Discussion
Blue62 said:
elster said:
The problem is people like to think that their babies are the smartest there has ever been, and like to believe this.
So the GCSE system has enforced this.
At the same time on a global scale we are getting worse and worse.
I know that is the concensus view in the coalition, but is there any evidence as such? So the GCSE system has enforced this.
At the same time on a global scale we are getting worse and worse.
elster said:
Blue62 said:
elster said:
The problem is people like to think that their babies are the smartest there has ever been, and like to believe this.
So the GCSE system has enforced this.
At the same time on a global scale we are getting worse and worse.
I know that is the concensus view in the coalition, but is there any evidence as such? So the GCSE system has enforced this.
At the same time on a global scale we are getting worse and worse.
We've had amazing skyrocketing grades accompanied by a headlong drop down the international league tables. Then ask employers and universities.
Something clearly needs to change.
Interviewed students claim that criticism of the system is devaluing their efforts - as seen on C4 news tonight - but clearly there is something wrong when the majority get the top marks.
I read that 60% got A or A* which is clearly farcical. And don't get me started on the * grade. It's like gymnastics / figure skating marking system where extra marks were introduced to differentiate "perfect" scores.
Most students should surely be getting CDE based on a bell curve distribution.
Interviewed students claim that criticism of the system is devaluing their efforts - as seen on C4 news tonight - but clearly there is something wrong when the majority get the top marks.
I read that 60% got A or A* which is clearly farcical. And don't get me started on the * grade. It's like gymnastics / figure skating marking system where extra marks were introduced to differentiate "perfect" scores.
Most students should surely be getting CDE based on a bell curve distribution.
rover 623gsi said:
you can't get your parents to do your 'coursework' because kids nowadays do controlled assessments in class
you are allowed to have lots of attempts at many things in life - driving tests for example. Passing first time doesn't make you inherently better at something.
You can retake your exams.you are allowed to have lots of attempts at many things in life - driving tests for example. Passing first time doesn't make you inherently better at something.
And the driving test is perfect example of where course work is ignored and it all hinges on passing the final exam. You could do fine on occasion in isolation with your driving instructor but that counts for nothing. What matters is being able to prove you've grasped the subject from start to finish in front of an examiner. Exactly as it should be.
Diderot said:
Cannot come soon enough - and then they can set about reforming A levels. Current A levels are pretty much on a par with the old O levels.
I took exams as the switch over from O grades to Standard grades (Scottish GSCEs) occurred, so I had exams for some subjects as O Grade and some as Standard grade. O grades were much, much harder. In fact, a few questions from Chemistry O Grade past papers made it into the "Revised Higher" (Almost Scottish A level equivalent, IMO A levels were/are harder than Highers).I incredulously watched a piece on BBC News earlier as some mouthy bint of a student took umbrage that she might not be allowed to re-sit exams, re-sit at that level? If you were ill or suffered severe personal circumstances OK, but as a matter of course? Not a chance. She also revealed that they do an oral exam for English! If English is not your first language fine, but I mean really? Really? We had to do a "solo talk" as part of our English course work but an oral exam? Ridiculous, and to compound matters she seemed to hint she was an A* grade student in the oral exam, I didn't find her all that eloquent at all. Mouthy, bolshy, lacking humility, chock full of misplaced confidence, you likely couldn't mark her neck with a blow torch. Yes, she will go far in life.
Hackney said:
I read that 60% got A or A* which is clearly farcical. And don't get me started on the * grade. It's like gymnastics / figure skating marking system where extra marks were introduced to differentiate "perfect" scores.
Interesting that you say this. I've been amazed at the amount of people I've heard of that have pulled strings of A's and A*s out of the bag and it got me thinking, either kids are much cleverer and/or teaching methods much improved, or...My take on this;
It's right the Government look to reform education testing as it's over two decades since the GCSE came in, one thing I do agree with Gove on is the need for a single exam board. Competing exam boards dumbing their exams down as they say to schools 'ours are easier to pass so you'll get higher up the league tables' has inevitably resulted in a race to the bottom and false league tables. It is proof that in this instance, competition doesn't work. Competition is great because it always drives something down - cost usually - but if that thing being driven down is education standards then it's a bad move.
I do have sympathy with the kids who will be taking the GCSE for the next five years in the knowledge their Government deems them completely worthless, but employers, colleges, universities and many parents have deemed them worthless for years. It's not the students fault, they can only take the test we put in front of them. I'm not sure an entirely new qualification is really required as I think the scrapping of exam board competition will achieve more than anything else. There's plenty of scope to update the GCSE to meet the criteria Gove wants but that wouldn't get him on the front pages.
I took GCSE's and as I understand it the main difference between them and the old O Levels is the latter was basically a test where as the former is an assessment of two years worth of work. O Levels were especially designed to keep Uni numbers down as it was based mainly on what the student could remember. What we need is a system which better prepares young people for the ever increasing demands of the workplace, sure you could say GCSE's don't do that but I'm not sure cramming info for 24 hours before your test suggests anything any better.
