102090 Curriculum 2A

Totally Made Up High School

Assessment Notification

Year: 12 Subject: Biology Faculty: Science

Name of the Task: Research Format: Presentation and report
Weightage: 20%
Date Issued: 27th August 2018 Due Date: 10th September 2018 3 pm

Outcomes Assessed:
 selects and processes appropriate qualitative and quantitative data and information using
a range of appropriate media BIO11/12-4
 analyses and evaluates primary and secondary data and information BIO11/12-5
 solves scientific problems using primary and secondary data, critical thinking skills and
scientific processes BIO11/12-6
 communicates scientific understanding using suitable language and terminology for a
specific audience or purpose BIO11/12-7
 explains non-infectious disease and disorders and a range of technologies and methods
used to assist, control, prevent and treat non-infectious disease BIO12-15

Nature of the Task:

You are a Public Health Professional and is raising public awareness about a non-infectious
disease. Investigate about the disease (guidelines are given below) and then create a Media
presentation (examples: power point presentations, animated videos, digital infographic
charts, digital posters). You will need to upload the presentation in google classroom
(Research Task folder) and a presentation date will be allotted to each student after the due
date. You should also hand over a report with major components of the content guidelines,
as hard copy on the due date.
Content guidelines: (Refer to the directive verbs in the table for better understanding)

 discuss the causes and effects of one non-infectious disease in humans, from any of
the following classes
o genetic diseases
o diseases caused by environmental exposure

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o nutritional diseases
o cancer
● collect and represent data to show the incidence, prevalence and mortality rates of non-
infectious disease
● analyse patterns of non-infectious diseases in populations, including their incidence and
prevalence
● discuss the treatment/management, and possible future directions for further research
● use secondary sources to evaluate the effectiveness of current disease-prevention
methods and develop strategies for the prevention of a non-infectious disease, including but
not limited to:
o educational programs and campaigns
o genetic engineering
Report Format:
1. Prepare a report on your chosen disease: (1000- 1200 words)
a) Include a title at the top of your report
b) Write in the contents in separate paragraphs with its own subheading
(Definition, Causes and effects, Data and analysis, Treatment and
Management, Prevention, Conclusion)
c) The conclusion should highlight the importance of raising awareness in
people and the need for implementing your strategy of prevention
d) Include images with captions or descriptions whereever appropriate (not
included in word count)
e) Include a bibliography with reliable sources (4-6) (not included in the word
count)
f) Complete the student feedback form that is distributed in the class and
attach it with the report.
Directive Verbs:

Discuss Identify or list and briefly explain

Collect and Represent Collect the data and present it in figures,
graphs, charts or tables
Analyse Organise, compare and contrast the trends
Evaluate Critically discuss the concept
Develop Produce or create a new or original work

Background data collection:

Since the assessment aims to cover atleast one disease from each class mentioned
above, students will be given a class of disease (example: genetic diseases), by counting 1, 2,
3,4 representing each class. So all ones will be doing genetic diseases, all twos would be

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diseases caused by environmental exposure etcetera. Students will be given time in class (2-
3 lessons) for grouping together with students doing the same class of diseases and have
discussions on the diseases. But the presentation and the report are to be submitted
individually. This time can also give students an opportunity to discuss with teacher for any
further guidelines on the presentation and the teacher will also provide samples on the
posters, infographic videos and power points for students’ better understanding.

Marking criteria:
Knowledge and Understanding – 15 marks
explains non-infectious disease and disorders and a range of technologies and methods
used to assist, control, prevent and treat non-infectious disease BIO12-15
Process and Analyse Data- 10 marks
BIO11/12-4 selects and processes appropriate qualitative and quantitative data and
information using a range of appropriate media
Students:

 select qualitative and quantitative data and information and represent them using a
range of formats, digital technologies and appropriate media
 evaluate and improve the quality of data

