I am so angry. I have just finished marking Phase 3 of the Gr 12 PAT. The poor marks are not my problem. I taught the PAT well, however many learners spoke through my classes, checked e-mail while I was explaining and just ignored me.
I am going to take the points below and incorporate them in the assessment of the Gr 10 and 11 PATS. And when I make MY Gr 10 and 11 EDITED rubric I will not give ANY marks for ANY things if they are meaningless, i.e. no being nice. I am irritated by stupidity and plain carelessness.
My Gr 10 and 11 PPTs which I am using for teaching are available here.
- The graphs must be woven into the story/discussion. The graphs must NOT be in a section on their own. The graphs must help explain the discussion.
- A caption of a graph is not a story, and should not pretend to be a story. A caption is a ‘heading’ for an image. You talk about the evidence of the graph in the body of the text as part of the story and not in the caption.
- Pictures, if used, must be described or referred to in the text. They should not be in a page or section on their own.
- Tables copied from a database or spreadsheets have no place in a report. The material must be synthesized or analysed so that it gains meaning.
- There should be no need for any material in the report to come from any web site or copied from anywhere. The report is the result of an investigation into a problem. It is the ‘result’.
- The report should look professional! I have seen too many spelling mistakes, and the font in a document should be the same for all sections, and a heading 3 is smaller than a heading 1! Body text should be left aligned.
- The conclusion should draw all the findings together and is a summary of all the work, and end with a final sentence giving the verdict (slotsom).
- The conclusion must be at the end, just before the bibliography.
- Page numbers are required if you have a table of contents!
- The rubric/checklist must be read as a guide as to what is expected.
18 comments:
Wel said!!
Yes, very well said. My grade 12's this year really tired me out. Even after doing the PAT for 3 years in a row, they still don't grasp what the objective of the project is. Oh well, maybe it'll go better next year!
The current format of the PAT is beyond the ability of all but 'A' grade learners in English medium schools. To expect non English medium learners to prepare a technical report is ridiculous.
I am doing the PAT slowly and very carefully with my Gr 10s and all is going so well. I regularly uploading my PPT. Look at it and adapt to your needs. I see the PAT as very possible but I have to try and prevent my learners writing a (bad) thesis.
The problem I found wasn't that the PAT was beyond their abilities but that the way it is set out is very technical and too vague: they just didn't understand what was required from them. Even for a lot of us who are supposed to teach it found it hard. Splitting it up into smaller, more manageable bits will make our lives far easier, instead of making them do it a phase at a time.
If people find the PAT to be beyond learners' ability, what could the reason be?
Let us ask some questions:
1. Do teachers guide learners or do they just hand out the PAT and tell learners to go and do it?
2. Do teachers help learners to narrow down when they want to go to wide?
3. Do teachers teach Information Management skills or do they just give the PAT to learners?
4. Should the report be really technical?
5. If learners struggle to investigate and write reports, is that not a VERY GOOD reason to teach them these skills that will help them in other subjects and after school?
6. Maybe we should simplify the format, but the process will remain the same; so will the skills required?
One way of guiding learners in doing their PAT is to break it up in smaller bits and giving feedback to learners along the way.
The way I see it:
The pat is a structured way to help learners to investigate a matter, stay focused in doing so and consolidate that in writing a report. Nothing wrong with it! I wish tasks in other subjects could be structured this way!
The same Big6 skills are taught to primary school children in other countries. Why can they cope and our Grades 10 - 12 not (according to some people)?
It is the way you teach it, not the inabilities of learners.
Our children should be taught these skills from primary school
Viva PAT!
I agree with Kitten. Having a masters myself, I initially made the mistake of taking the PAT to a too high level. I have now managed to "come down" and my learners are enjoying this section of the work. One actually only uses the principles of a "research project" in the PAT and then bring it to the learners' level. Once you get that right, it is all systems going!
Of course, one needs to motivate them all the time as it is hard work and takes up time. The lazy ones do not like it and hide behind "I do not understand" or "I do not know what to do"
And yes, as in any other assessment, not all learners will get distictions, but mostly it is easy to get a pass mark. I find that the marks, in the end, correlate very well with their exam marks and what they are "worth" overall
My learners have done very well with PAT. I think the first step is us teachers not being "anti-pat", then us teachers understanding what is required (it's not bad to do the G12 as a mini-pat with other teachers to get a feel for it)
I look at this year versus last year and I have improved as I think of ways to do things, I think the biggest mistake is roughly going over the steps and then sending PAT off on its merry way.
I am doing it painstakingly slowly with my 10's, a little less so with my 11's and it's okay (not perfect, far from it, but okay).
Also I have average learners (Einstein's progeny are studying elsewhere) - so I am happy to accept their best (they don't always give it of course) and I am not harsh when marking it because I have seen them working in front of me (this is not an external exercise).
This discussion will be rendered pointless in a few years when we've all become expats (experts in pat) :)
My A learners really went all out in the PAT and got good marks. Even so there were parts that I had to explain over and over again. The PAT is too vague and too technical. I must add that some of the parts I didn't know if I was understanding it correctly either. I had one learner who didn't do the PAT at all and quite a few who just decided that phase 3 was not worth the time and effort. I don't think the powers that be realise what it takes to mark a PAT.
