February 2023 EmaiLink 1

Nau mai, haere mai!

Welcome to the February 2023 newsletter EmaiLink 1.

Latest circulars

See our latest Assessment Matters circular:

NZQA Assessment Rules for Schools, TEOs assessing against Achievement Standards, and Candidates 2023 - A2023/1

Moderation plans

Most schools should have received their 2023 moderation plans by now. Please email your School Relationship Manager if you want to request any changes on the form provided.

If you haven’t received it, request one from your School Relationship Manager.

Reviews and reconsiderations

Cut scores

You can find Cut scores for all subjects on our web page below. These scores may help students in their decision about whether to request a review or reconsideration.

Cut Scores (external link)

Extension of deadlines

For review and reconsideration applications for 2022 external examination and portfolio results

As a result of the impact of the severe weather across the North, we have extended the window during which applications can be made to give students the opportunity to discuss their exam papers with their teacher.

The deadline for NCEA reviews and reconsiderations is now Friday, 3 March.

It is advisable for students to talk to their teachers prior to applying for a Review or Reconsideration. All examination papers are available within the student logon area as scanned copies. Assessment schedules should be available shortly on subject pages.

Read more about the review or reconsideration of NCEA examination results and portfolios:

Reviews and reconsiderations (external link)

Read about the review or reconsideration of Scholarship examination results details:

New Zealand Scholarship results publication (external link)

Reconsideration application fee waivers

NZQA will waive the fee for students who meet the income criteria and apply for a reconsideration of an NCEA or New Zealand Scholarship result.

Find out more:

Reviews and reconsiderations (external link)

Assessor support

Several new courses are available this term on NZQA’s Learning Management System (Pūtake) for new and existing teachers. These include the online Making Assessor Judgement course which provides teacher-assessors with samples of real student evidence to practise awarding accurate grades.

The Making Assessor Judgement course is available for 32 NCEA subjects. Teacher feedback indicates that 100 percent of respondents believe the content of the course was relevant to their needs.

All online courses are free and can be accessed via the ESL on our web page:

Online Assessor Support (external link)

NZQA Assessment rules for schools and TEO's

Assessing against Achievement standards and candidates

We have reviewed the NZQA Assessment Rules for 2023 to ensure that they clearly identify and communicate NZQA’s requirements for conduct in national assessment, and the entitlements or obligations conferred.

Find out more:

NZQA Assessment Rules for Schools, TEOs assessing against Achievement Standards, and Candidates 2023 (external link)

Assessment Matters Circular A2023/1 has been published and there will be further information about this in the LNA Seminars.

NZQA Assessment Rules for Schools, TEOs assessing against Achievement Standards, and Candidates 2023 - A2023/1

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT)

About Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT)

The recent arrival of a new AI generator, Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), is ringing alarm bells for secondary school and university educators keen to preserve the authenticity and originality of student work/assessment.

At worst, the Chatbot can produce quality essays, reports, etc on any topic, which might escape detection by regular plagiarism checkers and be passed off as the student’s own work.

Assuming that it will be nigh on impossible for schools to remove a student’s access to ChatGPT, it is important that teachers monitor and manage its use in the same way that they have been managing other tools and behaviours that compromise the authenticity of student work.

Information available for teachers and Principal's nominees

NZQA has information available for teachers and Principals’ Nominees around credible assessment and authenticity. A new Authenticity online learning module, Tōku Reo Tōku Mahi, will be published in the next few weeks on Pūtake and it will include strategies to address AI evidence.

Teachers New to NCEA: Handbook

Effective assessment: Practice guide [PDF, 431 KB]

Go to Pūtake (external link)

We’ll be back in touch later in the year with information about how NZQA will address our regulatory accountabilities around maintaining the credibility of the qualification. This might include sampling of student work submitted for assessment.

Advice for senior leaders

Senior leaders are encouraged to:

• familiarise themselves and all staff with ChatGPT and other similar technologies
• review which assessment practices raise real authenticity concerns with the release of ChatGPT and adjust/manage policy and procedures accordingly, then
• consider the longer term implications of these technologies on authentic assessment and how assessment practices could evolve as a result
• use professional networks to share information and strategies for monitoring and managing the evolution of assessment practice in an AI-inclusive environment.

Advice for teachers

Teachers are best placed to identify whether the work their students have submitted is genuinely their own. In managing school-based internal and external assessment, teachers are advised to:

• design written internal assessment tasks in different ways, such as, encouraging personal reflection, to make the use of AI more difficult
• use the flexibility of NCEA, so students can demonstrate aspects of their learning through means other than written text
• use checkpoints to monitor the progress toward achievement of the standard
• use a variety of assessment methods, including traditional tests, class participation, group work and projects, to evaluate student learning outcomes prior to summative assessment events
• establish a reliable baseline of each student’s level of understanding, writing ability and mastery of material for evaluating future assessment items.

Common AI generators

Common AI generators include:

ChatGPT (external link)

Magic Write (external link)

Moonbeam (external link)

AI and plagiarism detectors

AI Writing Check

Quill.org and CommonLit.org have collaborated to detect AI writing by creating a tool called AI Writing Check and it’s available free to any teacher who wants to use it. It is simple, easy to use and browser-based, with no need to download or install software. Just copy and paste 100+ words and the tool tells you the likelihood of it being created by AI. It isn’t fool-proof, but it can help.  
Another good website is demo.aicheatcheck.com.

AI Writing Check (external link) — aiwriting check.org

Watch this short video showing how to use the tool and explaining the limitations:

How to detect articles written by ChatGPT (external link) — YouTube

AI Cheat Check

Find out more on AICheatCheck (external link) — demo.aicheatcheck.com

Other plagiarism detectors

Other electronic plagiarism detectors are also currently being adapted to detect AI generated text. This video by TurnItIn shows how it can detect if people try to fool AI detectors and how they detect that:

Sneak preview of Turnitin’s AI writing and ChatGPT detection capability for Education (external link) — YouTube

Leading National Assessment (LNA) seminars 2023

The purpose of the LNA seminar is to provide Principal’s Nominees and Senior Leaders with updated information on assessment for national qualifications and a forum for professional discussion and support.

The focus of this year’s seminar is getting ready for the implementation of the NCEA Change programme and the new Level 1 Achievement Standards in 2024. We will discuss the implications of the new standards for your assessment policies and practice, and the steps you need to take this year in preparation.

We encourage you to bring another senior leader from your school or kura with you.

You will receive an email about registering for the seminar. If you don’t receive this by 10 February, please email SchoolsLiaison@nzqa.govt.nz. Times and venues will be in the email and are for the morning only.