Guidelines for Mentors Grading the PP Report

In order to be successful, the report should make the learning goal explicit. An element of Ai that candidates can find more challenging is to clearly explain the connection between their learning goal and their personal interest. Instead, the learning goal and the personal interest are often treated as two separate descriptions, without providing a clear explanation of the connection between the two. 

Candidates are asked to explain how a personal interest ‘led to’ a learning goal. To fully address criterion Ai, it is not enough that candidates state the learning goal and describe their personal interest. They also need to address the connection between the two and provide reasons or causes for why there is a connection between the personal interest and the specific learning goal they ended up choosing. 

Successful candidates generate a meaningful learning goal that are a standalone element of their overall goal and not identical to the intended product. The learning goal serves candidates best when it is moving away from simply learning how to create the product, which otherwise often would lack depth and restrict candidates from a worthwhile learning experience, with the only focus being on creating a product. 

Example

Level: 8

The student clearly states a learning goal – to learn the C coding language to be able to program a robot. They explain how an interest in computer science and robots led the specified learning goal. This is by providing a detailed account about how their passion for coding and robots led to the stated learning goal, and this is also including reasons for the specific learning goal. The reasons identified is that they wanted to see an idea and creation come to life through coding, as well as wanting to help their community by programming and creating a robot. When the student uses the word "because" in this report, they help us nicely to direct our attention to the reasons for choosing this specific learning goal. When students use these kinds of words, they often signal that they are about to give us reasons or causes for something.

Candidates provide success criteria for their product. Candidates include information about how their product success criteria were ‘appropriate’. For level 5-8 in criterion Aii, it is required that the success criteria presented by the candidate are appropriate, and it cannot be assumed that each reader of the report has specialist knowledge within the specific topic area to be able to judge whether the criteria are appropriate or not. This means that in some way or form it must be clear in the report as to why the specific criteria presented by the candidate are appropriate. Ways of providing this information can be in the narrative in the body of the report, as part of a rubric/table, or other ways that the candidate finds appropriate.

Example

Level: 7

The candidate clearly states the intended product, which is an automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. Multiple and detailed success criteria for the product are presented in a table format. In the column labeled "Definition," each criterion is explained, and this justifies how they are appropriate.

The work did not reach the highest level because the criterion "User." For this criterion, there is no information about how this is a criterion relevant to the quality of the product itself that makes this an appropriate criterion. Also, some items in the criteria descriptors are unclear, such as what "resistant" means, found in the criterion Function.

A candidate’s plan should be for achieving the product and only items in the plan relevant to the product itself should be considered when awarding levels for Aiii. Other items (such as writing sections of the report, submitting draft, contacting supervisor, etc.) may be helpful for the candidate in their overall project, but should not be considered when assessing strand Aiii. 

Candidates sometimes neglected to ensure that their plan included how all of the product success criteria should be achieved. The candidates who achieved the greatest success in criterion Aiii clearly identified which of the stated success criteria were being addressed in each stage of the plan. 

Example

Level: 8

An extensive and detailed plan is presented in a table format. The column labeled "Success criteria link" clearly shows how each item in the plan is aligned with the success criteria presented earlier, and the plan covers all stated criteria. In the column labeled "To do," there is information about how these criteria will be achieved.

Candidates need to clearly separate whether they are addressing how they applied ATL skills to achieve the learning goal or the product. Candidates that are not clear about this, but rather present how they applied ATL skills in general during their project, are unable to reach beyond the lowest levels of criterion B. 

In the report, candidates need to be very clear about whether they are addressing ATL skill(s) that helped achieve the learning goal or the product. Candidates are advised to label this by headings, in different sections of the report.

Example

Level: 7

The student addresses two ATL skills to demonstrate how these were applied to achieve the learning goal. The first is self-management, and it was mainly described, using examples that were sometimes general, sometimes detailed. The second ATL skill addressed is research, and this had elements of explanation, although vague, almost implicit. The reason evident is that applying the skill was necessary for being able to learn a new coding language from scratch. There is one piece of evidence supporting the claim. The work did not reach the highest level due to the weakness in the reasons included, which is required to qualify as the command term "explain".

To reach the higher achievement levels for Bi and Bii, it is not enough to state/outline which ATL skills was applied. Candidates also have to describe/explain ‘how’ ATL skills were applied. Examiners sometimes observe rich descriptions of how ATL skills are applied, but without explanations of why it helped the candidate to achieve the specific learning goal or product. Successful candidates focus on fewer ATL skills, with in-depth explanations of how those skills helped in achieving their learning goal or product, rather than listing a wide range of skills with only superficial mentions of how they were applied. Within criterion B, schools are advised to guide students towards the command terms and to carefully consider requirements for an explanation. 

Example

Level: 6

The student addresses transfer skills to demonstrate how ATL skill(s) were applied to complete the product. This account is mainly descriptive, and there are two descriptions of the application of transfer skills. There are possibly vague elements of explanation in the second last paragraph, but not enough to move into the highest mark band.

The evidence provided directly supports the first argument about creating the box, placing Bii on the higher level of the descriptor band where describe is the command term.

Few candidates go beyond being descriptive and provide a detailed account including reasons or causes for why the project had an impact on them, so why it mattered. 

Example

Level: 7

The student addresses several ways of how completing the project has had an impact on them, and these are described well. In the second paragraph of this section in the report, there’s a passage addressing to have "developed a systematic approach". Here the student points at a reason for this benefitting them in the future to better manage their academic and job career. It’s quite minimal, but this is making the account an explanation, since the student included reasons for why this impact on themselves and their learning matters.

Candidates are often successful in going back to their success criteria to review their completed product. Most candidates also manage to generate a final, complete product. To reach the higher levels of Cii, candidates need to evaluate (making an appraisal by weighing strengths and limitations) their product by systematically going through each of their stated success criteria. Simply describing their product, even if doing so in alignment with the aspects of the success criteria, will not qualify as an evaluation according to the command term definition. 

Another commonly observed fault in Cii is to present results from a survey without further analysis of that data, which will not account for as an evaluation either. Candidates should be guided to not just present results from a survey or the views of others. If candidates choose to survey others for opinions on the quality of their product, at a minimum the candidate has to interpret that data to make an appraisal of the product’s quality, by weighing up strengths and limitations. 

Example

Level: 7 

The student addresses several ways of how completing the project has had an impact on them, and these are described well. In the second paragraph of this section in the report, there’s a passage addressing to have "developed a systematic approach". Here the student points at a reason for this benefitting them in the future to better manage their academic and job career. It’s quite minimal, but this is making the account an explanation, since the student included reasons for why this impact on themselves and their learning matters.