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Maths Applied Unit Standards
Background
The 8489,8490,8491, unit standards are still part of the National Certificate of Employment Skills but the unit standard 8492 has been replaced by any standard from the measurement strand. Since the compulsory Numeracy component of NCEA1 is 8 credits from the Mathematics, the requirements for the NCES adequately cover this.

In 2001 the NZAMT Council decided to provide some Unit Standard assessment tasks as a resource on our website. For some, Unit Standard work will be a professional development as there are schools who have not used these before. One of the major problems for the schools is being sure that the standard of their assessment tasks are at the national standard. The resources on the NZAMT website are designed to be user friendly in that schools can download, add their own name / logo at the top and print off. Likewise schools can change the questions to create a different parallel version. All assessments will have to go through the school's internal moderation process as well as NZQA's moderation process for Unit Standards. These resources are of a moderated standard but have not been officially through the process. For the actual Unit Standard information schools will need to access NZQA's website for this.

There are several unique features of these assessments that are worthy of comment. After a lot of trialling, the boxes with question numbers at the bottom of the header, have proved a success in reducing teacher workload in making it easier to make sufficiency decisions for passing the standard. The marker just puts a line through the questions the students got wrong in those boxes. At the end it is easy to see if the students have passed. Initially these boxes created some curiosity from students but after the first couple they ignored them and got on with the job. They didn't use them to work out which questions they needed to get right etc., they just wanted to get finished.

Unit Standard 8489 This has 4 simple questions at the start as settle down time. They are not counted in the sufficiency required for the standard as they are not "in context". But since this is probably the first Unit Standard the students have ever sat, they are a bit uptight and these 4 questions settle them down before they move into the assessment proper. A number of students get 1 or more of these wrong but then move on to pass the unit.

Unit Standard 8492 This unit has a number of management issues you need to be aware of. The unit specifies that the students must choose a correct instrument to complete each of the 8 measurements required. This is currently under review and will hopefully be reduced to 5 of the measurements correct covering, length, mass, capacity and time. This means they have to do it individually and a supervisor check they have chosen a correct instrument.

There is quite a bit of setting up required first also. String needs to be cut to length in metres, a piece of card cut to a length in cms, water or fluid to a specified volume in mLs (keep a bottle handy as a top up will be needed as continued pouring changes the level), clock needs to be checked, box of books or paper to a suitable mass/weight, sand, sawdust or liquid to a suitable amount in litres with a range of measuring containers and a holding container. [check that there is only the correct way to get the answer. I had a student who measured the length, width and diagonal of a box, multiplied them together and was within 5 g of the required mass/weight. Needless to say he didn't pass and I changed the amount of paper in the box.].

The third element contains estimation and it must be of objects or distances they can physically see. Use your professional judgement here. It is estimation. They can measure their pace, hand span etc. but not pace put the distance or hand span the object as that is measuring and not estimating. Be reasonable. They have 25% tolerance of the actual amount. It should not be something totally new they have never seen before and try and avoid mass / weight problems as I challenge teachers to estimate that within 25%. It takes about 10 minutes for each student to complete E1, the practical section.

E2 and E3 can be done as a class together and doesn't take long. The issue here is you need 2 people to cover this. Your school will have to work out how this is to be achieved. Suggestions are - student teachers on section, teacher aides, "free" teachers, admin. staff, relief staff, and parents. This is a management issue and each school has to decide how to cover this problem. Some schools have a mobile "station" on a trolley that moves to a spare room or in the corridor outside the classroom and students come out one at time to do the practical while the teacher takes the rest of the class on something else.

These units are the start of a resource offered to teachers by NZAMT that are ready to use. This will cut down on the workload by cutting down on the preparation time. We need to share resources and this is where you can help. If you have a moderated Unit Standard assessment task you are prepared to share, send it to us and we will put it into a standard uniform template and post it on the NZAMT web site. If it comes as a Word document that is even better, but a hard copy will do.

Jan Wallace NZAMT MAP Coordinator 

 Assessment Outlines

Please note:To gain access to the Unit Standards Tasks you must be have registered with NZAMT.

To register and gain access to assessment resources post this form to
NZAMT Web Subscription
P O Box 26-582, Epsom
Auckland

If already registered for 2008: Go to the assessment resources

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