It's right the Government look to reform education testing as it's over two decades since the GCSE came in, one thing I do agree with Gove on is the need for a single exam board. Competing exam boards dumbing their exams down as they say to schools 'ours are easier to pass so you'll get higher up the league tables' has inevitably resulted in a race to the bottom and false league tables. It is proof that in this instance, competition doesn't work. Competition is great because it always drives something down - cost usually - but if that thing being driven down is education standards then it's a bad move.
I do have sympathy with the kids who will be taking the GCSE for the next five years in the knowledge their Government deems them completely worthless, but employers, colleges, universities and many parents have deemed them worthless for years. It's not the students fault, they can only take the test we put in front of them. I'm not sure an entirely new qualification is really required as I think the scrapping of exam board competition will achieve more than anything else. There's plenty of scope to update the GCSE to meet the criteria Gove wants but that wouldn't get him on the front pages.
I took GCSE's and as I understand it the main difference between them and the old O Levels is the latter was basically a test where as the former is an assessment of two years worth of work. O Levels were especially designed to keep Uni numbers down as it was based mainly on what the student could remember. What we need is a system which better prepares young people for the ever increasing demands of the workplace, sure you could say GCSE's don't do that but I'm not sure cramming info for 24 hours before your test suggests anything any better.
turbobloke said:
TheHeretic said:
I agree. Working on 'projects' is what life is. Final tests it is not.
Nor is life getting your parents to do the coursework project for you, nor is it having four attempts at a job interview until you get it right, or paying for a tutor to come in and sit next to you while you do any work from your employer that had to be taken home. Life is far more like an exam and far less like coursework - after poo-pooing final exams and on the spot tests, even that wet sap Jeremy Vine had to concede that removing the ability of middle class parents to do courswork would level up the playing field. Not least after it was indicated that he features in a TV show that puts kids on the spot exactly like that - not that I have any idea what it is as I haven't seen it.
The Govelevel will of course lead to lots of wailing and whining from the equality drones when girls don't do so well without ages and ages to do the work uber-conscientiously with multicoloured pens.
However as folks will have noted, the timescale agreed for the Govelevel means that it could be abolished in 2015 if and when Liarbore get in or share
How many job interviews do you have, what happens if you don't get the job?
In real life you get multiple goes at things, you get to learn from your mistakes and even to try and fail. In the GCSEs you get to the end of school and you get told how good are bad you are at things. If you don't pass the system is not set up for you to re-sit, hardly anybody does.
In my GCSEs I remember watching some of the other people literally write their names, kick back, whistle and wait the minimum 30 minute before they could walk off. They weren't idiots; for the last three years those same people had realised that they were never going to learn to the required level in time to get a meaningful GCSE by the time they were 16. They would be stupid to actually stick in to then get a grade F, as a result they were disruptive and actually impeded other peoples learning.
I fail to see how the new system will motivate people like this, people who are moving further and further away from being internationally competitive.
My personal view is that we should move away from high stakes final exams and move to a system of continuous grading with children being taught with people of similar ability and learning styles at the rate they can actually go. We need to motivate people to learn and not to believe that their current ability at a given skill is all that they will be able to achieve or that learning can only take place an abstracted academic manner.
Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
Edited by Talksteer on Tuesday 18th September 00:27
What's important is the students actually learn things rather than merely remembering them. The GCSE system of using coursework could fail in this regard as people can help you with it, you can find answers quickly on the internet these days etc. Likewise the O Level system of a memory test can fail as well. Anybody can cram info into their head the day before a test and remember key points, it doesn't mean they understand them.
Regardless of what you call the new exams the government, examining boards, University entrance boards and teachers all need to agree on what the standard is going to be before the exams are implemented and keep the exact same target every single year no matter what.
If teachers manage to get their results from mostly Cs to mostly As people want to believe that it's because the teaching staff are effective, and not that the exams / tests got dumbed down. Similarly, when somebody says they got a certain standard in 2016, it needs to be comparable to those who take the same subject in 2030.
The very same principles need to apply to A levels or any other exam for that matter.
If teachers manage to get their results from mostly Cs to mostly As people want to believe that it's because the teaching staff are effective, and not that the exams / tests got dumbed down. Similarly, when somebody says they got a certain standard in 2016, it needs to be comparable to those who take the same subject in 2030.
The very same principles need to apply to A levels or any other exam for that matter.
Talksteer said:
turbobloke said:
TheHeretic said:
I agree. Working on 'projects' is what life is. Final tests it is not.
Nor is life getting your parents to do the coursework project for you, nor is it having four attempts at a job interview until you get it right, or paying for a tutor to come in and sit next to you while you do any work from your employer that had to be taken home. Life is far more like an exam and far less like coursework - after poo-pooing final exams and on the spot tests, even that wet sap Jeremy Vine had to concede that removing the ability of middle class parents to do courswork would level up the playing field. Not least after it was indicated that he features in a TV show that puts kids on the spot exactly like that - not that I have any idea what it is as I haven't seen it.
