Developing Consistency of Teacher Judgement through Collaborative Moderation

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• Developing Consistency of Teacher Judgement
  through Collaborative Moderation
• Professional Learning Presentation

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AIMS OF PRESENTATION

• To provide information about collaborative
  moderation as a strategy for developing
  consistency of teacher judgement
• To become familiar with the process of the SACSA
  Moderation Protocol

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WHY IS TEACHER PROFESSIONAL JUDGEMENT IMPORTANT?

• Important!
• Garth Boomer wrote Australian teachers must
  fight to retain both their pre-eminence and their
  rights as the best judges of how well their
  students are doing. Any schemes that are devised
  for national reporting on (student) achievement
  must be grounded in and informed by the rich
  judgements of the teachers who see children at
  work every day.
• (Foreword to Evaluating Literacy A Perspective
  for Change, 1991, Anthony, Johnson, Mickelson
  Preece, p.vi)

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WHAT IS CONSISTENCY OF TEACHER JUDGEMENT?

• Consistent judgement is the coherent
  application of a common standard, such that
  judgements hold true over time on both individual
  and collective levels. Consistency occurs when a
  teachers judgements accord with
•          those previously made for individual
  students
•          those made for all other students in a
  range of
• contexts
•          those judgements made by other teachers
  for all
• students.
• Consistency of teacher judgement A training and
  development CD-ROM for teachers, CD ROM, 2000,
  Commonwealth of Australia
• In South Australian DECS schools, the common
  standard we use is the Standards described in
  the SACSA Framework.

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WHY IS CONSISTENCY OF TEACHER JUDGEMENT IMPORTANT?
We do not all see the world the same way.
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WHAT ARE KEY UNDERSTANDINGS FOR DEVELOPING
CONSISTENCY OF TEACHER JUDGEMENT?

• A common language for describing student
  achievement is fundamental to consistency of
  teacher judgement.
• Students demonstrate knowledge, skills and
  understandings in diverse ways in a range of
  contexts over time.
• Collaborative moderation of sets of evidence
  (performance, product, project, paper and pen)
  provides teachers with confirmation of their
  judgements.
• The SACSA Standards provide a common reference
  point against which to align our judgements of
  students achievements.

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WHAT ARE SOME STRATEGIES THAT SUPPORT CONSISTENCY
OF TEACHER JUDGEMENT?

• planning together
• developing common criteria for the achievement of
  curriculum Standards (eg a rubric)
• using a common assessment task across classes
• comparing samples of student work against
  criteria for achievement of curriculum Standards
  (eg using a collaborative moderation protocol)
• discussing annotated work samples
• comparing students work samples generated
  through teaching and learning activities with
  annotated work samples
• developing shared understandings about the
  developmental sequence of learning described in
  the curriculum
• sharing understandings about assessment
• discussing quality professional learning
  resources.

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A side step

• Assessments do not have to be identical to be
  comparable. The contents of student portfolios
  can and should be different but can be judged
  against common standards.

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WHY COLLABORATIVE MODERATION OF EVIDENCE OF
STUDENT LEARNING?

• Collaborative moderation is a
• quality assurance process designed to ensure
  comparability of Standards assigned to student
  work. Moderation enhances confidence in the
  reliability of the results of assessment.
• process of validating teacher judgements of the
  standard of student work by having teachers
  judgements reviewed by peers, internally (within
  same school) and/or externally (from a different
  school).

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WHY COLLABORATIVE MODERATION OF EVIDENCE OF
STUDENT LEARNING? (cont)

• The value of looking at student work resides in
  its potential for bringing students more
  consistently and explicitly into deliberations
  among teachers. Looking at student work has the
  potential to expand teachers opportunity to
  learn, to cultivate a professional community that
  is both willing and able to inquire into
  practice, and to focus school-based teacher
  conversations directly on the improvement of
  teaching and learning.
• (Phi Delta Kappan November 2003)

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WHAT DO WE MODERATE?

• preferably more than one example of a students
  work demonstrating learning over time and in a
  range of contexts in relation to at least one
  curriculum standard (called a set of evidence)

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Another side step

• Common errors in making judgements of learner
  achievement
• pre-judging
• confusing achievement with effort
• cultural stereotyping
• gender stereotyping
• the halo effect
• the central tendency error
• severity/leniency error

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QHow will we moderate student work?
A Using a protocol
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(No Transcript)
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What are protocols?WHY USE A PROTOCOL?WHAT DOES
A TYPICAL PROTOCOL LOOK LIKE?
What does the facilitator need to know and do?
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DEVELOPING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF SACSA
OUTCOMES AND STANDARDS
Prior to starting the SACSA Moderation Protocol
each group is advised to unpack the relevant
SACSA Outcome/s
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• Society environment Outcome 2.1
• Examines information from a range of sources
  about people in different periods of time and
  places in Australia, and interprets them in
  relation to historical events.
• Skill or process
• Knowledge

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Design and technology Outcome 3.3 Selects
appropriate communication forms and technologies
to document and convey clearly design ideas,
thinking and organisation.
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Design and technology Outcome 3.3
Verbs
Nouns/ Noun phrases
appropriate communication forms and technologies
selects
documents
design ideas, thinking and organisation
conveys clearly
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DEVELOPING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF THE
STANDARDNESS OF SACSA STANDARDS
In your groups, with your chosen SACSA Outcome/s
determine the difference in the knowledge and
doing bits over 3 Standards
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DEVELOPING CONSISTENCY OF TEACHER JUDGEMENT ABOUT
ACHIEVEMENT OF SACSA OUTCOMES AND STANDARDS
Begin the SACSA Moderation Protocol