Leadership

Analysis Of Degree Classifications Over Time: Changes In Graduate Attainment

Universities in England are giving too many students top degree grades, according to this report by the Office for Students (OfS). The report shows starkly that there has been significant and unexplained grade inflation since 2010-11. Even accounting for prior attainment and student demographics, it still finds significant unexplained grade inflation.

The report shows the number of graduates being awarded first and upper-second class degrees rose from 67% in 2010-11 to 78% in 2016-17.

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      string(300) "The last act of the former Education Secretary – to remove the national curriculum levels from the assessment regime – was a bit like throwing the proverbial spanner in the works and then walking out of the factory door. As with all Govian reforms, the thinking behind it was a little unclear ..."
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      string(321) "... progress towards higher levels of abstract thinking. Some secondary and primary schools have been using it to assess children’s progress in this for some time, with remarkable results in the changes in orientation for teaching and learning. Even Bloom’s Taxonomy has a lot to offer if one of ..."
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      string(369) "The last act of the former Education Secretary – to remove the national curriculum levels from the assessment regime – was a bit like throwing the proverbial spanner in the works and then walking out of the factory door. As with all Govian reforms, the thinking behind it was a little unclear. There was no consultation, no strategic context, no positive rationale."
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      string(5159) "Creative Teaching and Learning, vol 5.1 																							Tweet The last act of the former Education Secretary – to remove the national curriculum levels from the assessment regime – was a bit like throwing the proverbial spanner in the works and then walking out of the factory door.As with all Govian reforms, the thinking behind it was a little unclear. There was no consultation, no strategic context, no positive rationale. There was some mumbo jumbo about simplifying the assessment and accountability system for schools but in actual fact, it has just added confusion. Since both schools and Ofsted used these levels to track progress, it has left a vacuum, and some panic, as to what to put in its place. How different to the US curriculum and assessment reform around the Common Core Standards! There, the national movement for reform began outside of government, with research about the growing incompetence of American children to think beyond superficial levels in their schoolwork and to cope with higher education or employment, or indeed anything where more than mechanical learning was required. This was followed by a national debate about what sort of children American society needed in a new technological age. The answer? Critical, creative children with the ability to think outside of the box, to work in groups and to undertake sustained project work that could engender in-depth learning and original solutions to problems. This initial research and the proposed solutions were both a devastating critique of the sort of test-based, knowledge-based curriculum Gove has recently introduced. Unlike the DfE, the US Department of Education realised that the new strategic direction for education had to be supported by new forms of assessments and backed the development of these with hundreds of millions of dollars. Here in the UK, some ten grants have been handed out to schools to do the best they can on the very limited goal of thinking up something to replace levels. They will do their creative best – and we are featuring one such school, Hiltingdon Primary in Hampshire which has developed Learning Ladders, in our November Conference, ‘Assessment and the New Curriculum: New Ways to Measure Progress’ – but with a such limited brief, they will never begin to address some of the questions that the American review is addressing. Questions such as: how do you objectively assess the skills of critical and creative thinking, how can you assess project work that gives all students a level playing field, what is the right mix of normative and formative assessment, how can you rid the system of teaching to tests? What most schools are going to do here – in the absence of any government guidance or pedagogical context – is stick to the levels for at least one year. This is not a bad idea, but as Sue Hackman comments in her piece this issue, not a long term solution. The national curriculum is changing and the levels will no longer apply post 2015, at which point you might as well work backwards from the attainment requirements and fix your own stages. However, this must be the start of a more profound review of not just the means but the kinds of progress we want to track. We need to find ways that track understanding and misunderstanding, levels of thinking ability and forms of creativity. Many of the tools to do this already exist but need to be dusted down and re-applied. Assessment for Learning is one core methodology that could be rigorously applied to learning objectives set by the school, but also to critical and creative thinking and collaborative project work. The problem is that AfL has become almost a portmanteau concept which can mean anything to anyone. Maybe Precision Teaching, which despite its name is a more rigorous form of AfL, should be recovered from its doldrums. SOLO Taxonomy has a lot to offer in terms of assessing a student’s progress towards higher levels of abstract thinking. Some secondary and primary schools have been using it to assess children’s progress in this for some time, with remarkable results in the changes in orientation for teaching and learning. Even Bloom’s Taxonomy has a lot to offer if one of the measures of critical thinking you are going to apply is the degree of abstraction in the quality of student questioning. None of this need be at the expense of students acquiring knowledge – it should be through knowledge, its ordering and analysis, that these other skills are taught and applied. We need new tracking procedures to replace levels, but we now have the chance to invest in tools with a deeper concept of teaching and learning. In the absence of any credible philosophy of education from the government or the opposition, schools will have to do it on their own. To access articles from Creative Teaching and Learning:Please log in.To view the latest issue of Creative Teaching and Learning, please go to the Online Publications page or click here for the direct link.Alternatively, you can subscribe here. Call our sales team for the best rate: 0121 224 7599."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Measuring progress imaginatively could start a revolution

