I found this site whilst searching the Internet, from a Science teacher called Stewart Feather in Birmingham.  He has developed a whole approach to APP including a recording system that minimises the time demands on the teacher.

I would recommend that science teachers who use APP on a regular basis check out Stewart’s site - it is well worth a look.

]]> http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/11/app-approach-to-managing-the-paperwork.html/feed 1 http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/07/science-app-dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket.html http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/07/science-app-dont-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket.html#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:00:18 +0000 Rob Butler http://fiendishlyclever.com/?p=2181 Continue reading →]]> Followers of my blog know that I like APP.  That’s not to say that I don’t realise its limitations and problems, and I know it has got a lot of bad press because of the way some schools have chosen to implement it.  I still maintain that APP has a lot going for it – especially when it comes to developing students as scientists, and for consistency of assessment data between primary and secondary.

However I’d recommend schools to maintain familiarity with the statutory level descriptors and their use.  Teachers will have to use these descriptors at the end of each key stage, and therefore be confident in any judgements they make.  APP levels will provide evidence of the general level that a student is working at and their development as a ‘scientist’ but they are not statutory.

My advice would be for teachers to use the National Curriculum level descriptors to assess some of their work, or to be conversant with the statements and how APP descriptors work alongside them.

I looked at the lesson plan for my next Y7 lesson, which was from the A&E sequence.  Students were looking at some of the key pieces of equipment used in a hospital used to aid diagnosis.  The teaching resources needed a little differentiation, partly to make them more accessible and partly to speed up that part of the lesson so we were free to move on.

I looked at the APP criteria that matched this lesson, which also gave me an idea of the outcomes I could expect from my students and what the next steps should be.  I chose AF2 and students were recognising roles in the hospital with science and applications of science.

I then modified the task so that students would have more of a chance to demonstrate these skills in a way that suited their special needs.  I decided that students would be presenting to the hospital board (who were looking for job cuts) and explaining to them that science was important in the hospital and which jobs used some kind of science.  Students would also mention the key pieces of apparatus used in a hospital, relating applications of science to specific properties (e.g. the X-ray machine).

Students were videoed making their presentation to the hospital board after planning the presentation (in pairs).  Students then watched back the presentations as a class the next lesson and offered peer feedback on both the presentations and the specific science skills (above) we were looking at.

I’ve included the presentation and worksheet that I used for this lesson, however I wanted to make the point that APP isn’t about collecting mountains of paperwork or one off assessment style lessons.  It can be used to aid most science activities (either for assessment, development or both) and that the writing of Wikid Science makes this process extremely easy.

Resources

equipment used for diagnosis

Presenting to hospital board – APP

From the QCDA:

• schools are to use the LDs for levels 4 to 8 plus exceptional performance that were set out in the 2007 secondary curriculum handbook (not the 2009 revised versions which were consulted on last year and sent to al schools in February of this year). For levels 1-3, they are to use the current descriptions from the primary curriculum (1999). (This applies for all subjects except citizenship, MFL and RE where all levels were set out in the 2007 Handbook).

• this applies from 2011 for Y9 pupils being statutorily assessed for the first time under the current secondary curriculum but from this year in schools which run a compressed 2-year key stage 3 and statutorily assess at the end of Y8.
  

• we will be adjusting the secondary National Curriculum website and putting up consolidated lists of all the level descriptions to be used. This will create an issue in mathematics (where two of the four ATs changed their name in 2007) and in science (where all ATs changed their name). We propose to list the LDs under the 2007 AT heading with a footnote to explain that, L1 to L3, the AT has a different name in the primary curriculum.

• the line on APP is that, since national standards have not changed, it remains completely relevant although we also remind that it’s voluntary

Hopefully this provides much needed clarity as we all rush to complete our end of year teacher assessments.

Ministers have also decided not to proceed with the revised level descriptions which were due to come into force for Key Stage 3 from this September. Secondary schools should therefore continue to use existing level descriptions.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised because this Government seems determined to stamp their mark on education policy, regardless of the impact on schools and the wasting of many hours of time spent on preparation by teachers.

I’m sure that many schools have already been working with the new level descriptions for a year or two (as the new curriculum rolled out) and to suddenly switch to the old descriptors in this way is most inconsiderate.  Fortunately the changes to the level descriptors are only cosmetic and the essence of each level has not been changed.  What is a level 5 with the old level descriptions should be a level 5 with the new (and now abandoned) level descriptions.

Where does this leave APP?

• Remember APP isn’t and never was statutory – You don’t have to do APP whatever your SLT says!
• There is no right and wrong way of using the APP materials
• APP is about robust assessment and embedding Assessment for Learning (AfL) in teaching
• APP works alongside either set of level descriptors (new or old)
• APP is not about collecting banks of evidence for every student
• APP isn’t about a once a term assessed task (although this is a place to start)
• APP can still be used to assess ‘how science works’ skills.
• APP can still be used to inform teacher planning and expected lesson outcomes.

