Journal entry for standard 5

Journal entry: Moderation

Mini-moderation practice

I had the opportunity to mark several year 12 General English externally set
assessments and participate in a practice moderation session. My mentor
teacher and I used the same marking criteria. I had carefully examined the
assessment criteria to avoid making inaccurate judgment of the student work.
I began marking the papers once I felt that I had clear understanding of the
expectations of each assessment standard. Once I felt confident about the
assessment criteria, I began marking the students papers. Then, I reviewed
the papers and their criteria again, making few corrections in certain sections
until I was satisfied with my final mark. I took a significant amount of time
marking these papers because I was afraid that my marks were too high. I
think this concern stems from the fact that I had no experience marking year
12 English essays. I then compared and discussed the marks with my mentor
teacher.

I was already aware that subjectivity was a common issue in the English
learning area. For some of the papers, I found that our results significantly
varied. However, there were few papers were there was minimal discrepancy
in our marking. After much discussion, we reached a consensus and awarded
a final mark for each student work. The experience has made me become
more confident in assessing students work. I have learned how to assess
students work against the achievement standards. This experience has
taught me that it is important for teachers to have a shared understanding of
the criteria. It has helped me to have better understanding of what students
are expected to achieve to meet a particular standard

Moderation session:
Initial thought: I was excited to be a part of a real moderation session.
What happened in the moderation session?
Since the moderators were from another school, they were given some time
to read and mark the student papers. They were also given the same marking
criteria. The work samples that were used in this moderation session were the
same papers that I had marked for the practice mini- moderation session
with my mentor. The head of the English department (HED) was responsible
for this moderation session. Once the moderators marked the papers, the
HED recorded the marks for each section of each student paper on the board.
In the sections were the HED felt that the scores were close, he used an
average of the scores to reach a final mark. However, where there were
greater discrepancies in the marks, the moderators reviewed the students
work before reaching a final decision. The moderators were given the
opportunity to explain using evidence how they judged the students work
against each criterion.

I have learned from these moderation is greatly needed in English as it

minimises subjectivity and leads to greater consistency and judgement. I have
also learned from the moderators that it is important for them to have a shared
understanding of the standard criteria to produce consistent and reliable data.
This experience has highlighted to me that moderators need to actively
engage in the process and that they need to prepare to clarify their ideas.