REMOVAL OF MYES IN INTEGRATED PROGRAMME MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE
The removal of mid-year exams will help nurture the joy of learning, and in place of these exams, schools have the freedom and time to design and provide a variety of learning experiences. Student’s understanding and mastery of content will be checked via assignments, quizzes, and classroom interactions. (Dep Director General of Education, MOE / link: https://www.moe.gov.sg/news/forum-letter-replies/20220317-removal-of-mid-year-exams-will-help-nurture-joy-for-learning)
So for Integrated Programme students, who are clearly university bound, how does this affect their learning and preparation for university admissions via assessment? How will the new assessment criteria look like? Are there any additional things in particular to look out for on this new educational journey? This post will serve to share with parents of IP students on the new changes made, and potential impacts, in an attempt to alleviate any insecurities or doubts.
*Disclaimer: While IP schools are expected to follow MOE’s lead in the removal of exam based learning at the first half of the year, they still have some level of freedom to implement written Worked Assessments as they see fit in the form of quizzes and various other assessment tools, so content mastery is still integral in doing well*
1.What has replaced the MYEs or standardized testing for the first half of the year?
In IP schools, projects have always been a big component since its inception. Upon the removal of MYEs, several schools have introduced a project based assessment style for Mathematics as well as Science. A brief overview of project based assessment:
-Science: For the sciences, projects are often based on building, either team building or a solo project. Some of the examples I have seen from my students are: building a trebuchet, building a soda-pop rocket, building a cardboard boat, building a circuit, building a protection system for an egg, or alternatively an investigation based project which is heavy on fieldwork, e.g. finding purity of water in certain areas, density of rocks, nutrition in daily household foods etc. There are resources online to assist with understanding these building projects, however the mode of assessment is in a highly localized context, and will be difficult to just replicate based on online guides.
Another aspect of assessment in Science would be practical assessment. For Y1-Y2 students, a watered down version of the O-level practical exam is presented as a worked assessment in place of a full content based written test, and usually very focused on chemistry (the study of observation of reactions, proper presentation of facts and figures, basic experimental skills) . These tests are often based on real O-lvl practical experiments, such as optical pins for refraction, potential divider circuit, titration, and transport system in plants.
-Mathematics: Similar to science, Math assessment will be modified to a project based assessment, with the exception of a practical exam since there is no practical component in the A-level. Most Math project based assessment involve the use of online tools such as Graphmatica in order to illustrate Math concepts in graphs and subsequently in a 3D form. Concepts tested are usually on vectors, coordinate geometry, simultaneous equations, quadratic equations, Trigonometry. Students can be expected to build a structure using online graphing tools, or to model a certain phenomenon using Mathematical equations covered during class time. There is usually one written test for Math at the first half of the year on top of their projects.
2. How will the assessment criteria look like?
Science: Projects are often assessed based on a simple set of rubrics, for innovativeness in design, application of content knowledge in observation/deduction/building, quality and structure of final report, as well as budgetary constraints and usage. For Practical exams, standard O/A level rubrics and keywords are applied. Students are expected to read up on their O-level textbook in preparation
Math: Similar to Science, there is a simple set of rubrics, but more focused on accuracy and precision of modelling, as well as constraints in real life, and how those constraints affect the project results. Formulating equations is a big part of the assessment, students are expected to be able to formulate equations based on their content knowledge and context of the project. Guides on this are harder to find, so light plagiarism from online sources or assistance from Artificial Intelligent like Chatgpt and Google Bard might not be very useful.
3. Additional things in particular to look out for
As explained in our previous guides, for IP students, it is heavily hinted and recommended for them to read and do ahead using O-level text before the start of the content lecture. Our suggestion here at Singapore Learner would be using the Marshall Cavendish O-level pure Science textbooks for Science readings, and the New Syllabus Mathematics textbooks, for both E and A math. Many of the ideas for projects can be found in these books.
Another problem to look out for is that WAs, quizzes and small tests may not be a strong indicator of ability to take a full test. While the removal of MYEs and CTs in the first half of the year is a welcome change, the discipline, muscle memory, and pace of a full test with all topics tested requires a certain level of rigor and attention to detail. With many schools having a 60-70% weight on final year exam grading, students are still very much expected to keep pace with their theory skills despite the great focus on projects and practical during the first half of the year. Parents will have to watch out on how much time students are spending on their projects, whether its effective or not, and to keep pace with their theory content in lectures and tutorials.
The time of release of this post is June holiday 2023. From what we gather, based on our experience with IP students as well as our training in NIE, there is a big push for the theme of sustainability in schools. The context of project based or practical based assessment will be heavily leaning towards sustainability if possible. Students should have a strong exposure to understanding of sustainability, at least within a local context. Examples include, green energy such as electricity saving circuits, converting kinetic energy to other useful forms of energy, anti pollution in chemistry and biology, as well as nutritional science.
So after surviving through several long paragraphs of educational jargon, we finally reach the end of the post. I hope this alleviates some of the worries of parents and provide a clearer picture for assessment. As a tuition group that is heavily invested into the practical aspect of education, we aspire to be at the forefront of this new change in assessment and have begun establishing ourselves as a market leader in practical and project based education since the year 2018. As one of the pioneer specialists in the IP tuition market, we have been consulting for our curernt students in project based assessment for more than a decade, since the inception of the Integrated Programme. If you are a parent that is feeling particularly lost in this new scheme of work for your IP school going child, and would like for him/her to be trained by our professional team of tutors, do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Our contact: 6569 4897 or 8776 2711
From our IP team:
Mr Pang and Mr Ilyasa, NUS faculty of Engineering/Science, NIE(curriculum and teaching)