BIO11/12-5 analyses and evaluates primary and secondary data and information
Students:

 derive trends, patterns and relationships in data and information

 assess error, uncertainty and limitations in data
 assess the relevance, accuracy, validity and reliability of primary and secondary data
and suggest improvements to investigations
Problem solving and Communicating – 10 marks

BIO11/12-6 solves scientific problems using primary and secondary data, critical thinking
skills and scientific processes
Students:

 use modelling (including mathematical examples) to explain phenomena, make

predictions and solve problems using evidence from primary and secondary sources
 use scientific evidence and critical thinking skills to solve problems

BIO11/12-7 communicates scientific understanding using suitable language and terminology

for a specific audience or purpose

Students:

 select and use suitable forms of digital, visual, written and/or oral forms of

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communication
 select and apply appropriate scientific notations, nomenclature and scientific language
to communicate in a variety of contexts
 construct evidence-based arguments and engage in peer feedback to evaluate an
argument or conclusion

Feedback provided

To inform future learning your feedback will consist of:

 an annotated marking guidelines sheet

 annotations on your submitted work

 a peer feedback will be given for presentation in class

Marking Rubric
Knowledge And Understanding- 15 marks
4 marks 3 marks 2 marks 1 mark
Causes and Clearly identified Clearly identified Clearly identified Identified some
Effects the major causes the causes and the causes and causes and
and effects along effects with effects effects
with a discussion limited discussion
on each
Data collection Significant and Significant and Some significant A few data
and Analysis relevant relevant data data collected collected and no
(incidence, quantitative data collected and and no patterns trends recognised
prevalence, is collected and some trends identified
mortality rates) the analysed
trends/patterns
are identified and
discussed
Treatment and Major treatment Some of the A few treatment
Management and management treatment and and management
strategies management strategies
identified and strategies identified.
discussed with identified and
insights to future discussed
research
Prevention Critically Evaluated some Evaluated the A vague
evaluated the of the effectiveness and evaluation of the
effectiveness of effectiveness of developed an effectiveness and
current strategies the strategies and own strategy that no development
and developed a developed a needs of own strategy
combined and significant own improvement
thoughtful own strategy
strategy for
prevention

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Process and Analyse Data- 10 marks

4-5 marks 3 marks 2 marks 1 mark
BIO11/12-4 selects selects selects data is
Selects and qualitative and qualitative and qualitative or disorganised
processes quantitative quantitative and limited
quantitative
appropriate data and
data and data and resources have
qualitative and information and
quantitative information and represents information and been used
data and represents them using a represents
information them using an range of them using a
using a range of effective range formats, digital limited range of
appropriate technologies formats, digital
of formats,
media and appropriate technologies
digital
media
technologies and appropriate
describes the
and appropriate usefulness of media
media the data
evaluates and
suggests ways
to improve the
quality of data

BIO11/12-5 derives trends, derives trends, states trends, presents data

Analyses and patterns and patterns and patterns and with limited
evaluates analysis
relationships in relationships in relationships in
primary and
secondary data information information data and
and assesses error, describes information
information uncertainty and where error, with limited
limitations in uncertainty and analysis
data limitations in restates
assesses the data may occur information,
relevance, rather than
accuracy, analyses it
validity and
reliability of
primary and
secondary data
and suggests
improvements
to
investigations
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Problem solving and communicating- 10 marks

4-5 marks 3 marks 2 marks 1 mark
BIO11/12-6 demonstrates a demonstrates demonstrates a Poor
solves scientific clear an weak understanding /
problems using understanding understanding understanding Incomplete and
does not
primary and of the disease of the disease of the disease
address the
secondary data, being being as evidenced major content
critical thinking investigated as investigated as by: guidelines in a
skills and evidenced by: evidenced by: some use of scientific way
scientific extensive use of appropriate use scientific
processes scientific of new scientific vocabulary,
connections
vocabulary, vocabulary.
between data,
clear Clear observations
connections connections and new
between data, between data concepts are
observations and not supported
and are observations, by specific
supported by supported by evidences
relevant specific
evidences. evidences.

