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30th November 2015
Comparatively good marking
On a crisp Autumnal evening in mid-October, around 60 maths teachers attended a seminar at the Royal Institution to discuss an exciting new approach to assessing mathematics.
The event, sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Actuaries, was led by Dr Matthew Inglis and Dr Ian Jones from Loughborough University, and Dr Chris Wheadon from nomoremarking.com.
Inglis opened the seminar by highlighting the trend in mathematics examinations towards fragmented questions that offer a high degree of reliability in assessment, but do not challenge students to demonstrate deep mathematical reasoning skills. He argued that there is strong support in psychology literature for the idea that people find it easier to make relative, rather than absolute, judgments.
Jones introduced the 'comparative judgment' approach, applied to open-ended maths questions such as "why are negative numbers useful?" Such questions, which are difficult to fit a conventional marking scheme to, are ideal candidates for the comparative judgment approach. Under this approach, a number of independent 'judges' (teachers or pupils) make a large number of side-by-side comparisons of student responses, simply stating which of the two answers they feel is superior. The outcome of a large number of such comparisons provides the equivalent of a 'mark' for each answer.
Wheadon then took the group through the workings of nomoremarking.com - a free online tool that enables teachers to make use of the approach. He demonstrated the results of a series of comparative judgements, carried out live, by ranking answers to a question that teachers had been asked to complete upon arrival. The event generated significant interest and discussion.
An event for actuaries to review the results of the broader research project will be held at Staple Inn on 11 January 2016.
The event, sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Actuaries, was led by Dr Matthew Inglis and Dr Ian Jones from Loughborough University, and Dr Chris Wheadon from nomoremarking.com.
Inglis opened the seminar by highlighting the trend in mathematics examinations towards fragmented questions that offer a high degree of reliability in assessment, but do not challenge students to demonstrate deep mathematical reasoning skills. He argued that there is strong support in psychology literature for the idea that people find it easier to make relative, rather than absolute, judgments.
Jones introduced the 'comparative judgment' approach, applied to open-ended maths questions such as "why are negative numbers useful?" Such questions, which are difficult to fit a conventional marking scheme to, are ideal candidates for the comparative judgment approach. Under this approach, a number of independent 'judges' (teachers or pupils) make a large number of side-by-side comparisons of student responses, simply stating which of the two answers they feel is superior. The outcome of a large number of such comparisons provides the equivalent of a 'mark' for each answer.
Wheadon then took the group through the workings of nomoremarking.com - a free online tool that enables teachers to make use of the approach. He demonstrated the results of a series of comparative judgements, carried out live, by ranking answers to a question that teachers had been asked to complete upon arrival. The event generated significant interest and discussion.
An event for actuaries to review the results of the broader research project will be held at Staple Inn on 11 January 2016.
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