Introducing Unit Specifications and Unit Assessment Support Packs People and Society National 3 and 4

Unit Assessment  Assessments can be designed to provide evidence across more than one Unit or Outcome – combined assessments  Flexible and open Evidence Requirements in Units  Greater range of techniques and methodologies for assessment – encouraged through Unit assessment support packages  More opportunities to gather naturally occurring evidence – assessment as part of learning and teaching

Unit Structure

Key points: People and Society Units  are skills-based and inter-disciplinary in nature  encourage personalisation and choice  have a hierarchical Unit structure that provide progression from National 3 to National 4  contexts of Investigating Skills, Comparing and Contrasting and Making Decisions are covered  themes/issues are chosen linked to key ideas  has added value assessment that increase personalisation and choice in the assignment at National 4

Unit Specifications National 4 – Investigating Skills Outcome 1 Use straightforward investigating skills suitable for carrying out social subjects/social science investigations by:  1.1Choosing at least two suitable sources of information for an investigation on a topic or issue  1.2Collecting a range of information from at least two sources of information  1.3 Organising a limited range of information from at least two sources of information

Unit Specifications Outcome 2 Draw on their straightforward knowledge and understanding of topics or issues in an interdisciplinary way by:  2.1 Giving brief factual descriptions of the main features of a topic or issue  2.2 Giving brief explanations about a straightforward topic or issue  2.3 Showing knowledge and understanding of three key ideas drawn from the social subjects/social science disciplines.

Unit Specifications Evidence Requirements for this Unit:  Assessors should use their professional judgement, subject knowledge and experience, and understanding of their learners, to determine the most appropriate ways to generate evidence and the conditions and contexts in which they are used.  Evidence should be gathered in combination with other Outcomes where possible, either from this Unit or in combination with the Outcomes from the Comparing and Contrasting or Making Decisions Unit. Evidence may also be gathered for individual Outcomes where appropriate.

Unit Specifications For this Unit learners will be required to provide evidence of investigating skills by:  Choosing, collecting and organising information from at least two suitable sources  Describing and explaining the main features of the topic/issue  Show understanding of the key ideas by relating them to the topic/issue

Unit Assessment Support Packages - purpose UASPs can be used to: Assess your candidates Adapt for your own assessment programmes Help you develop your own assessments

UASPs – key features  Valid from August 2013  Designed to encourage professional judgement  Provide broad-based tasks – allow assessors to choose appropriate context and forms of evidence  Show range of approaches to generating assessment evidence  Give information on the type of evidence which could be gathered and how this is to be judged against Assessment Standards

People & Society UASPs Package 1  Unit by Unit approach N3 and N4 – discrete assessment tasks for each Unit Package 2  Combined across 2 Units with ‘top up’ tasks to cover all outcomes in 3 rd Unit Package 3  Portfolio Approach

National 4 Added Value Unit  Makes the Course more than the sum of its parts  Builds on current Course assessment and Group Award approaches  Defined as breadth, challenge and/or application as outlined in Building the Curriculum 5  May involve accumulation, assimilation, integration and/or application of skills, knowledge and understanding  Controlled assessment – setting conducting and marking

N4 AV Unit: People and Society Assignment  Must use SQA Pack for 2014 and 2015  Experience challenge and application  Focus on researching and using information relating to a topic or issue drawn from the key ideas of the Course  Assesses skills in choosing a topic, collecting evidence, organising and using information, using factual knowledge, applying the skills learned throughout the course and presenting findings using a candidate chosen method  Internally marked pass or fail

Moving on  Workshop 1 and 2 will give you the opportunity to look at the Unit Specifications and Unit Assessment Support Packages in detail.