Examination Committee Discussion Strategy: Explanation
For this activity, you’ll need several pieces of work produced by learners, based on the topic of study.
This could be work produced by your current learners, or work produced the previous year.
Your selection should cover a variety of grade levels and, if possible, a series of different approaches to whatever the task was.
The purpose of the activity is for learners to discuss the work and to use a mark-scheme to assess it.
The benefits are threefold.
- First, learners will be talking at length about the topic, making use of what they have learned to make judgements about the work in front of them.
- Second, learners get to see a variety of different responses to a question or task. This gives them ideas about how to engage with the topic.
- Third, they will spend time discussing and using a mark-scheme. This helps them become familiar with how their own work is marked and to understand what success entails.
The activity runs as follows:
Divide the class into groups of four and give each group a photocopy of the work you selected, along with a mark-scheme.
Explain that learners must read through the work they’ve been given, read through the mark-scheme, and then discuss how they can apply the mark-scheme to the work.
Give learners between ten and fifteen minutes to complete the task (although the time it takes can vary considerably depending on the complexity of the work and the mark-scheme).
If you want, you can facilitate a whole-class discussion at the end of the activity.
To do this, select two or three pieces of work and ask groups to share their thoughts on these, along with what marks they gave them and why.
Examination Committee Discussion Strategy: Example
Topic: The repeal of the Corn Laws
Let us imagine that last year, learners in Year 11 wrote an essay entitled ‘What factors led to the repeal of the Corn Laws?’
The teacher photocopies three of these. They include one essay that scored high, one that scored in the middle, and one that scored low.
The names of the learners who wrote these essays are obscured to ensure anonymity.
Each group receives a copy of the essays along with two copies of the GCSE History mark-scheme for extended written answers.
Learners begin by reading through the essays and then discussing them as a group.
They then read through the mark-scheme.
Next, the group discusses the mark-scheme and how they would grade the respective essays.
The teacher makes it a precondition that agreement must be reached for all essays before a group can say they have finished the task.
When the teacher decides the time is up, they lead a whole-class discussion, looking at each of the essays in turn. Different groups put forward their ideas and there is a debate about what marks each of the essays should be given.
Examination Committee Discussion Strategy: Extensions and Developments
- At the end of the activity, ask learners to reflect in their groups on the difficulties of using mark-schemes as well as the benefits they can provide. As part of this, encourage learners to think about how a teacher or examiner might use a mark-scheme to assess their work.
- Challenge learners to highlight examples of good practice in each piece of work, to connect these to specific parts of the mark-scheme, and to explain of why these are particularly strong elements of the work in question.