BIO11/12-7 Comprehensive clear report and Attempts to The report and

Communicates and coherent presentation give a clear and presentation
scientific report and covering all the somewhat have a few clear
understanding major content
presentation coherent report and coherent
using suitable guidelines with
language and supported with specific and data and a little
terminology for relevant evidences, presentation or no
a specific evidences and appropriate use with some evidences. Poor
audience or extensive use of of scientific specific usage of
purpose scientific language and evidences. scientific
language and demonstrates a Some usage of language and
thorough
knowledge scientific knowledge.
knowledge
language.

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Student feedback form

Class: Name:

Subject: Teacher’s Name:

1. What do you like best about this assessment task?

2. What would you like to change/improve about the task?

3. Do you think the time allotted for the assessment task was enough with respect to
the weightage?

4. What are your suggestions for a better or different assessment task in this subject?

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Sample for a digital poster

This is just a sample. Please refer to the content guidelines and select the most appropriate
contents that you need to include in the presentation. However, in the report you should
cover all the subheadings listed in the report format guidelines.

Sample animation video:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=powtoon+animation+on+ebola&qpvt=powtoon
+animation+on+ebola&view=detail&mid=F362EE2ACBFA3E40D97EF362EE2ACBFA3E40D9
7E&&FORM=VRDGAR

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Section 2: Importance of assessments and feedback in teaching practice

Assessments are tasks and observations that are incorporated at different stages of
learning, which provide evidences on how the learners are progressing according to the
standards through out the learning period and their achievement at the end of a learning
period (ACT Government- Education, 2011). Quality assessments are informed, purposeful,
authentic, valid and relevant. Stating that, approaches and design of assessments have been
a key topic of debate and scrutiny as the present education system demands to prepare
students for a future world or an uncertain world. The essay critically discusses a few major
issues of current assessment strategies. It will also explore the importance of other useful
methods, their benefits and the links to the new syllabus. It will further discuss on feedback
approaches and the relevance of constructive feedback in teaching and learning.

The specific purpose of an assessment is the important factor that will affect every
stage of its design. The purpose determines the priorities, and the context of use impose
constraints on it. Hence one type does not fit all. Usually, a single assessment is used for
various purposes and thus compromises each purpose at different levels. Consequently, by
its very nature, assessment results are only an estimate to what a student knows and can
achieve. However, regardless of the purpose all assessments should have three foundational
elements- cognition, observation and interpretation (assessment triangle) (Pellegrino, 2012;
National Research Council, 2001). These three factors should be explicitly collaborated and
designed together for a quality assessment. Otherwise, the inferences drawn from the
assessment would be meaningless.

The very important issue of assessments is that the one size fits all fallacy is frequent
and this produce inappropriate assessments that can lead to invalid conclusions of students’
knowledge and skills. Moreover, the observation and interpretation strategies in most of the
assessment approaches were designed for past conceptions of learning (Pellegrino, 2012;
National Research Council, 2001). This needs an enhancement as the current world needs
different type of inferences about student learning and achievement. Such an enhancement
requires the best level of understanding that students differ in how they represent knowledge
and develop competence in a particular domain. In addition, the classroom assessments
(formative and internal) and the large scale assessments (standardised testing) do not align
together. This can result in conflict of inferences, for both teachers and students (National
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Research Council, 2001; Kuramoto & Koizumi, 2018). Thus, there is a need for consistency
between these different types of assessments (Wiliam, Lee, Harrison & Black,2004) . This also
points towards the aspect of fairness issue in educational assessments. Assessment design
should take into consideration the student’s level of exposure to instruction and
opportunities to learn the materials being tested.

