Assessment strategy and rationale

While Year 12 maths or equivalent is a requirement for course entry, students bring with them varying levels of confidence and comfort with respect to this area of study. Some students have previously undertaken calculus-based courses while others have completed maths methods type courses. This presents a particular challenge for this unit of study which aims to bring all students to a level where they can understand and implement - at a basic level - the concepts and techniques commonly used in science.  

The unit is designed to provide enough time for students with less background to master the more difficult concepts while simultaneously providing enough challenge and extension for students with a more sophisticated maths background. 

The problem-based learning utilised in workshops contains a number of graded and open-ended problems that require solution. Students investigate and solve these in small groups, but as individuals write a short report that includes an outline of the issues, the methods used to solve the problems, the results and conclusions reached and any meta-thinking regarding the problem-solving process. Some of the problems presented in workshops are designated “Core”, and these require foundational skills that must be completed by all students in order to achieve a Pass. Each workshop topic also contains “Extension” problems which require deeper investigation. Students are given a choice of whether and which of these to undertake. This means the pathway to a passing achievement is clear to all students, while allowing some students to choose to pursue more sophisticated lines of enquiry and/or multiple approaches to solutions. Four of these reports are submitted for formative and summative feedback. The first of these submissions has a lower weight than the others to support students by having a lower-stakes early assessment task. 

In order to pass this unit, students are required to achieve a final grade of 50% or better as an aggregate score of all points from assessment tasks in this unit. 

Strategies aligned with transition pedagogies will be utilised to facilitate successful completion of the unit assessment tasks. For each assessment, there will be the incorporation of developmentally staged tasks with a focus on a progressive approach to learning. This will be achieved through activities, including regular feedback, particularly early in the unit of study to support their learning; strategies to develop and understand discipline-specific concepts and terminology; in-class practice tasks with integrated feedback; and greater peer-to-peer collaboration.