[Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
Kevork Krozian
kevork at edulists.com.au
Sun Apr 2 23:18:27 EST 2006
Hi Robert,
I had not taken your comments in any critical or negative way at all.
You were stating the obvious when you lamented the fact exams were driving
what we do in the course as far as prioritisation.
I agree there are issues with the depth of knowledge students gain in
the course and the lower priority placed on these achievements relative to
the exam. Incidentally , did you read my review of the 2005 exam and the
examiner's report and the potential for a student to lose up to 13 marks by
giving the correct answers or not giving some of the incorrect answers the
examiner's published in their report ?
I do remember the CATs and not so fondly unfortunately. Let's be
honest, if a teacher did not produce good CATs for review or authentication
they simply found another teacher who did have such CATs and copied it for
the next year, changing the names to protect the innocent. I just don't
think the CATs were scientifically evaluated for difficulty or parity. But
then again, that was last century and the debate is purely academic and
historic.
I agree with you when you make the valid point about depth of
knowledge and open slather in the exams. How much depth does one go into
when studying motherboards, and computer architecture and yes, ROMs,
PROM,EPROM, EEPROM etc etc.
I still believe the exams are too fringe and cult-ish in the type
of knowledge they require of students. Many of the questions are outdated in
the area of knowledge of technology eg. Section B, Q4 with the diagram of
the CPU, main memory and the I/O controllers is not how motherboards or CPUs
work anymore, even if they worked that way 10 to 15 years ago. Just go to
www.intel.com and look at a P4 CPU design. They speak of FSB, BSB, levels of
cache, northbridge and southbridge. See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus.
How often would students need to agonise over whether they should use a
32bit or 64bit processor with a 32 bit OS ? ( Section B, Q3)
I believe success in exams requires significantly different skills to
success in the coursework. It requires one to drill students in the
"culture" and language of the exams by doing several dozen of them over a
dozen weeks or so to get inside the minds of the examiners. Some of that
culture is IPM language eg. Data types such as "currency". You're a computer
scientist Robert, when was the last time you saw someone write a program in
one of the approved languages using the "currency" data type or the "array"
data type ?
I would still like to know how a student who averages 96% in both IT
Systems coursework, and Cisco CCNA networking exams ( often taken as a
component of an undergraduate or Masters IT course ) can only score 38- 40
as a final study score in the subject.
Kevork Krozian
Mailing List Creator and Administrator
kevork at edulists.com.au
www.edulists.com.au
Tel: 0419 356 034
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Timmer-Arends" <timmer at melbpc.org.au>
To: "Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List"
<is at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
> Hello Kevork
>
> I was not having a go at anybody with my comment re exam prep. In fact I
> agreed that we are 'forced' to do it in the best interests of our students
> re maxmising their chance of success in the exams.
> What I was lamenting was the fact that all the fantastic work you describe
> is not given the fair weight that it should - all it is used for is to
> rank
> students (and one small philosophical point here - if all students in a
> class successfully solve a problem in creative and imagintive ways and
> meet
> all the conditions imposed upon them in doing it, then why shouldn't they
> be
> all ranked at the same level? answer: that won't put them on a ladder for
> the ENTER.) When it's all said and done, the exam counts for most if not
> all, and is driving the teaching of the course.
> In response to your other comments, I would also add that the relationship
> of coursework to the exam is hampered by a number of things including the
> highly generic nature of the study design, not just in software, but also
> other 'theoretical' areas, such as how deeply does one goes into the study
> of ROM technology (do we just teach the functional and/or operational
> difference between ROM, RAM,and other storage devices, do we go down to
> the
> level of exploring the difference between ROMs, PROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs,...
> or do we look at the different ROM technologies that allow the different
> speeds to exists??)
> Personally, as far as course structure is concerned I am in favour of
> winding back the clock and going back to CATs (which I do not believe were
> ever a problem in IT as far as authentication was concerned, or as far as
> students giving up because they went over too great a period) and an exam
> that covers a specific area of the course (as opposed to open slather on
> everything). This way students do real projects that are valuable
> experiences in their own right and that are valued as far as assessment
> is
> concerned, but they still have to demonstrate that they have gained a
> theoretical understanding of something in IT.
>
> Regards
> Robert T-A
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kevork Krozian" <kevork at edulists.com.au>
> To: "Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List"
> <is at edulists.com.au>
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
>
>
>> Hi Robert,
>>
>> Consider the following as part of the IT Systems course over the 3
> terms
>> that school based learning and assesment is carried out :
>>
>> 1. High end programming tasks in a true object oriented language such as
>> Java using both primitive and advanced data structures such as arrays,
>> records, arrays of records, vectors, writing to and retrieving from disk
>> files in both text and binary formats, building of truly intuitive GUIs
> with
>> menus, controls and validation such as drop down lists, process
>> validation
>> with activation or deactivation of controls bases on actions on the GUI
> etc
>> etc
>> 2. Building real networks as part of the networking SACs (SAC31 and
> SAC42)
>> using cisco routers, switches, switching routers as used in SOHOs as well
> as
>> larger organisations, setting up wireless access points, configuring
>> security for these and demonstrating how simple 128bit wireless
>> encryption
>> can be hacked in 3 minutes, demonstrating firewalls and configuration of
>> these.
>> 3. Carrying out SDLC examples using the case studies supplied by VITTA
>> CD
> ,
>> amongst others as offered on the lists
>> 4. Teaching IT Systems students who are also Cisco CCNA students with
>> average scores of 95% for Cisco networking assessment tasks.
>>
>> and the students who average 96 - 97 % in these SACs score a final
>> study
>> score of 38 - 40 meaning there are a further 8% of the IT Systems cohort
> who
>> are higher performers in the Study of Information Systems ( score of 40
>> meaning you are in the top 8% of performance in that subject )
>> Can anyone maybe explain how this happens if not for lack of working
>> out
>> the types of answers the examiners prefer ?
>>
>> Best Wishes
>> Kevork Krozian
>> Mailing List Creator and Administrator
>> kevork at edulists.com.au
>> www.edulists.com.au
>> Tel: 0419 356 034
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Robert Timmer-Arends" <timmer at melbpc.org.au>
>> To: "Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List"
>> <is at edulists.com.au>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 5:54 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course
>>
>>
>> > Hello Keith
>> >
>> > I agree that lots of exam practice produces results, but yes, I am
> saying
>> > that
>> >
>> >> conquering the challenge of good exam technique is not a 'good' use of
>> >> educational endeavour.
>> >
>> > At least not in the amount of time it consumes in relation to what
>> > (ideally)
>> > we are trying to teach. While I agree that being able to quickly
> assemble
>> > a
>> > lot of facts and put together a coherent response is a useful faculty
>> > to
>> > have, surely there are more educationally sound ways of doing this.
>> > Moreover, I am not so sure that the over emphasis on exam technique
>> > does
>> > "significantly better (prepare students) for many other challenges that
>> > life
>> > will throw up at them in their future social and working lives." -
>> > perhaps,
>> > as others have noted, it does for university, but then that perhaps
>> > says
>> > something about university as well!
>> >
>> > (the soap box could get a little crowded - or should we bring our own?)
>> >
>> > Regards
>> > Robert T-A
>> > Brighton SC
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > http://www.edulists.com.au
>> > IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by
>> > http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
> Authority
>> > and
>> > http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology
> Teachers
>> > Association Inc
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> http://www.edulists.com.au
>> IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by
>> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
>> Authority
> and
>> http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology
>> Teachers
> Association Inc
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au
> IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by
> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
> and
> http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers
> Association Inc
>
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