ERLCMath30-2: Thoughts on Diploma Results?

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Math 30-2 Staffroom -- A Safe Place to Share and Reflect

Thoughts on Diploma Results?

Hello All,

Since the diploma results are out, I am curious about everyone's thoughts.

The provincial average was low at 56.4% and the percentage of students who failed the exam was high at 33.4%. Also, the students' marks dropped significantly by 10% from class to exam mark.

So, was the exam too hard? Are the 'wrong' types of students taking this course? Will you readjust what you did in semester one?

Personally, our students did better than the provincial average, but their marks dropped dramatically. We are adjusting some of assessments, and changing the weighting on our cumulatives to make them worth more, which will lower the class averages to be more in-line with the diploma average.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers,

Mike

Is it our mandate or primary goal to have marks in line with the diploma? If the students show that they have met the prescribed outcomes good for them. I believe that the class marks are going to be higher than final exams anyway as many assessments are on smaller chunks of outcomes. Also we have little control over what students do extra in terms of preparing for finals - they have some responsibility for that, I think.

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My students got the 30 Applied exam by mistake. They came out of it cursing me for being an awful teacher because I hadn't taught them a whole bunch of things (matrices, vectors, etc.). As it was an adminstrative error, they will be getting an exemption from it. It's probably good for their mark, because I don't think any of them did any preparation outside of class time.

So I don't have a lot to contribute to the discussion otherwise, but I thought it was maybe a funny story for the rest of you. (I was going ballistic at the time)

Actually I do have a question - since I didn't get a perusal copy to look at - was it fairly similar to the practice questions provided?

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Terry,

That is crazy! Did the exam say Applied 30 on the front, or was it just Applied material on the inside?

I thought the exam was heavy on the reading, and the couple of logic questions were fairly tough in my estimation. I think the Quest A+ may be a good review for them for the diploma, but my fields tests didn't help.

It certainly doesn't help having the exam so late with a bunch of kids that typically don't prepare out of class time.

We are still concerned at our school over the discrepency between class marks and exam marks. We strive to have a class average of +/- 5% of their diploma score (not the provincial avergae), and not really too concerned about the provincial average as long we higher :)

We will be going through each specific outcome this Friday and seeing where we did well and where we need to improve.

Mike

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I did not think the exam was hard. But I will change two things about the way I prepare my students. I will spend a bit more time on Rational Functions and I will vary the type of question that I ask. I found that some of the questions were very creative.

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