Internal Assessment

This is not a regular post, perhaps its an anomalous one (?) But please do no exclude it.

I am presently moderating Internal Assessments and I feel compelled to write on behalf of all the moderators out there, who open up a bag of scripts to find not a single word has been written on the submitted labs.

Please Please Please ANNOTATE your scripts. I know that the syllabus is changing and that the Internal Assessment has had a revamp etc. However, you will still be submitting an internal assessment to a moderator and you may well be asking your students to write them now. Alternatively you may well be grading them now.

Please understand that moderators are instructed to support your marking where we can. In order to do that, moderators need to understand your marking, why you gave the mark you did, where you, as a fellow professional teacher, “is coming from” etc. To that end, a neat and freshly printed lab report is far less helpful than a busy script with writing all over it so that the reasons for awarding can be understood. Moderators want it full of writing.

As illustrated on the OCC, IA moderators are heavily criticized each year as the reports come back to schools after an exam session, regarding the marking coefficient awarded. This should be for inappropriate interpretation of clearly stated requirements found within the Biology Guide. e.g. awarding a 2 for aspect one of DCP and students not including associated qualitative data, unit and uncertainties etc.

If there are no comments from you the teacher, the moderator has to pretty much grade the paper from scratch and this makes their job to support you as the teacher, much harder than it should be.