15 Aug 2014

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      string(3357) "This report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), commissioned by Wellcome, undertakes a detailed review of the evidence on the impact of teacher professional development.The study, which includes analysis from Ambition Institute, examines 52 randomised controlled trials evaluating teacher development programmes, in order to establish their impact on pupil and teacher outcomes.  Continuing professional development (CPD), which can include training courses, mentoring, seminars and peer review, can play a crucial role in improving teaching quality.Key Findings:High-quality CPD for teachers has a significant effect on pupils’ learning outcomes. CPD programmes have the potential to close the gap between beginner and more experienced teachers: the impact of CPD on pupil outcomes (effect size 0.09) compares to the impact of having a teacher with ten years’ experience rather than a new graduate (0.11). CPD also has similar attainment effects to those generated by large, structural reforms to the school system (0.1).   Evidence suggests that quality CPD has a greater effect on pupil attainment than other interventions schools may consider, such as implementing performance-related pay for teachers or lengthening the school day.Teacher CPD may be a cost-effective intervention for improving pupil outcomes: while there are other interventions with a larger impact on pupil attainment, such as one-to-one tutoring (0.28), these programmes are typically far more expensive.CPD programmes generally produce positive responses from teachers, in contrast to other interventions. Large, structural changes to the school system, while as effective at improving pupil outcomes, incur substantial costs in terms of staff turnover and dissatisfaction.Increasing the availability of high-quality CPD has been shown to improve retention problems, particularly for early-career teachers. While factors other than access to CPD tend to be behind teachers’ decisions to quit the profession, there is evidence supporting targeted CPD programmes for teachers in the early stages of their careers.Induction training and mentoring programmes are particularly effective for improving retention rates early on. Quality CPD has the potential to alleviate acute retention problems for early-career teachers.Teacher turnover is a major impediment to the effectiveness of a CPD programme: those programmes that can offer flexibility to account for volatility in the teacher labour market are more likely to be successful. Additional support for new teachers joining the CPD programme half-way through the year, could be offered to mitigate this.Professional development is more accessible for teachers and has a greater impact when it receives sustained support from school leaders. Those designing CPD programmes can also ensure continuity by adapting to any changes in school leadership.CPD programmes that make allowances for workload and limited teacher time are also likely to be more effective. High teacher workload represents one of the greatest obstacles to accessing CPD; interventions are likely to see success if they are both attractive and strive to minimise the demands placed on teachers.Link: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/EPI-Wellcome_CPD-Review__2020.pdf"
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Leadership

The Effects Of High-Quality Professional Development On Teachers And Students

2 Apr 2020

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Leadership

The Effects Of High-Quality Professional Development On Teachers And Students

28 Feb 2020

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Leadership Briefing issue 6.10 (70)"
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The report follows three rounds of fieldwork with case-study centres and wider stakeholder groups designed to ascertain their understanding and perceptions of the changes, and their attitudes towards them. It builds on findings from the statistical data reported on in spring 2011, and reports on early indications of the impact of the changes and the issues that have arisen.Key Findings:· The introduction of ‘stretch and challenge’ in A levels and the reduction from six to four units1 have been welcomed by the majority of stakeholders. The decrease from six to four units at A level was seen as positive in terms of ensuring greater depth and breadth of study.· The majority of centres felt that there was greater stretch and challenge in the new specifications at A2, but that this was not always equally reflected in the assessments. 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Some universities now require an A* pass for certain courses.· Although the updating of course content at GCSE is reported to have increased students’ sense of motivation and their engagement with GCSE subjects, this positive effect has been somewhat counteracted by what is perceived as the increased focus in teaching and learning on the demands of the examination.· There were some concerns about unitised assessment for GCSE, but views were mixed. 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Leadership

Impact Of Changes To A Levels And GCSEs

11 Apr 2012