So far, the skeletal assessment framework that is in place at school at the moment has been changed by many head of departments, so I can't say that it is robust enough or producing a fair assessment of all pupils progress. This isn't something I will get to change in school, but can develop on my own and share for others to benefit. Maybe?
So, I found this course through openlean here, and although some of the ideas are older, they are still very valid and help those who are looking to improve book work for scrutiny or even to have alternate approaches to showing progress and assessment within the curriculum.
The most useful parts are as follows:
Who decides what knowledge is important?
In a subject as broad as geography, what is valued by one person might not be by another. The emphasis placed on knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes varies. Geography is also dynamic and continually under construction, so the valued elements also change over time. However.....
Progression can be considered in relation to the learning experiences planned by the teacher:
These 3 aspects of a geographical education are the points that I have been trying to assess as I personally think that they are the most important:
• Contextual world knowledge of locations, places and geographical features.
• Understanding of the conditions, processes and interactions that explain features and distributions, patterns and changes over time and space.
• Competence in geographical enquiry, the application of skills in observing, collecting, analysing, mapping and communicating geographical information.
What I couldn't work out was how to assess this and prove it in students books like a growing portfolio of excellent geography. I have the sequence and links, but not the proof that they are actually progressing, unless you add a numerical summative assessment into the mix. This course pinpointed me to a more broad framework of guidance - what do I expect students in each year to achieve? For example:
• Demonstrating greater fluency with world
knowledge by drawing on increasing
breadth and depth of content and
contexts.
• Extending from the familiar and concrete to the unfamiliar and abstract.
• Making greater sense of the world by organising and connecting information and ideas about people, places, processes and environments.
• Extending from the familiar and concrete to the unfamiliar and abstract.
• Making greater sense of the world by organising and connecting information and ideas about people, places, processes and environments.
• Working with more complex information
about the world, including the relevance
of people’s attitudes, values and beliefs.
• Increasing the range and accuracy of investigative skills, and advancing their ability to select and apply these with increasing independence to geographical enquiry.
• Increasing the range and accuracy of investigative skills, and advancing their ability to select and apply these with increasing independence to geographical enquiry.
Yes, I expect all of these. With any luck, this would have been achieved. But if anyone looked in their books, would they see it? Probably not? Unless I was there to explain it. The course identified some strategies that can be used to help prove this, from short - long term. Examples:
1. let students know what the expectations are for the unit and the year, so they can see how to improve.
1. Short low stakes tests - these we already do every lesson
2. Group or individual work showing knowledge and understanding e.g. comparing two landforms and processes - why do they happen here? Peer or self assessed against a mark scheme with a self assessment sheet illustrating what points need to be improved, so students know specific weaknesses and strengths.
3. Students to look and annotate each others work - from another class or a model answer, then add to their self assessment sheet.
4. Include tasks that allow students to evaluate or assess within an enquiry, which links to environmental, social and economic issues.
5. evaluate their progress against the unit/year outcomes
6. summative assessment - can they use all of these skills to complete a test?
However, these are some of the issues we come up against in our setting, which means resources or self assessment will need to be adapted to support all learners:
1. Low literacy rates
2. Difficulty interpreting mark schemes
3. Inference and independence - students struggle to take responsibility for their own learning
There is also a very low cultural capital, which needs to be overcome. Ideas of how to overcome this were also discussed in the course. Here are my thoughts, some of which are already incorporated into the schemes of work as I was aware that this was an issue before:
1. Provide as many different places and contexts as possible, supported with videos, images, real life diaries, travel logs, blogs, articles and personal experiences. Also including VR or AR to help students 'experience' geography.
2. Re-sequence lessons so that all topics support each other.
3. Have multiple scales and skills mapped throughout the course, so that they are repeated in different contexts and topics.
4. Repeat knowledge frequently, throughout all topics, either by reference within lesson (linking back to previous relevant work) or by low stakes testing, quizizz, plickers, seneca, kahoot, making it more of an interactive experience, rather than a test.
The conclusion I have come to, is that there needs to be several assessed pieces throughout each topic, in order to create a 'portfolio of excellent geography' which shows progression for every student, no matter of their start point, so my next KS3 topic (weather and climate) will have:
low stakes testing
A weather report, where students create a weather map (location and context knowledge), script (understanding) and will answer questions about their report based on 'what if's' (enquiry). This will be self assessed.
Extended writing enquiry - against a success criteria (knowledge and understanding, including social, environmental and economic)
Summative assessment
This might help someone!
Kind Regards,
Miss Cox
1. Provide as many different places and contexts as possible, supported with videos, images, real life diaries, travel logs, blogs, articles and personal experiences. Also including VR or AR to help students 'experience' geography.
2. Re-sequence lessons so that all topics support each other.
3. Have multiple scales and skills mapped throughout the course, so that they are repeated in different contexts and topics.
4. Repeat knowledge frequently, throughout all topics, either by reference within lesson (linking back to previous relevant work) or by low stakes testing, quizizz, plickers, seneca, kahoot, making it more of an interactive experience, rather than a test.
The conclusion I have come to, is that there needs to be several assessed pieces throughout each topic, in order to create a 'portfolio of excellent geography' which shows progression for every student, no matter of their start point, so my next KS3 topic (weather and climate) will have:
low stakes testing
A weather report, where students create a weather map (location and context knowledge), script (understanding) and will answer questions about their report based on 'what if's' (enquiry). This will be self assessed.
Extended writing enquiry - against a success criteria (knowledge and understanding, including social, environmental and economic)
Summative assessment
This might help someone!
Kind Regards,
Miss Cox
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