h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5385556.stm

Opinions? I like the idea wish I hadn't had GCSE maths coursework. Not so keen on coursework having to be supervised on the other hand I know a lot of people who had parents do there coursework for them.

about bloomin' time

The problem is that if all coursework has to be supervised then that is going to seriously cut down on lesson time doing other things. There would have to be a large scaling down of coursework for it to work.

I think coursework should be stopped completely (except for things like Art)

How different is 'supervised coursework' to an examination?

what is coursework? Homework? So if that is axed, it means the grade is based on in class exams, participation, etc.?

That's fine, can't see anything wrong with it.

I might make the case that you should still require completed coursework (or a percentage thereof) in order to pass - e.g. you get an "incomplete" if you don't do the coursework, you get your grade earned from exams if you do the coursework.

Just an incentive to keep the lil' buggers doing their homework.

There used to be an English GCSE done in adult evening classes that was 100% coursework with no exam, just a couple of asignments had to be done in view of the course teacher, simply to check that the work the student does supervised is the same as work handed in.
To be honest the idea of getting a grade on course work that is not seen being done is absurd as anyone could have done it if no checks are carried out.

I always hated coursework, although I think in some cases this is a problem that has to be solved through electronic submission so that plagiarism checking software can be employed.

Coursework in GCSE maths though? Silly.

Arnie, GCSE grades are based entirely on end of course exams and coursework, although I remember history had a supervised coursework module when I did it, oh, way back in 2002.

The other problem with coursework is that a big chunk of 16 year olds simply will not do it, and most of the remainder will do it shoddily the night before.

Thanks for the info Bouncy.

"The other problem with coursework is that a big chunk of 16 year olds simply will not do it, and most of the remainder will do it shoddily the night before."

Doesn't sound very different from the US system...

As an adult at evening classes I did GCSE maths.
There were 2 coursework pieces that counted towards an exam grade.
On one I did drawings of a garden folly that would be made out of concrete. I found out the weight/volume of cement, sand, gravel, etc and worked out the quantities needed,
For the 2nd piece of courswork I did a survey on smoking and went around asking questions on whether people smoked, thought it was harmful, etc. For this one it had to use statistics, I used the Spearman's Rank coefficient Formula for the first and last time ever in my life.
For the whole exam I got an "A" grade, which for someone who was very poor at maths before was good!

I have mixed feelings regarding coursework.

When I was doing GCSEs, I remember hearing a lot of people around me mentioning they'd had help from family members and tutors. This was incredibly unfair for those who didn't have that help available, and I felt that coursework was a bit pointless in that respect.

But at the same time, courseworks allow you to do more detailed work than what you would otherwise be able to do in exams. And that's a good thing - not everyone performs well in exams, and it shows a wider use of skills and what a student is really capable of doing.

Exams are as we all know rubbish.

Sure some people can prove their ability to remember things and to get them down quickly and accurately under pressure.
Good for them.

Bad for those who cant and also bad for people who are looking for intelligent people who might suffer from verves, or happen to have had a disturbed nights sleep before the Exam. Infact any number of small events or big ones might e affecting a student and mean that they under perform in an exam.

Coursework is an even worse system. I loved to write as a kid and as a result over the two years of my GCSE English course I completed twice the number of essays neede for the course. A friend who had got two done aske me for my spares. So I gave him 10 essays all of them marked lower by my English teacher than the ten I submitted. Perhaps because of my por spelling or maybe because Parma coppied them out in a neater hand than Id written mine he got a C and I got an D grade.

I know it would be a drag but there should be alternative measuring systems available so that students can apply to the ones they think best suit them or even do both seperatley but a mixture of the two is something that can get the worst of both systems, just as easily as it can get the best out of some students.

one love

I quite like the American way to be honest. Students are assessed constantly through the year etc and that counts towards applications for colleges. Of course there is more as an American will tell me but in my opion its better.

I actually enjoyed English coursework. I used to lock myself in my room and spend many a happy evening writing about Henry the IV.

Coursework ideally is good for some subjects, as it shows an aptitude for independent study, which is important for uni.

Perhaps a compromise would be an exam where reference materials can be taken in, to be used in preparing the answer (in coursework style) to a previously unseen question/topic.

I've long thought that neither coursework & memory test exams are good ways of assessing comprehension of the subject.

well they kind of do that for english literature - lettign you take in the text which you can annotate which I quite like the idea of.

I've never felt confident in exams not in science or math. In science, you do need to actually memorize some facts; you also do need to display logic. I think both of those can be tested by exams.

Sure people have bad exams - it happens. But if you take enough of them, you get a chance to demonstrate your abilities, and the one or two mishaps won't really mean that much in the big picture.

The best option, surely, from an educational as well as an individuals point of view, is to have a balance of differnt assessment means at hand and used for each subject in relivent ways. Not everyone lurns in the same way, and simularly of course not all of us perform well at any given 'system of measurement' of our knowledge/aptitude. The whole point of 'Examination', weather through Exams themselves, or coursework, or continual assessment means, is to measure the pupils ability/aptitude/knowledge of the subject being studied, whereas we all know that 'exam' is about 50% measuring how good your exam technique is; not at all a measure of how good you are at the subject being tested by the exam.
A half decent teacher should be able to tell if the work a student is handing in as course work is their own effort or a colaberation with others, or a plain plagerism from sources such as the net. The teacher should have been assessing the pupils work throughout the course, both the work done in class, homework and of course any coursework that counts towards the final grade for the subject.
At various times I've had a whole range of differnt assessment balances; from 100% exams on certain things at university, including some modules that consisted of three three hour exams great for me I love exams, but I know some people really faultered on them despite being relaly rather good at the subject matterial; partly I think it was their fault for having chosen a module (it wasn't a compulsory one), where they knew in advance how it was to be assessed.
I've also done modules at Uni that were 100% based on coursework, which for some again didn't suit em... You have to wonder why they picked em At GCSE we had a range too but all had some exam and some coursework componant, some had a kind of 'continueal assessment' percentage in the overall mark too; 'Mini exams', sat in class at the end of some aspects of the GCSE these shortish multiple choice exams each counted a very small percentage towards teh overall mark but gave a good idea as we went along of how each of us were doing I think a balance is the key, given a 5050 split between coursework and exam, it'd be pretty damn obvious if someone ended up with ultra low marks in the exam yet great high marks on the coursework, that such a student might have had help on the coursework side of things

I had a quick discussion about the 100% coursework English GCSE exam with an English teacher who ran such a course and said that they seemed a good idea for those who can't cope with exam stress. She quite rightly said, well would you really want someone who can't cope with exam stress to be able to get through and end up as a surgeon operating on you!