[Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course

Thu Mar 30 10:17:31 EST 2006

Hi all,

   Great advice Andrew.
 One point that was raised some time ago was the fact there is a big range of difficulty levels in the programming "standard" students reach in the SACs. As far as the programming knowledge required in the exam is concerned,  it is a piece of pseudocode with usually 2 errors students need to debug with either a range error, an extra loop or similar that one can focus on. 

  Given enough examples to practice on, one could get away with vey little programming in class and focus on lots of simple pseudocode to "train" the students on exam questions.
 There is also the odd question on data types Q 13d last year ( ever heard of an array data type ???????   Arrays are data structures not data types . The correct answer here is an integer , even if it is in a structure called an array ). 

  So in the final wash up, lots of exam practice ( even if it means doing 60 practice exams ) and lower the bar on the SACs way down.

Yours in the service

Kevork Krozian
IT Manager , Forest Hill College
k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au
Mobile: 0419 356 034

>>> frankm at sjc.vic.edu.au 03/29/06 09:55pm >>>
Hello all,
I must confess I'm having been "scheming" in my own mind about this for some time. The exam questions do give us a sense of direction in what we should. The "systems analysis" course aka Information Systems course outline often is too broad in what it expects us to interpret. If we were to ignore the teaching level hints given in the exams, it would become quite a boring course. For example, going into a lot of depth with the SDLC....we need to constantly remind ourselves that we are not preparing students to become systems analysts; we should be giving them an appreciation of what happens in real-world information systems, but at the same time we need to be mindful that many of our students come into the subject with little "formal" IT backgound. Finding the level at which to pitch the work is made easier by the past exams.

Regards,

Frank Merlino
Technology (IT and Systems) Co-ordinator
Web Site Manager
St. Joseph's College
135 Aphrasia St, Newtown
Geelong, Victoria, Australia, 3219
Phone: 03 52 268100 

________________________________

From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Andrew Shortell
Sent: Wed 3/29/2006 1:42 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course

Hi Kevork

That approach works well
I have always taken the attitude that the IS exam is often the student's
last exam so all study for it is left until after any other exams and
then they have generally lost the urge (to do anything at all)

So in the first week of the year we look at the exam from last year as a
class , in class time and explain what was answered well and poorly. If
anyone knows the answers to any questions that is great but then I
remind them that they must refer to the case study and award their
answer zero because they don't.
Thus from week one they are reminded to refer to the case study.
Then when we intro the SDLC I explain that this is question one in part
b. Then I say that we have already covered a lot of section a and are
moving along.!!

Then practice exams after the SAC 3  (u3o3) in that dreadful time slot
between the midyear exams and the "break from scheduled classes" ( -
after all yr 12 get the mother of all holidays in November!!).

I aim to finish all SACs and theory by the 3rd last week of term 3. Then
nearly every double is a practice exam in class time. Even though a
double only goes 90 minutes most of them learn to pace themselves
through the exam (2 doubles per week 3 weeks in term 3 and 3 weeks in
term 4 = 12 exams.)  Then I give them solutions to each, they take them
home, read, analyse, come back to the next class and ask whether their
answer would get any marks and we analyse the more difficult questions
as a group.

There are still plenty of other practice exams and I send these home for
weekend work and "break from scheduled classes work" (see mother of all
holidays comment above).

Not every student makes a lot of effort -- sadly for me and for them but
it works better than hoping they will practice without me standing over
them!!.

Also the double in which they are doing the exam I will go through and
mark the last one for questions.  Note that I do not correct -- just
mark which is a lot faster. Thus you can do 15  in the ninety minutes --
that is six minutes each -- more than enough to see if they have
referred to the case study and just giving a quick mark. If they want to
know why then that is part of the discussion class!

In a class of say 20 I would get maybe 14 do this seriously. The others
realise (eventually) that they are being left behind and either do
something about it or prepare for a not so good mark. It can be a good
time to contact parents and voice one's concern about their exam
preparation!

Most teachers of other subjects do not begin exam prep until term 4 so
my students have had three weeks (minimum) of preparation without
distraction.  (ROFL)
SACs in other subjects are the biggest problems - students prioritise to
them quite often.

Remember that with stat mod'n the class competes for their position on
the class ladder but for the exam they work as a group to bring up the
low performers and to raise the high performers so everyone needs to
encourage the low performers to work harder and support the high
performers so that they achieve well.

{    ;-) falls off soap box and staggers off to try to make these ideas
actually work }

Andrew Shortell
Braemar College

-----Original Message-----
From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
Sent: Wednesday, 29 March 2006 9:39 AM
To: is at edulists.com.au 
Subject: [Year 12 Its] A radical approach to the course

Hi Folks,

     Call me crazy but I am going to do things differently this year.

 I have been frustrated for some time with the fact my students always
do worse in exams than in SACs. Exam prep is always crammed into the 2
-3 weeks of term 4 ( maybe 10 periods in total ) and despite the fact
there are at least 6 exams for each past year as practice ( VCAA, 3 x
VITTA practice, IARTV, Chem Associates ) times at least 10 years = 60
exams the results don't seem to quite reach  expectations.  I am sure
this is due to the huge cram that goes on with other subjects as well
and students may only actually do about 5 or so exams as their real
practice and really, how much one on one do the students really get with
each teacher ?

  So this year we are going to spend 3 weeks in each of Term 2, 3 and 4
= 12 weeks on exam preparation by doing exams in class and marking in
class and recording student performance and progress. What we lose in
time for SACs, theory and programming, we will trim and cram these
rather than the exam.

  I'll let you know how it goes after the results come out in December.

Best Wishes

Kevork Krozian
IT Manager , Forest Hill College
k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au 
http://www.fhc.vic.edu.au 
Mobile: 0419 356 034

_______________________________________________
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