different countries have different average 100m runs?  And if so, what will that signify? 

The RSC Press office tweeted the following about the experiment:

• We wanted to do something quick, easy and open to discussion.  We also have to fit in with…
• schools’ timetables and resources.  If they had a spare day we could devote a much longer expereiment though I’m not…
• sure how many kis (sic) would want to keep running all day!

The instructions for the experiment actually say “There is unlikely to be any effect from sports drinks on a 100 metre run, therefore we wanted to introduce a critical evaluation part of the experiment for the students to discuss in the classroom.” Which suggests that the main point of the experimental design is to provide a model which needs improving.  Whilst I’m all for students learning about null results, I think many teachers would rather try an experiment that was likely to show some differences.

Using live data from around the country is not new.  For example, the Wellcome Trust ‘In the Zone’ project has live data on the site. You can compare data from across the country, and there is still time to take part in this, using the kits that have been delivered to every school.

Last year, during the International Year of Chemistry, there was a Global Water experiment.  During the time the experiment was live, over 100000 students took part in 4 different activities and uploaded their data to the website.  Although data collection is now closed, the experimental protocols are still available, and would make an interesting project for schools.  The data is also still available allowing truly global comparison of water sources.

The Open Air Laboratories Network, OPAL, can also allow schools to get involved in collecting data.  They’ve got surveys on Earthworms, Bugs count, Clouds and biodiversity. The data is being analysed by professional scientists.  Well worth a look if you’re interested in the outdoor classroom.

Similar to OPAL is iSpot – a website where you can upload pictures of nature, and the online community will then identify what it is that you have photographed.

Which is why I thought that the RSC had missed a great opportunity here.  I know that they wanted to link to the Olympics (who doesn't?), but there are lots of great crowdsourced, real science projects that are being done out there. 

Taking part in science – a different way.

By coincidence, today I had arranged for my kids to take part in ‘real’ research.  The Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University has a volunteer register which I have signed up to.  When researchers need experimental subjects they can advertise their project and members of the public can volunteer to take part.  I suspect that other universities (and especially psychology and neuroscience departments) have similar registers.  There could even be opportunities for classes of students to take part in experiments.

So today my kids were part of a control group in a study which is looking at planning hand movements and how it changes with age.  It showed them that science can be done by normal-looking people, and they got some sweets at the end of it.  Result!

Handy Websites 1

These website are taken, mostly, from the Summer 09 Teachers Magazine published by the DCSF.  A mixture of chemistry and physics. 

Practical Physics - from the nice people at Nuffield and the IOP. Practicals for all occasions (with risk assessments too!)

The Naked Scientists - Podcast and linked website.  Interesting answers to science questions, and articles about current science research.

Lancaster University Particle Physics Package - Aimed at A level Physics students.

Chem4Kids - American website which introduces children to the essentials of chemistry.  Also available for other sciences.

Future Morph - Site to give students an idea about the range of science careers available.

Planet Science - extensive site developed from the Science year a few years a go.  Lots of fun things to explore.

Web Elements - An interactive periodic table.