With our final week of term almost upon us, students are busy studying for exams and putting last-minute touches on assignments. Teachers are working with students to provide feedback and support for assessment tasks. At this time, many of our parents may be wondering how they can help their child do the best they can on their assignments.
The key to success for parents is help your child complete their assignment themselves - not to do it for them. Some common questions and answers surrounding this include:
Can my child tell me their ideas and I type it up for them? This is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, assignments usually assess a communication aspect. By typing the work up for your child, the ownership of the work is split between you and your child. Teachers are then not given the chance to assess the evidence demonstrated by the child. Secondly, this doesn’t allow the child the complete opportunity to demonstrate their skills, knowledge and understanding. Thirdly, it is not allowing the child to take responsibility for their own learning.
Don’t you want my child to achieve the best result? Yes. It is however, important for a child to work to achieve the best results possible for them as an individual. What those target results are changes for each child and can also differ between subjects.
Aren’t I just helping with the draft like teachers do? Teachers are trained to give guidance and feedback to students, not to re-write their work. QCAA provides teachers with parameters surrounding what effective feedback looks like.
How can I help my child with their assignments? Parents can play a vital role in helping their child complete assessment tasks. This can be done by:
- Creating a working environment that is conducive to study and completing assignments.
- Supporting your child when they may be struggling with a difficult concept or task by helping them determine the steps to work out the process/solution, not by completing the task for them. This is a great resilience learning experience for your child.
- Encouraging your child to seek further guidance from teachers through emailing, commenting on assignments, and/or attending tutorials.
- Assisting your child to have effective time management including removing items of distraction (e.g. mobile phones).
- Ensuring your child is getting enough sleep. This can have a hugely positive impact on teenagers and their ability to focus on their schoolwork.
As well as determining students’ knowledge and understanding of concepts and skills, assessment also informs teachers on which areas might need to be revisited or included in the next unit of work. I encourage parents to speak with your child’s class teacher if you would like further strategies on how best to support your child at home during the assessment period.
Mrs. Fiona Stevens