Level 4 Assessment Question

To get 100% in a numeracy assessment is asking a lot. If learners think that they have to get 100% it can have a devastating effect on their confidence - never mind the confidence of their tutor. Here is an assessment question with my take on how it could be used to assess a learner at Level 4. Click on the picture to make the text bigger.
Feel free to comment.

Refreshed Core Skills Numeracy

Anyone teaching the new core skills units will be thinking about the assessments in the new units. The units can be assessed in different ways

• Assessments (like what we know and luv :-))
• Project
• Portfolio
  

Whatever method is used the idea is to make assessemnt less of a burden for students without putting an enormous burden on tutors. I am working on the more traditional type of asessment. Initially I thought that 100% to pass was unachievable. One numeracy question can provide about 10 or more 'opportunities' for error and I was concerned that students who would have passed the old units would not pass the new units.

Guidance Notes (purely my own)
The students do not need to get 100% at a single attempt.
They can be given questions at different times e.g. teach a topic and then give a question on that topic.
If they are given 3 questions and get one of the wrong e.g. one on 'pay' they will only need to resit a different but similar question.
If the student makes a slip but are otherwise 'solid' give them an opportunity to spot their error and give them a chance to 'sort it'.

Your professional judgement can be used - just hope that your judgement is the same as the EVs

Wordpress

I am trying out Wordpress insead of Blogger for two latest Blogs
Next session I am teaching SQA Numeracy Level 5 to IT students. Their blog has just been born.
www.clydebankit.wordpress.com Numeracy for Computing. I used Mindmanager to plan the course. It will be a mixture of on-line materials, spreadsheets and printed materials.

Sitemeter

Sitemeter is the hit counter I have been using for my blogs. I had noticed strange things happening and now I know why. Sitemeter has sold out. If you want to know more read http://michaelsync.net/2007/04/11/things-you-should-know-before-using-sitemeter
I will be removing sitemeter from my blogs over the next few weeks.

SQA Digital Literacy

I came across the SQA Digital Literacy page when I was looking for idea for contextualising numeracy for ICT students. I am looking for resources and ideas for SCQF Level 5. The Digital Numeracy is at Level 3. There are Digital Numeracy Student Notes and Specification. There is an ASP in SQA Secure (password needed). The assessment is a bit disappointing. Quality issues have been missed eg the abbreviation for gram is G, capacity is in mls etc. The NAB is still pretty general rather than related to IT.
The unit (F1L1 09) was published in 2007 just before the 'refreshing' of Core Skills. Interestingly some of the assessment can be 'open book'. It is certainly worth considering.

RBS Money Sense

RBS Money Sense is very relevant in today's financial climate. It has a section for adults and the material for schools has a section for 16-19 year olds just starting out in the world of work. Some of the things seem pretty obvious .... like advice on prioritising spending.

Google Docs Test

This is a test of Google Docs. A document was prepared in MS Word and Uploaded to Google docs. It had to be saved as Word 2003 not 2007.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddtxqbsw_8fs79v2vb

I always reckon that if software can display the quadratic formula it is OK for maths.

I have tried out Verdana and would advise against it. 'π' (pie) comes out as a sort of 'n'. Greek letters are useless.

Mindmaps for Numeracy

Clydebank College closed for a day in February so that staff could have a 'Professional Updating' day. I spent the day in Borders College and was impressed by what I saw. I use Mindjet Mindmanager and was interested to see it being in the planning of contextualised numeracy. I am now using Mindjet Mindmap 8 to put a contextualised numeracy course together.
To minimise the work I have split numeracy into two strands:
Life Skills
Everyone should be competent or at least aware of these.
This is things such as health (BMI, Food labelling etc), Travel (timetables, currency etc) and Financial Management (icome, tax, debt etc)
Vocational Skills
Each vocational area will have topics related to their vocational area. Sometimes there will be an overlap with 'life skills'