TRANSCRIPT:
 

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 105: Assignments, assessments and projects - and what they’re really about. Because I can tell you now, that DT design - is not really about the item they’re designing. And that historical artefact project is not really about the historical artefacts. And the elements that I see a lot of students getting caught up in and spending a lot of time and effort deliberating on, aren’t the critical or important elements.

So what ARE these extended or creative tasks actually about and how can understanding this, change the way you support your hardworking teen?


Hey Very Important Parents and Carers. I hope you and your teens are doing great.
I am doing brilliantly as I’m recording this in the first week of the school holidays here in Queensland. Everywhere just seems to have crazy-different holiday dates this year for some reason. Just the states here in Australia span across like 4 weeks, and New Zealand is on the tail end of those, and of course, if you’re in the northern hemisphere which I know a growing number of you are, then you’re just coming off the back of exams and looking ahead to the big summer break right now. 

I’ve just finished planning for our Rock Solid Study quarterly meeting and I’m really excited for what we have in store for you. Including something new, that I have DONE before, but not shared publicly. So make sure you’re on my email list to stay up to date and follow Rock Solid Study on Facebook and Instagram so you don’t miss anything.

And right here, right now, let’s dive into a topic that I know many parents find a bit mystifying and students find to often be a HUGE consumer of their time: assignments, coursework, inquiries, assessment tasks. If your teenager is almost constantly buried in these and you’re wondering how to make them more streamlined and less of a burden for your teen, then I hope this episode will help. 

I want to share with you a behind the curtain fact that I’ve come to realise over the years.  I can sum it up for you in one sentence. And it will hopefully help you and your teen see and therefore approach these big or extended assignments from a slightly different and hopefully more productive and efficient perspective. Because maybe you’ve seen your teen spend hours trying to think of a good plot or storyline for their narrative or creative writing. Or, maybe your teen actually is brilliant at that sort of thing. They come up with amazing story ideas and super-creative characters. But, their final mark isn’t quite as brilliant. Or - if it is - please just know that that mark came from things other than that story line. I’ll explain what in a moment. 

Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s an artwork. A painting or a sculpture. Or maybe it’s a Geography inquiry investigation or maybe it’s a scientific report.

But I’m actually going to use a couple of real life examples from Maths to explain this. Because I actually think these are the most obvious places where students get what’s happening.  And it becomes a bit more blurry or unclear with other subjects.

So, let’s take two different Maths assignments I’ve seen set and watched and helped students work on.

One was a Maths Methods assignment - so A’Level standard maths in England or Extension Maths equivalent. And they had to design a rollercoaster in a graphical software. 

The idea being that they’d use all different equations to create straight lines, curves and circles for loop-the-loops. And then also get the points of each line to join up by using substitution and coordinates. 

So a challenging task. But.. was it about the design of the rollercoaster? 
Is the marker looking for a brilliant rollercoaster design and how good an experience it will be for people to ride it? 

No! Obviously not. 

I say obviously, because I don’t think there is a single student who genuinely thought this was about the rollercoaster. They kinda just got that instead, the marker was looking for the student to use a variety of different equations - types of equations and have all the points meet up. And not because the cart would fall off the track if they didn’t meet up. But because they want to see if they can do the maths and show that working, to show HOW they can align them to meet up.

Do you see how that one is kind of obvious?

Another one I saw, for General Maths - was that they had to plan a holiday. They had to find and then add up all the travel costs, accommodation, figure out travel times and any time differences, budget for food and sightseeing etc, and then also figure out the best savings account and how long it would take to save up for it.

Yes, it was perhaps a more real life task and a useful one for sure. But was the marker interested in where the student had decided to travel to and what they were going to have for lunch each day?

Or were they more interested in if they could use ratio to do the currency conversion and use percentage interest and compounding calculations to figure out the savings? 

Clearly the last one. 

Now, Does it mean your teen can’t enjoy figuring out where they might go and what they might see on their overseas trip?  
No. 

Does that mean your teen can’t have a bit of fun making the rollercoaster have a crazy circuit? 
No.

But should they spend ages researching or designing or deciding it based on what looks fun or interesting - also no.

Now, I know this is taking away from the joy of learning. I totally get it. 
But I also know that for a lot of you, there is not much joy for you in watching your teen studying every hour of the day. Getting stressed over their design, or story line or deciding which bio-ethics topic to research. And researching 4 of them before they even decide, to be able to decide and then start on the real thing.

There is not much joy for them in having little life balance and agonising over things that don’t even NEED to be agonised over.

They could make a much faster decision if they based their design on knowing that they need to show each different type of function in their rollercoaster - a straight line, four different polynomial functions, and a circle. The actual design doesn’t actually matter at all.