High stakes testing which is widely used to determine the students’ achievement can
be highlighted in this context, as it does not always align with the classroom assessments and
therefore impose high pressure on students, teachers, schools and parents. Although, such
testings have given positive effects on improving student achieving, it was also found to
detrimental effects on students and classroom activities (Volante & Jaffer, 2010; Smith &
Banks, 2012). The studies found that high stakes testing have increased students’ workload,
anxiety and stress. Another important consequence was the removal of subjects that are not
tested from the classroom activities (for example, arts and science). The exploration and
investigation involved in these subjects are compromised for getting high results in maths and
literacy (Volante & Jaffer, 2010). Hence creativity and innovation where some learners may
excel are not given ample opportunities. Moreover, the burden also leads to re sitting the
grades or expelled from the school. The negative impacts expand to the level that low
language ability and low socioeconomic students are forcefully expelled before testing
(Minarechova, 2012). These research findings show the inefficacy of assessment design that
are poorly aligned with the teaching and learning needs.

Any assessment (classroom based and large scale) to be effective, students must
understand and share the goals for learning. When students understand and or even
participate in developing the criteria by which their knowledge and skills will be evaluated,
they tend to learn more. This is the case when they interact with peers and when they do self-
assessment (National Research Council, 2001). Hence assessments should be designed to
meet these outcomes (NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA). (n.d).). These can be
done through different types of assessment strategies, which include story writing, letter
writing, advertisements, reflections, game playing, pre-post testing, model making,
explorations, experiments, investigations, conventions, conferences and debates,
applications, and teacher observations (Barber et al., 1995). These are existing approaches
that can be modified through technology and contexts for assessment in any learning areas.

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In conclusion, evidences support the use of a cycle of Assess, Teach, Track and Adapt for
improving teaching and learning (ACT Government- Education, 2011, page 7).

Feedback and assessment are inter-related in their goals to improve student

achievement or enhancement of student learning. When assessment evaluate the student
progress, it is regular constructive feedback that provides guidelines for further
improvements in student learning. Summative and formative feedbacks are important part
of shaping students’ progress (Harks et. al., 2014). Studies have found that a process oriented
feedback rather than a grade oriented feedback was found to improve student achievement,
interest and perceived usefulness (Harks et al., 2014; Strijbos et al., 2010; Van der Kleij et
al.,2012). This indicate the need of descriptive and continuous feedback to students at
different levels of their learning. Students perceived quality feedback to be a dialogic
guidance process rather than a summative event (Beaumont, O’Doherty & Shannon, 2011;
Mulliner & Tucker, 2017). Hence continuous formative feedback is an integral part of teaching
and learning.

Effective feedback promotes better learning and future achievement. Students and
some teachers have agreed that effective feedback included individual verbal and or
individual typed descriptive feedback (Mulliner & Tucker, 2017; Dawson et. al., 2018). From
the evidences listed above, it is clearly understood that feedbacks should individually given
and should have comments that are usable, detailed, considerate of affect and personalised
to student’s own work. This also take into consideration the choice of tasks given to the
students. Feedback should be based on the type of task, the medium presentation and the
level of the student’s knowledge in the content domain.

Feedback is not only important for a student’s development, it is also needed for the
assessment of a teacher’s efficacy in delivering the content and skills. Hence feedback should
be two- way in teaching and learning. As stated above students achieve better when they
participate in developing the criteria on which they are assessed. Therefore, it is key that
students should be given opportunities to give feedback on the assessment tasks or learning
activities provided to them. This can also help the teacher to identify the areas of
improvement and design better resources, activities and assessments. A student feedback on

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a task can help the teacher understand the background and interests of the student and hance
develop more interactive and engaging tasks in future.

With respect to the learning area of science, assessment and feedback are important
as students focus on developing content knowledge as well as working scientifically skills
according to the new syllabus. Hence, it is key to design assessments evaluating both the
areas. Assessments such as experiments, research, model making, fieldwork and debates are
all effective ways of assessments of these. Inquiry based learning and assessment not only
creates creativity but also help students discover and learn things by themselves, which in
turn help them to excel in high stakes testing (Longo, 2010). This is further enhanced when
incorporated with technology in classrooms for assessments. Strategies like Classroom
Response Technology (CRT) and Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) are
found to be effective tools for formative assessments. All these systems have the key
elements of question driven instruction, dialogic discourse, formative assessment and meta
communication (Beatty & Gerace, 2009)
In conclusion, all activities including assessments and feedback in classrooms should
be student centred, if they are to be meaningful and serve the purpose of student learning
and improvement. It should be based on the context and clear on its goals. Moreover, this
should evolve throughout the teaching practice.

