Not every student is ready to engage in a full level 6 programme at year 11, let alone progress to level 7 at the beginning of year 12. Some students will require more time to reach curriculum level 6.
A two-year level 6 science programme maintains a pathway for students who may otherwise reach the end of their formal science learning at year 10 or 11.
Incorporating flexible entry and exit points into a two-year course allows students to progress on to level 7 when they are ready.
A course of study towards level 6 over two or more years is likely to involve learning experiences across a range of NoS-rich contexts.
A well-designed programme will also lead to the gradual accumulation of skills in literacy and numeracy within a science context. It will also strengthen the development of the key competencies essential for citizenship.
The focus of this programme is nature of science. Each learning objective below includes the section of the NoS strand that provides the applicable achievement objectives.
Students:
Students:
Teachers are able to choose high-interest, relevant contexts and, given the variety of achievement standards now available, select suitable standards to use for assessment purposes.
While these standards are set firmly at curriculum level 6, internal assessment often yields better outcomes for lower ability students, who are more likely to experience success when assessed incrementally as they learn, rather than as an isolated event and under the time pressures of external examinations held late in each year.
Teachers involved in NZASE (New Zealand Association of Science Educators) have worked together to develop a set of assessment tasks specifically scaffolded to meet the needs of less able students.
As with all NCEA tasks, they provide the opportunity for students to show evidence at all levels. The language in which the tasks have been expressed and the way they have been structured make them easily accessible to students who find the language of written assessment challenging. This also makes them suitable for ESOL students.
Learning in this programme could be assessed using a variety of standards – for example:
Learning in this programme could be assessed using a variety of standards – for example:
The literacy and numeracy standards are designed to be used across learning areas other than mathematics and English. Teachers could consider whether to assess their students against one or more of these standards as part of their science programmes.
Consider using a portfolio to collect evidence for internally assessed standards.
Breaking down each standard into items that contribute to a single task helps students to focus on a particular aspect of the task. They may also repeat an activity in new contexts.
Students and teachers can use an assessment checklist to select the piece of work that represents the student’s “best efforts” and submit this as evidence. In this way they can put together a portfolio of three or four items the student has completed over an extended period of study.
This approach gives students agency over the accumulation of assessment evidence. It can be particularly helpful for students whose attendance is irregular.
When students are involved in choosing the evidence they submit for assessment, they become more reflective learners and gain a clearer understanding of how to manage an assessment situation.
For many learners, this approach results in more successful outcomes than they would experience from a single external examination.
Last updated April 30, 2013