SmarterEd Maths
The Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (2020) recommends that teachers “develop and deliver assessment tasks that assess the intended learning outcomes from the syllabus, ensuring that the tasks are accessible to all students” (p. 22). SmarterEd Maths facilitates precisely this - enabling teachers to collate real HSC and HSC style questions for formative and diagnostic tasks. These questions are so useful precisely because they embody learning targets as set out by the syllabus, and include helpful annotations outlining the historical data pertaining to difficulty and common errors.
SmarterEd Maths facilitates a high level of customisation when forming question banks and assessment tasks, such that they are truly fit for purpose, and can therefore provide meaningful data for feedback, as well as informing future teaching. While questions from these banks would not be suitable for formal assessment, they are an invaluable reference resource for teachers constructing assessments.
My personal experience teaching Stage 6 has been improved by easy access to these collated past problems. Having a large bank of both questions and worked solutions to draw from reduces a large amount of work from the assignment of formative assessment and providing feedback on them. One assessment task I designed (included below) was thoroughly helped by access to a range of questions through this tool.
This tool is one that will facilitate sustainable practice, making the preparation and delivery of high quality learning materials and assessments far more realistic for a time-poor teacher.