Because then they realise: Spending hours trying to get the right formula and exact meeting points just to get that cool looking drop for the rollercoaster because - when you could still use a different cubic equation and get the same credit - may just not be worth it.

What I hope you can see from these examples, is that the assignment your teen is working on isn’t so much about the final product they’re producing. It’s about displaying and showing the knowledge and skills being assessed. 

The rollercoaster design is not about designing a great rollercoaster. It’s about graphing the functions and solving the equations. It requires them to use graphing software as well as show their manual working for the points of intersection and the gradients at them. 

The travel plan and budget isn’t about the holiday. It’s about proving they can do ratio calculations with currency conversions, showing Earth geometry skills with distance and time difference and then budgeting skills and interest rate calculations. 
It’s a way of them showing and displaying those skills in a context other than a simple test or exam. It’s about applying those skills to a scenario.

And the bonus - especially in the holiday planning - is that it’s one of the few times students can answer ‘when am I actually going to use this in real life’ with a positive response. 

But the key here is that in both cases they are about displaying specific mathematical skills and concepts accurately and appropriately within that remit. Proving that they know and can do certain things. It’s about the skills and subject knowledge they’re demonstrating throughthis project. 

The project is the vehicle for demonstrating their skills, knowledge, and understanding of the subject matter. And it’s the same in every other project, assignment or assessment.

The project is the vehicle for demonstrating their skills, knowledge, and understanding of the subject matter.

I’ve talked before about this with writing a short story. You can find that in episode 64: Shortcuts to a Stunning Short Story
 
It might seem like the goal is to craft an engaging and entertaining narrative. But the syllabus does not require teachers to create authors. It requires them to create young adults who can use language features appropriately, write with grammatical accuracy, and adapt their writing for purpose. 

The short story is the vehicle to assess your teen’s grasp and ability to use literary techniques. Are they using metaphors effectively? Can they build suspense using short sentences? Can they craft engaging characters using descriptive language and extended sentences? Are they adhering to the conventions of a particular genre? 

The story is just the medium through which they demonstrate these skills. 
Just like it’s not about how good the rollercoaster would be to ride. The short story is not about the story line. Yet, this is what so many students get caught up in. 

They get caught up in what design they should do for their bluetooth speaker for DT. They spend ages deciding how to design the new sustainable school building. They take hours figuring out which ethical issue they should investigate for Biology. Hint: the one that has the best stats and research to analyse. Not the most interesting topic. If those can both intersect, great! If not, I know NOW which one I’d choose. Not that I knew any of this as a student. I talked recently about even falling into this trap during my teaching qualification assignment. Ugh. You can see why I’m so keen to share this.

Understanding that an assessment is simply the vehicle to show off what the examiner or marker is looking for can profoundly shift how you and your teen view school assignments. Instead of seeing them as outcomes to be produced, we start to recognize them as opportunities for our teens to showcase what they’ve learned and how they can apply their knowledge. And then make smart and efficient decisions that help them do that in the most effective way. 

It may not be the most interesting way.

It may not be the most exciting outcome.

It may not fit the idea that education is here to spark curiosity. 

It would be great if it did - of course we’d all love that. But I think for anyone who’s seen a student struggling over some mammoth assessment, we know that it can do the exact opposite of igniting a love of learning. And right now, I want to share this to try to prevent that part happening. Teaching in interactive ways to make learning exciting - definitely. 

But from my observations and experience, the things that start out fun or interesting quickly become not so fun and interesting when they are taking ten times longer than they should, and downright depressing when those hours of hard work are rewarded -or not rewarded - with a less than hoped for result.

And this brings us to the critical point: It’s crucial for your teen to know what they’ll be marked on. Not just what the marking criteria are, but specifically, what is the marker actually looking for in order to tick those criteria? Those are two different things by the way. 

Many hardworking students are trying to score a goal without knowing where the goalposts are. Lots of students know which way they’re shooting, they know the criteria. But they don’t have specific goal posts. They don’t know exactly what they need to be showing or doing to achieve those criteria. Or they don’t know what exactly moves things into the next level of that criteria. What makes their literary devices in their narrative appropriate, and what makes them sophisticated? 

When your teen understands the marking criteria, they know exactly what’s expected of them. They can focus their efforts on demonstrating the specific skills and knowledge that will be assessed. This not only makes their work more targeted and effective but also reduces stress because they know they’re hitting the right criteria.

So, let’s wrap this up with a few key takeaways:

1. Assignments are Vehicles: They’re not just about the final product but about demonstrating skills and knowledge.
2. Understand the Marking Criteria: Knowing what’s expected helps focus time and effort and reduces stress.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with other parents and leave a review. 

Have a brilliant week and I’ll see you back here Tuesday next week!