Standardization: Cycling away from the moderation “event”

Update 2024: Standardization Cycle 2.0 is here.

A quick post to share a resource, based on some of our work at CA. I love cycle diagrams and was thinking about the process of moderation, planning and the challenges of effective collaboration when there are grades (and a big pile of ‘done’ grading) at stake. 

If you’ve ever tried to ‘moderate’ work that’s based on two or more teachers’ hours of effort in grading, you’ll recognise the challenge. The proposal here is to reframe stadardization as a cycle – various points of entry to working together on a common understanding of assessment – so that teachers align their assessment standards more closely. Post-hoc moderation events may tend towards defense of our own grading work; who wants to go back and change all that work?

The Standardization Cycle is also embedded in the MYP Assessment superdoc here: bit.ly/mypassess.

Do you think you could put the cycle to work in your own context?