The assessed curriculum, like the designed/planned and delivered sections of the curriculum, has been developed to support student learning. The main function of the assessed curriculum is to give students feedback on their development as they undertake the individual units, year level course and programme as a whole. This feedback should be provided both formatively and summatively against the criteria found in the subject group guide.
The assessed curriculum in mathematics focuses on four areas.
- Criterion A : Knowing and understanding
- Criterion B : Investigating patterns
- Criterion C : Communicating
- Criterion D : Applying mathematics in real-life contexts
It is important that students are provided with a balance of these four areas of the assessed curriculum in order for them to engage holistically with the subject.
Developing task-specific clarifications
The criteria provided in the subject group guide are generic and they describe holistic judgments of students’ achievements. Teachers must specify how the different criteria strands will be assessed in the context of a specific task. This can be done through task-specific clarifications. Task-specific clarifications are assessment tools that bring a level of specificity to the assessment criteria. When clarifying expectations for students, teachers must ensure that they do not alter the standard expected in the published criteria. The MYP published assessment criteria are described as holistic, in that they offer general, qualitative value statements about student achievement.
Teachers will need to clarify the expectations of any given task with direct reference to the published assessment criteria. For example, teachers may need to clarify exactly what the purpose of a mathematical investigation is.
This clarification might be in the form of:
- a task-specific clarification of the criteria, using the published criteria but with some wording changed to match the task
- an oral discussion of the expectations
- a task sheet or rubric that explains the expectations.
It is important that teachers specify the expected outcomes at the beginning of each individual task so that students are aware of what is required. Teachers must remove any strand that might not be relevant for a specific task.