I've been thinking about this blog for a couple of days. Assessing mapping skills and outcomes in summative assessments?

Then I went to work in the pharmacy as usual for a long day ahead....

Being a pharmacist is hard work. We need to talk to customers, drink coffee, test perfumes and make-up and work with much younger people. It's a hard job but someone's got to do it...

Today I worked with a pharmacy trainee, Jason. He is sitting for his written test next week. It is part of his assessment to get accredited. He would need to show the preceptor (me), that he can do numerous tasks (about 100 or so over a period of a week).

For the purpose of this blog, let's look at the following tasks he had to show me today:

• his intervention due to a drug-drug interaction
• counselling pregnant and/or breastfeeding mothers
• Methadone dosing
• ordering new stock.

So when the first methadone patient arrived, I quickly asked Jason to do it and he did. I applauded his effort and thought :'This assessment is easy. I will finish this list today'.

Then we got busier and busier and busier. 

A pregnant lady came and left, and I remembered Jason after she left. He needed to show me how he would have handled it. what would he have said? Does he understand the implications of medications and pregnancy?  Another one would come in again I thought (and hoped).

A breastfeeding mother called about her infant and another staff member assisted her and again Jason missed the opportunity. How did I miss that one?? That's ok, another one will call. ( but no one did).

I asked him to do the order before closing and as he was doing it, a patient came in asking for Panadol for his headache as well as  Codral for his runny nose, a combination which could lead to overdose. This is a  classic mistake that patients can make which could lead to overdose! Jason could use this example to show me his intervention skills due to drug-drug interaction.  

And guess what???

He didn't miss it! He stopped what he was doing and counselled that patient . And the patient lives again... 

Was it enough? 

Well, for Jason, Yes! 

And luckily for Jason, a pregnant lady will come in tomorrow, or the day after, or as a worst case scenario, we can make her up and get a shop assistant to pretend to be pregnant and ask for advice. 

Alas for the stage 6 biology students, we can't pretend. 

We can't pretend that the students were assessed. 

We can't pretend that we are assessing 'analysing'  results when the students were gathering data...

We can't pretend that the skills were covered. 

We can't pretend that we have covered what is in the syllabus. 

If only we could. But NO, we can't. 

The syllabus has been designed so carefully and outcomes need to be assessed, but these opportunities only present themselves at specific times. A teacher needs to know which skill and which outcome is to be assessed when. Mapping grids are a very valuable tool. They provide the teachers with a visual of which skills have been covered and how well they have been covered.

Mapping skills and outcomes is imperative in terms of  summative assessment. There are many times that an opportunity only presents itself once or twice. If missed, it's too late. As Joanne explained in her blog, the teacher has a responsibility towards her students and can't always remember everything. And setting the right task gives a clear picture of the student's performance in regards to pre-determined criteria eg band description.

Jason can do his test the following day, but the students can't. 

SO where do we go from here? 

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/biology-assessment-schedule.html 

 http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/senior_science_support_part_2.pdf

The above two links are very useful. I recommend printing them out and adding them to our portfolios. 

Thank you for reading my blog. 

PS I commented on Katie's .