So APP isn’t dead yet, and can still be a useful and valuable tool for teachers of science, whatever the key stage (from KS2 to KS4!).

Update (11/06/10):

Given the lack of detail in the Government statement I’m wondering if I got the wrong end of the stick.  On the QCDA site there are level descriptors (KS3) from 1 upwards, and a document dated hidden at the bottom of the page, and then the 2007 descriptors also listed at the bottom that seem identical but missing levels 1 to 3.  Is it the new levels 1 – 3 we are not meant to be using?  I can’t believe we are going back to the v. old level descriptors but in the lack of detailed guidance from the Dept of Education it’s hard to know what to think!

Just to add some more fuel to this fire, National Strategies have released some resources to support the use of APP for assessment for learning (AfL) across primary and secondary phases.

National strategies say the purpose of these materials is to:

• define what is meant by Learning targets
• explain the principles of setting Learning targets
• outline the process of setting Learning targets and how this can be linked explicitly to opportunities for periodic assessment through Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP)
• identify strategies which enable pupils to take responsibility for their own progress and become more independent learners.

As with all National Strategy materials you have to read through it and take the bits out to use that are useful and manageable (whilst National Strategy material is well intentioned, I don’t think they have any appreciation of the workload of the average teacher and if you followed their advice to the letter you’d never have time to teach anything!).  

What this document is useful for is looking at how you can construct some meaningful targets for students to improve from APP materials. It is downloadable from the National Strategies site and is worth a flick through, providing you remember that you won’t be able to follow their advice to the letter.

Remember that Ofsted under the current inspection framework are looking for progress.  I attended a briefing this week at which an experienced Ofsted inspector was talking about the importance of linking targets to grades/levels (in secondary schools).  APP provides a quick and easy way to do this in your lessons, and to build in some meaningful assessment for learning which is one of the cornerstones of good (science) teaching.

Teaching assistants working with individuals or small groups of students could use the APP criteria to ask appropriate questions with the intention of moving individuals on.  Using the APP gives a structure to this process and allows the TA to select appropriate questions.

I wrote a short document for teaching assistants in my local authority.  Feel free to download it and distribute it to your own teaching assistants.

APP For Teaching Assistants (PDF)

APP For Teaching Assistants (.doc format)

For several years I’ve used level assessed tasks as one of my peer assessment tools in science lessons. I’ve used them with a range of students of different abilities from foundation tier GCSE to Entry level and below. Usually I’ve used them part way through a topic to check understanding and highlight opportunities to develop through the rest of the topic.

I was recently contacted by Dr Mark Evans (co-author of Badger APP materials) regarding a post on my blog I had made about APP in science (and why teachers don’t get it). Mark kindly gave me access to his Webquest APP tasks and I decided to try them out with one of my groups as an AfL activity.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with these Webquests, you are given a structured task supported by online reference materials (including updated links to other sites). These materials do not rely on text books, and the materials can be uploaded onto your VLE, making them suitable for homework and cover lessons as well as for use in class.

The lesson I had chosen wasn’t ideal because I had to leave half way through, but that still gave me 40 minutes to start my students off. I had chosen a task titled “Invisibility cloaks” in which students accessed reference materials about how light travels and reflection/refraction of light. Students were then asked to apply this knowledge to describe a model and see if it could be used to explain how to make an invisibility cloak (Harry Potter style).

My students struggled with this task, not because of the task itself, but because of their low literacy and independence levels. Less able students struggled with reading information off of the web sites, and text-to-speech tools aren’t very popular with our students. This is the first barrier to success for my students.

Some students who could access the information struggled with its application to a near identical diagram, and were unable to take in the short presentations on reflection/refraction. Even when an adult sat down with them and explained the content, many students were unable to apply this knowledge and identify which scientific evidence would support their ideas.

All students needed lots of guidance as they worked through the task and none were able to access it independently. This is not a criticism of the Webquests, in fact as I marked the tasks I was impressed by the structured way in which the student worksheet led the students to gather the required information and apply it to a given situation that could be assessed. I would have no hesitation in recommending these activities for use with more able and more literate students than my own (as part of a balanced and varied diet of AfL and APP activities).

An example of a completed activity is given here (page 1, page 2) complete with annotations to help me make sense of the levels before we follow up with a peer assessment/target setting lesson.  Unfotunately it wasn’t possible to capture  the good quality science discussion that also took place in this lesson.

So how could I make this task work better for my students?

