Question 3

Scope and Sequence
Teaching Programme
Assessment Programme

Scope:

this is what you are going to include in your teaching programme so as to address focus areas and cover the content requirements for a particular stage of learning. Content requirements include essential content plus other links and extrapolations from related content areas that are incorporated into the teaching programme. This additional content allows for greater depth and breadth of study in each syllabus area, eg incorporating cross curriculum content such as I.T, Careers, P.D.H.P.E. within a Food Technology programme.

Sequence:

determines when a unit of work is taught in the context of the syllabus content, and the duration it is to be taught for. It is used in a lesson by lesson framework. In effect it is a timeline for the implementation of units of work within the syllabus content.

Scope and sequence plans provide an overview of units of work that may be taught in any given stage of a syllabus eg Stage 6 English Syllabus.

There are important factors to consider when preparing a scope and sequence plan:

• • syllabus content
• • mandatory hours
• • the needs, interests and abilities of the students
• • most effective use of existing and available resources and facilities within the school and wider community
• • provision for a range of experiences throughout each stage of learning that increases in challenge and level of sophistication
• • areas of community significance
• • where possible or relevant, themes and topics can be drawn on from everyday situations

Teaching Programme:

This is a teaching plan that integrates the essential syllabus content in a variety of units of work that will enable the teacher to cover the scope of the content within the indicated timeframe. It is not essential to cover all content but it is important that each unit of work is designed to address content from each stage. A teacher may need to transfer outcomes and content across stages to ensure that the needs of all students are addressed.

A teaching programme for a unit of work should:

• • identify outcomes
• • identify context, theme, topics and focus areas of the unit
• • select relevant syllabus content related to outcomes and organise it into a logical sequence according to context
• • establish the criteria for providing evidence of learning, eg. through observation during teaching and through learning and assessment activities. This will assist the teacher to make judgements on achievements in relation to outcomes and identified content.
• • be a plan for the teaching, learning and assessment activities providing the desired evidence of learning
• • be student centred and promote the development of knowledge, skills and understanding of the subject area
• • use creative, stimulating, meaningful and inclusive teaching and learning experiences to present content in the most appropriate context to promote student learning and development of higher order thinking skills
• • plan to provide maximum opportunities for feedback throughout any teaching practice
• • provide adequate teacher evaluation and reflection on the programme to assess the degree that the unit of work remained focused on the proposed outcomes and to identify evidence of learning early in the process so suitable adjustments can be made, if required, to assist learning and ensure a successful degree of progress is obtained from the learning experience

Assessment Programme:

this is a plan of assessment, integrated into the teaching/learning programme and formulated to assist the teacher to know whether to move on to the next phase of learning or whether students need to consolidate knowledge, understanding and skills.
An assessment programme should:

• • emphasise interactions between learning and manageable assessment strategies that promote learning
• • clearly express, for both student and teacher, the goals of the learning activity
• • provide a clear rubric for success within the learning activity
• • reflect the view that assessment helps students learn and is not designed just to achieve a better mark
• • provide ways for students to use the feedback from assessment activities to enhance their learning experience
• • assist students to take responsibility for their own learning
• • be inclusive of all learners and their strengths within specific learning styles whilst cultivating the exploration and familiarity of less developed learning styles.
  

Syllabus outcomes are central for decisions about the learning to be undertaken and to provide the evidence of learning that is to be collected using assessment activities.

The B.O.S. syllabus advocates “assessment for learning”,

encouraging assessment activities that enhance learning and recognise that learners use their current understanding to discover, develop and incorporate new knowledge, understanding and skills. The assessment for learning guidelines help teachers and students to know if their current knowledge, understanding and skill level is a suitable basis for future learning.
Each unit of work within a syllabus document provides programming stimulus for selected syllabus content and provides guidance on how assessment activities can be integrated into a teaching and learning sequence.

Evaluation:

What is taught in any learning programme is a synthesis of scope and sequence, teaching and assessment programmes, the syllabus document, the teaching practice and the personal ability and characteristics of the teacher, the students understanding, school and community resources and facilities and any philosophical belief that an individual school might embrace. How rigidly this is adhered to is determined by other factors such as whether the school and /or an individual student is wanting or needing to meet the outcomes as determined by the B.O.S.

The syllabus document is a thorough and broad platform that leaves room for innovation and creativity in its application and delivery but the content outcomes and assessment parameters, particularly for the S.C and H.S.C are very limiting.
The scope and sequence is, in effect, the overview or big picture of how the components of the syllabus are managed in terms of the whole. This is an excellent format to utilise as it provides the teacher with clear guidelines to effectively organise into a cohesive document all information, practices, activities and outcomes for delivery within a predetermined time constraint. This document will not only help keep the teacher and learning practices on track, but it is also used to provide continuity to a class if a relief teacher is required for a lesson and as a record for future reference.

The teaching programme sets out how each aspect of the scope and sequence is delivered and it is within this document that the teacher can be creative with the delivery of the lesson content. This works effectively for most stages.

An exception to this is the year 10 S.C content which is basically driven by a linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence orientated test assessment. This greatly restricts the opportunities for teachers to deliver the content necessary, and provide the variety of experiences that are often required, to ensure that all students dominant intelligence is met therefore establishing the opportunity for all students to succeed in these tests.

A similar situation occurs with the year 12 H.S.C .
The teaching and assessment programmes can be delivered using creative teaching practices but the outcomes criteria must be met to provide the best assessment results possible. H.S.C. does provide scope for the pursuit of personal interest areas within the assessment format but B.O.S syllabus content and all information relative to the course outline must be adhered to to ensure maximum opportunity for success within the B.O.S theoretical parameters.

As with the S.C. this takes the form of linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence orientated test assessment. In both instances this elitist form of outcomes testing disadvantages and even negates the potential success for students with a different dominant intelligence reference. This is quite a disappointing culmination to 13years of a basically well thought out systematic distribution of knowledge.

To put information into action is to know it to a much greater depth than is often demonstrated by the simple regurgitation of spoken or written information. I think that the parameters for success could be more inclusive of our varied but equally valuable intelligence modalities and that more validity for the consistent and progressive development of ‘essential’ human capacities could be forthcoming.
It is a failing in our system when we accept students of medicine who have the ability to obtain a high band 6 yet have a poor understanding of compassion, hope and faith, or law students whose level of integrity, moral standing and sense of justice is severely lacking but allowed because of inequitable measures for success that negate virtue as a necessary parameter.

The assessment programme does allow us to make judgements on the effectiveness of our scope and sequence and teaching programme and adjust this if necessary. Assessments can be made in a variety of ways, eg observation, questioning, peer evaluation, self evaluation and more structured assessment activities. This can also assist in supporting student regulated learning. These programmes should always provide a clear rubric for success, and by integrating learning and assessment, a teacher is able to choose aspects of a students performance to record. Assessment information is also valuable for the teacher to use to provide information to parents, other teachers (especially replacement ones) and also the individual student.