The Govelevel will of course lead to lots of wailing and whining from the equality drones when girls don't do so well without ages and ages to do the work uber-conscientiously with multicoloured pens.
However as folks will have noted, the timescale agreed for the Govelevel means that it could be abolished in 2015 if and when Liarbore get in or share
How many job interviews do you have, what happens if you don't get the job?
In real life you get multiple goes at things, you get to learn from your mistakes and even to try and fail. In the GCSEs you get to the end of school and you get told how good are bad you are at things. If you don't pass the system is not set up for you to re-sit, hardly anybody does.
In my GCSEs I remember watching some of the other people literally write their names, kick back, whistle and wait the minimum 30 minute before they could walk off. They weren't idiots; for the last three years those same people had realised that they were never going to learn to the required level in time to get a meaningful GCSE by the time they were 16. They would be stupid to actually stick in to then get a grade F, as a result they were disruptive and actually impeded other peoples learning.
I fail to see how the new system will motivate people like this, people who are moving further and further away from being internationally competitive.
My personal view is that we should move away from high stakes final exams and move to a system of continuous grading with children being taught with people of similar ability and learning styles at the rate they can actually go. We need to motivate people to learn and not to believe that their current ability at a given skill is all that they will be able to achieve or that learning can only take place an abstracted academic manner.
Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
As to Sir Ken and schools killing creativity, fantastic! Schools have sufficient if not excessive creativity. What's needed is a bit more rigour and a bit less playing to the gallery by the likes of Sir Ken. If I didn't know he was an arts dreamer living in other-worldly bliss I would have guessed. There's a place for him in any developed and cultured society but it's not meddling in something as important as education.
rover 623gsi said:
... anyway... with all kids now having to stay in education or training until 18, their exam results at age 16 become increasingly redundant. When job-hunting 99% of employers are only going to be interested in the most recent exam.
Good point - and as Diderot suggested a few posts back, Gove now needs to get busy reforming A-levels.
turbobloke said:
Talksteer said:
turbobloke said:
TheHeretic said:
I agree. Working on 'projects' is what life is. Final tests it is not.
Nor is life getting your parents to do the coursework project for you, nor is it having four attempts at a job interview until you get it right, or paying for a tutor to come in and sit next to you while you do any work from your employer that had to be taken home. Life is far more like an exam and far less like coursework - after poo-pooing final exams and on the spot tests, even that wet sap Jeremy Vine had to concede that removing the ability of middle class parents to do courswork would level up the playing field. Not least after it was indicated that he features in a TV show that puts kids on the spot exactly like that - not that I have any idea what it is as I haven't seen it.
The Govelevel will of course lead to lots of wailing and whining from the equality drones when girls don't do so well without ages and ages to do the work uber-conscientiously with multicoloured pens.
However as folks will have noted, the timescale agreed for the Govelevel means that it could be abolished in 2015 if and when Liarbore get in or share
How many job interviews do you have, what happens if you don't get the job?
In real life you get multiple goes at things, you get to learn from your mistakes and even to try and fail. In the GCSEs you get to the end of school and you get told how good are bad you are at things. If you don't pass the system is not set up for you to re-sit, hardly anybody does.
In my GCSEs I remember watching some of the other people literally write their names, kick back, whistle and wait the minimum 30 minute before they could walk off. They weren't idiots; for the last three years those same people had realised that they were never going to learn to the required level in time to get a meaningful GCSE by the time they were 16. They would be stupid to actually stick in to then get a grade F, as a result they were disruptive and actually impeded other peoples learning.
I fail to see how the new system will motivate people like this, people who are moving further and further away from being internationally competitive.
My personal view is that we should move away from high stakes final exams and move to a system of continuous grading with children being taught with people of similar ability and learning styles at the rate they can actually go. We need to motivate people to learn and not to believe that their current ability at a given skill is all that they will be able to achieve or that learning can only take place an abstracted academic manner.
Sir Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
As to Sir Ken and schools killing creativity, fantastic! Schools have sufficient if not excessive creativity. What's needed is a bit more rigour and a bit less playing to the gallery by the likes of Sir Ken. If I didn't know he was an arts dreamer living in other-worldly bliss I would have guessed. There's a place for him in any developed and cultured society but it's not meddling in something as important as education.
What's needed is an examination system that values and encourages both rigour and creativity. Gove's changes may prioritise rigour; which should benefit the high achievers and enable universities to discriminate between candidates for places; but it'll leave the far more intractible problem of underachievement and alienation amongst average and below students largely untouched.
It's another ploy designed overlook the real problem and to help the middle classes to pull the ladder up behind themselves. I thought you were against social engineering?
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