• Reduce the literacy requirements of the task still further by using more narrated animations or video so that students could use the web materials as a reference material independently.
• Provide a little more structure to the writing frame to support students with lower literacy, maybe as sub-headings or more diagrammatical work.
• Add level information to each step of the writing frame so that students can more easily check their levels as most were unable to access the level ladder, even when it was presented in pupil speak.
• Use tasks like this more regularly so that students become used to finding things out for themselves and less reliant on an adult feeding them instructions or information (training)
• Refer to APP criteria and next steps more frequently so that students become better at identifying ways forward. Not all APP activities need to be written or recorded, it is possible to use APP criteria in ordinary AfL activities (rather than slotting in off-the-shelf tasks in the way you would do a test).
• Use a task better suited to the topic/material my students were most familiar with rather than use an off the shelf task.

Remember that there isn’t a proper way to use APP.  Tasks like the one above are only one example from a number of ways that APP can be used in schools.  Good AfL is key to good quality science teaching and in turn to embedding APP and making it work.

Have you used APP tasks with students of low ability or with low literacy levels?  What obstacles did you come across and how did you overcome them?

Yes APP arose from the need for consistent assessment data between schools and more importantly to fix the discrepancy between primary and secondary NC levels (I’ve yet to find a secondary teacher who uses primary science levels as a reliable baseline!).   Yes APP came from the National Strategies team but the bank of APP statements represent a very useful resource for AfL – after all what is the point in having accurate and reliable assessment data and doing nothing with it?

As a leader of APP practice within the authority I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject.  The points below summarise my thinking about APP

What APP is:

• An assessment system that allows for consistency between teachers, between schools and between key stages
• An opportunity for AfL linked to meaningful (sort of) criteria
• Customisable to suit the needs of you, your school and your learners.
• An opportunity to gather reliable formative assessment data for every learner

What APP isn’t:

• Statutory – no one can tell you what you MUST do
• Hours of trawling through students’ work and books
• Something that need increase our workload
• A tick-list of what a student has or hasn’t achieved (software companies take note)
• Just another type of summative assessment
• Perfect!

I teach in a special school where teacher assessment has been for norm for years.  APP is nothing new to us – we’ve been following a very similar process for years, finding new ways to make assessment work.  I know APP isn’t perfect, but it occurs to me that a lot of teachers seem to be getting into a flap about nothing – APP will be what you make it!

Click on the APP tag to read my other posts about APP

My opinions are based on my experiences of using the Science APP framework.  Whilst I’ve looked at APP materials for other subjects I haven’t used them with students.

In terms of organisation the new year 8 modules are a huge leap forward.  Lessons are organised into folders by lesson which makes a huge amount of difference when it comes to locating resources and lesson plans.  The content of the lessons is much the same, although they aren’t as heavily dependent on the power points to make them work which is a relief because the novelty of showing presentations soon wore off, both with myself and the pupils! The new modules have supporting video from Teachers.tv (anyone can download these from the teachers.tv website) which the Wikid team have skilfully woven into their topics, helping maintain the theme that runs through each.

The structure of the topics and activities makes it easy to add APP criteria to an activity turning it into an APP assessment with the minimum of effort.  Hot off the press is their mapping grid which helps you see which topics relate to which strand of APP, proving the Wikid team are listening to customer requests).

All is not perfect with the Wikid scheme though, and it still requires some work to use it well, and many schools may not feel confident adopting it lock, stock and barrel. 

To improve the scheme I would like to see Wikid:

• Reduce the content in the scheme and flag lessons as core lessons and lessons that can be skipped
• Less detail on lesson plans – they take ages to read!
• Lesson plans in one place (ideally one document) so you can see the progression from lesson to lesson and how they flow together.
• More AfL linked to APP built into the scheme – and not the absolutely ghastly Apprend scheme they are flogging like a dead horse.
• More support for SEN and lower achieving pupils.  Many of the activities are too wordy or too complicated and require extensive adaptation.  Not all pupils achieve level 4 – yet this seems to be the starting point for many of the assessment activities.  (And remember that many of these pupils have poor literacy skills – expecting them to write more than a few words is not an option).
• Fewer resources to photocopy – and in black and white please.  I haven’t seen a school yet that colour photocopies or prints whole class sets of colour worksheets.
• Promote the Wiki that the whole scheme is named after and encourage participation by ALL teachers who deliver the course.  At the moment the Wiki is difficult to navigate and is further let down by the lack of participation.
• Remove the Upd8 forums since Wikid staff never bother to reply to questions in there anymore.  If it’s obsolete, take it down!

Would I recommend Wikid to others? Yes.  In fact I’ve had science teachers come from out of county and within county to see it in action.  Wikid science shows enormous potential, and most students are engaged and achieving well on the course.  Of course the scheme isn’t perfect – but show me a scheme that is!