Social moderation is an extended, collaborative process. It is the culmination of a process that delivers multiple opportunities for learning through quality, equitable and well-considered educational experiences.
The ultimate aim of moderation is to achieve comparable grades in a diverse range of authentic assessment tasks across a range of schools in Queensland.
The moderation process can be enacted within a school based context and/or across clusters or regions. While cohesive groups working collaboratively to achieve consensus, on-line models may provide moderation contexts that respond to issues such as distance or like-school groupings.
Social Moderation includes:
Teachers will make judgements on several criteria trading off inconsistencies to reach a holistic judgement. This is not a procedural approach but one that involves teachers' professional knowledge in decision making.
Validity is a priority in the assessment of the student work. Moderation involves 'performances on distinct tasks that are rated using a common framework and interpreted in terms of a common standard.' This requires the 'development of consensus on definitions of standards and on the performances that meet those standards'.
For teachers to understand the standards and develop a community of understanding the following factors are required:
When teachers are engaging in dialogue they are not just having a conversation about the work and they are not using checklists. They are having substantive, focused conversations about the differences in the quality of performance.
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Consensus-Based Standards Validation Process, Synopsis. Professor Val Klenowski, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland December 2006
Education Queensland has identified the Conferencing Model of moderation when encouraging schools to adopt moderation when making judgements about student work.
Using the conference model for moderation, teachers discuss and deliberate in making their judgements about the quality of all of the evidence presented as student work. Teachers make judgements on several criteria to reach an 'on-balance' holistic judgement. This is not a procedural approach but one that is based on the teachers' professional knowledge in shared and collaborative decision making.
Teachers mark (some or all) student responses individually, and then select assessment samples representative of their application for A to E standards. They meet with other teachers to discuss their judgements by sharing their samples. Teachers reach a consensus on the interpretation and application of the standards.
In the Conference Model of social moderation the role of the facilitator may include
It is not expected that the facilitator act as an expert, but rather assist teachers reach consensus through a shared understanding of the curriculum intent and the grade awarded
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© The State of Queensland (Department of Education, Training and the Arts) 2008.