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REFRENCES:
ACT Government- Education. (2011). Teachers’ Guide To Assessment. Retrieved from
https://www.education.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/297182/Teachers-
Guide-To-Assessment.pdf
Barber et. al. (1995). A Variety of Assessment Strategies for Science Learning. Retrieved
from https://www.crscience.org/pdf/Assessment_Strategies.pdf
Beatty, I., & Gerace, D. (2009). Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A
Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response
Technology. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(2), 146-162
Beaumont, C., O’Doherty, M., & Shannon, L. (2011). Reconceptualising assessment
feedback: a key to improving student learning?. Studies In Higher Education, 36(6),
671-687. doi: 10.1080/03075071003731135
Dawson, P., Henderson, M., Mahoney, P., Phillips, M., Ryan, T., Boud, D., & Molloy, E.
(2018). What makes for effective feedback: staff and student perspectives.
Assessment & Evaluation In Higher Education, 1-12. doi:
10.1080/02602938.2018.1467877
Harks, B., Rakoczy, K., Hattie, J., Besser, M., & Klieme, E. (2013). The effects of feedback on
achievement, interest and self-evaluation: the role of feedback’s perceived
usefulness. Educational Psychology, 34(3), 269-290. doi:
10.1080/01443410.2013.785384
Kuramoto, N., & Koizumi, R. (2018). Current issues in large-scale educational
assessment in Japan: Focus on national assessment of academic ability and
university entrance examinations. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy
& Practice, 25(4), 415-433.
Longo, C. (2010). Fostering Creativity or Teaching to the Test? Implications of State
Testing on the Delivery of Science Instruction. The Clearing House: A Journal
of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 83(2), 54-57.
Minarechová, M. (2012). Negative impacts of high-stakes testing. Journal of
Pedagogy, 3(1), N/a.

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Mulliner, E., & Tucker, M. (2017). Feedback on feedback practice: Perceptions of

students and academics. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(2),
266-288.
National Research Council. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of
educational assessment. Pelligrino, J., Chudowsky, N., and Glaser, R. (Ed.). Board on
Testing and Assessment, Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. pp. 17-40, 177-
280. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10019/knowing-what-students-
know-the-science-and-design-of-educational
NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA). (n.d). Principles of Effective Assessment.
Retrieved from https://syllabus.nesa.nsw.edu.au/support-materials/principles-of-
effective-assessment/
Pellegrino, J. (2012). Assessment of science learning: Living in interesting times.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49(6), 831-841.
Smyth, E., & Banks, J. (2012). High stakes testing and student perspectives on teaching
and learning in the Republic of Ireland. Educational Assessment, Evaluation
and Accountability, 24(4), 283-306.
Strijbos, J. W., Narciss, S., & Dünnebier, K. (2010). Peer feedback content and sender’s
competence level in academic writing revision tasks: Are they critical for feedback
perceptions and efficiency? Learning and Instruction, 20, 291–303. doi:
10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.08.008
Van der Kleij, F. M., Eggen, T. J. H. M., Timmers, C. F., & Veldkamp, B. P. (2012). Effects of
feedback in a computer-based assessment for learning. Computers & Education, 58,
263–272. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.07.020
Volante, L., & Jaafar, S. (2010). Assessment Reform and the Case for Learning -Focused
Accountability. The Journal of Educational Thought (JET) / Revue De La Pensée
Éducative, 44(2), 167-188.
Wiliam, D., Lee, C., Harrison, C., & Black, P. (2004). Teachers developing assessment for
learning: impact on student achievement. Assessment In Education: Principles,
Policy & Practice, 11(1), 49-65. doi: 10.1080/0969594042000208994

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