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What is wrong with all examination?

Arran Cameron
During my secondary school years every GCSE subject had a coursework component. In 2007 coursework was dropped from maths making it all examination. In more recent years other subjects have gone all examination.


I strongly uphold the main GCSE subjects (English, maths, science, probably geography, history and RS as well) as all examination with no coursework, as I believe it to be the fairest method overall, although coursework components should continue for creative subjects including art, music, and D&T.


Whenever I state my view I get accused of being another Michael Gove.


I am aware that the Lib-Dems and the Green Party want to re-instate coursework for ALL GCSE subjects. Is this intelligent thought or just a whim of a liberal chattering class without any regard for students themselves or the desires of the silent majority?
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    Arran Cameron:


    There is no rule imposed by exam boards against template files for coursework assignments. Formal typesetting is not part of the school ICT curriculum and I'm doubtful whether many teachers even know much about the subject.

     



     

    Very true. I would also say that most engineers are not experts in the subject either. I know rather more about the subject than is perhaps good for me, but that is nothing to do with being an engineer but rather due to my father-in-law being a leading expert in typography. However the issue here is that the coursework or exam should be testing the students in what they know about the particular subject and not whether they have capability in extraneous matters such as typesetting. The fact that there is now an expectation that coursework is submitted having been done on a computer automatically introduces some discrimination - someone who is a whizz and types at 80wpm has a definite advantage over someone else who can only manage about 15wpm. However what should be done about that, if anything, I don't know.

    Alasdair
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    Alasdair Anderson:


    However the issue here is that the coursework or exam should be testing the students in what they know about the particular subject and not whether they have capability in extraneous matters such as typesetting.

    True. Teachers have not always been very effective at teaching students how to properly format and present a piece of GCSE coursework. Writing a report is uncharted territory to many students (regardless of their intelligence or ability in the subject) and some of them struggle when presented with an open ended task.  

    The fact that there is now an expectation that coursework is submitted having been done on a computer automatically introduces some discrimination - someone who is a whizz and types at 80wpm has a definite advantage over someone else who can only manage about 15wpm. However what should be done about that, if anything, I don't know.


    I'm a bit dubious about this. Schools have over the decades have hammered kids with handwriting but a significant proportion struggle to write large screeds of text to presentation standard even in Y11. I'm not sure if the proposers of GCSE coursework even thought about this back in the 1980s. Kids tend to pick up IT skills easily in their own time so their ability to (learn to) type fast is less of an issue than in years gone by. In fact the time consuming aspect of producing coursework on a computer is not typing but the formatting and the presentation. Micro$oft Word has so many features that around 90% of users only use 10% of them. With hindsight, I argue that schools have overlooked the importance of (fast) typing as a skill for both GCSE and higher education as well as employment because of the stubbornness of teachers and their aversion to work being typed rather than hand written.   



     

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    Moderator Edit: Post removed at the request of the Author.
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    ".......the vast majority of the secondary school curriculum in the main subjects is irrelevant for everyday life in the real world and most employment. It's really an exercise in showing the world whether you can learn rather than learning something useful or relevant."


    At the moment I work on the control of industrial diesel engines and my work involves all the chemistry, maths and physics you could want, and which has a solid basis in all the stuff my science and maths teachers tried their best to get across to us at O level in 1979.

    More generally I've made a living from being 16 to now (and hopefully beyond) with the stuff I got taught at secondary school, so I fundamentally disagree with the thesis partially quoted above.


    Cheers

    David

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