I find that my matrics are more comfortable with PAT and realise that by working hard you can get high marks in Phase 1, at least. They are average workers. My Gr 11 pupils are dedicated workers and consistenly produce good work in PAT and other projects. For some reason my Gr 10 pupils seem to have no work ethic at all (!) and it is really a battle to get them to hand in projects on time. However, they will learn eventually that in CAT, consistent hard work counts for as much as
(or even more than) ability. One problem I am running into with the Gr 11 PAT is the use of the Database (Gap year PAT). So far I have encouraged my learners to use the Database for comparison of Countries, Accommodation, Transport, Courses available, Costs, etc. Any other suggestions would be welcomed. Odette Schlumpf
If CAT (and the PAT) teaches learners that consistent hard work is important and pays, WOW, then the subject (and the PAT) is GREAT! and achieves something that ohters can't. This is one of the best things learners can be taught and something that will ensure sucess at university and in the work place.
"...beyond ability of ALL but 'A' grade learners in English medium school."
Does this mean that our poor Afrikaans kids are stupid?
And that the rest of the learners is stupid?
I do not believe this! It is not the kids. I agree with Kitten. It is the way it is taught (or not taught)
I also agree that other subjects could learn from the PAT - how to set a proper task/assignment with proper assessment tools. (This is the parent in me speaking, especially when I look at the assignments by kids bring home, (brrr!)not enough info, no direction or guidance, vague rubrics that tell you nothing.
Yes, it takes up time to mark the PAT BUT I would rather spend this time marking something that really teaches the learners good principles, good habits, etc. than waste my time A(even if it takes less time) on something unstructured and meaningless.
I wish that someone in some subjects/learning areas would teach MY kids these excellent skills. I am trying to, but has to be careful not to burst the balloon and keep critsising all their 'bad' assignments. Even then, their efforts do not get recognised in badly designed rubrics. In the end the process and what they learn along the way is almost more (or just as) important as the end product.
I find that my CAT learners are really learing SKILLS in the process, though the end-product migh not blow away breath.
Yes, I agree, we could simplify the format for the sake of those learners where Information Management is not taught or taught properly and teachers do not guide the PAT process
The PAT is certainly not only within the grasp of 'A' grade learners in English medium schools. I have 85 pupils (3 classes) this year and it is those who work consistently that generally do okay to very well.
The reason being I think is that there is time for corrective measures with these pupils as opposed to the ‘I’ll do it all this weekend’ pupils. We really do move to think beyond Matric – these pupils are going to be increasing expected to do these types of things in the work place – whether the they are a wedding player or somebody tying to pitch an idea for a new product or service. We sit with the legacy of years of aimless, meaningless projects in many of their other subjects- the ‘Google – type – copy – paste – finished and klaar’’ projects. Thanks heavens we are there to assist in this vital skill set.
I found that working ‘backwards’ from showing a prototype of the final product (report and presentation) helped a bit in seeing the whole picture. The best is to get them to see good examples from previous years. Maybe we can draw an A4 ‘flow’ diagram of the process that shows what is required at each stage.
They do tend to get lost in words. I kept on refocusing them by referring back to how I would mark according to the rubric and applying the principle of not doing too much. I found explaining three phases so much easier than 6 as we had in 2008.
I think it is also critical to get the though-processes working in Grade 10. This year I gave them a 4 week PAT where they had to work out an itinerary and coasting of a trip around South Africa (which could be used as a prize in a competition). That had specific modes of transport on each leg. I gave a rather vague scenario to start with and they soon realised they needed more detail (All they got initially was the start and end dates of the trip, the route, modes of transport and which hotel group they had to use).
My original idea was to get them to e-mail questions and I would dump the answers on a web page or a blog, but time caught up a bit (maybe next year).
It was amazing to (initially) see learners ‘book’ trips on the Blue Train on days that it did not run. Eventually the realised they had to do a macro-plan of working out how long to spend to each city etc. They have to keep screenshots for each ‘item’ such as accommodation, transport and trips e.g. to Robben island etc.
I think that I will have some specific shorts lesson next year where we ‘brainstorm’ various scenarios as to what questions need to be asked in a variety of contexts.
There are so many other invaluable skills and things opening up to them. Many of them had no idea that a train trip would take a day’s travel or that hotels are often ‘bed-and-breakfast’ rates or that hiring a car meant that you had to make some choices etc. The one thing I have to be tighter on is stop being soft on deadlines to avoid marking burn out – one phase per term is manageable – we just have to the pupil’s time management skills sorted out (mine too)
I agree. We come from a background of badly set assignments, and then accepting anything that was given to us and even gave it good marks! or only writing tests.
Now we struggle with this concept ourselves.
I struggle, but I am getting there. Learn more and more each day. Thanks to this blog.
A simple document, with a flowchart as suggested could really help me and then I would be able to help my learners
This is new content in CAT (and in school)and I agree that we should perservere and I am looking forward to become and expat.
Ja, but what is sad is that those very non-English medium learners will be expected to write reports, assignments, etc at university and in the workplace. So we need to teach them this.
Then the question - what do those very learners do in other subjects? Especially Languages? How do they perform in their writing tasks?
I feel that PAT is the most unsophisticated piece of work given to learners, it is clearly NOT explained well and I think that a new task should be in place of PAT. PAT demonstrates the learners ability to research while using minor computer skills rather than actually using skills taught in their grade, this refers to grade 11 and grade 12 PAT.
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