Office of Learning and Teaching

Designing a curriculum for the future Secondary Schools Office of Learning and Teaching

Student Learning Whole School Self Assessment Tool • Learner at the centre • Leadership • Integration of student learning initiatives • Organisational structures and learning environment • Performance and development culture

Student Learning Whole School Self Assessment Tool

Questions for reflection • Whole school level • Individually, rate your current situation against each of the five areas. • What’s your evidence for your placement? • Compare your ratings within your team. • Finalise your school rating. • Groups within your school • Would you give the same rating to each of the groups within your school? Why/why not? • What can you learn from those groups that have/haven’t made progress?

Why bother? Our curriculum challenges

The economic challenge is to develop in young people the skills, knowledge and personal qualities they need for a world where work is undergoing rapid and long- term change The technological challenge is to enable young people to make their way with confidence in a world that is being shaped by technologies which are evolving more quickly than at any time in history.

The social challenge is to provide forms of education that enable young people to engage positively and confidently with far-reaching processes of social and cultural change. The personal challenge is to develop the unique capacities of all young people, and to provide a basis on which they can build lives that are purposeful and fulfilling. Creative and Cultural Education- All Our Futures Summary, 2000 Prepare our students for high levels of challenge, complexity and individual responsibility

‘FRAGILE’ KNOWLEDGE can be: Missing (exposed to, but can’t remember) Inert (it’s there but you can’t do anything with it) Naïve(simplistic, stereotypical or wrong) Ritualistic (pattern useful for school task, nothing more) ‘GENERATIVE’ KNOWLEDGE focuses on: Retention of knowledge AND Understanding of knowledge AND Active use of knowledge. (David Perkins) Two types of knowledge requires ‘GOOD’ THINKING

A good performer in Math had this to say about her strategy: I know what to do by looking at the examples. If there are only two numbers I subtract. If there are lots of numbers I add. If there are just two numbers and one is smaller than the other it is a hard problem. I divide to see if it comes out even and if it doesn’t I multiply. ‘Smart Schools’ David Perkins (1992) p.25

Desforges and Cockburn (1987) reported on research from UK - They noted that students used considerable ingenuity to avoid thinking about classroom tasks wherever possible. Students were predominantly task focused, and were more interested in completing a task rather than comprehending it. Is this true for your students? If yes, where did they get this view?

What do your students value? • What are your students’ perceptions of: • the role of the teacher? • the role of the student? • what is effective learning? • They work to pass and not to know, alas they pass and do not know! Bertrand Russell

MY PERCEPTIONS OF MYSELF AS A LEARNER Amanda McGraw

Building learning capacity • What is it? • learning skills? • learning dispositions? • Ready, willing and able

Positive learning dispositions Guy Claxton, 2006

Building on what students know and are able to do (Vygotsky)

Instruction is powerful only when it is sufficiently precise and focused to build directly on what students already know and to take them to the next level. While a teacher does and must do many things, the most critical is designing and organising instruction so that it is focused. Without focus, instruction is inefficient and students spend too much time on completing activities that are too easy and do not involve new learning or too little time on tasks that are too difficult and involve too much new learning or relearning. ‘Breakthrough’ Fullan,Hill & Crevola (2006)

Student engagement/disengagement • What is the current level of student engagement in Years 7-10? • Does it vary from year level to year level? • Is it an issue for all students, for some students? • What do you currently do to address engagement? • Should engagement be a prerequisite or an outcome?

Victorian Essential Learning Standards Can the Victorian Essential Learning Standards assist us to address some of these challenges? • Changing world • Generative knowledge/Deep understanding • Building learning capacity • – skills and dispositions • Building on what students • know and are able to do • Student engagement

Victorian Essential Learning Standards Three core, interrelated strands: Physical, Personal and Social Learning Discipline-based Learning Interdisciplinary Learning

Dimensions in all domains are based on an underlyingcontinuum of learning. Standards define what students should know and be able to do at different levels. Progression points provide examples of what typical progress towards the standard may look like. Level 6 Level 5 Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1

The learner at the centre

Requires whole school curriculum planning … and attention to the learning culture of the school.

A curriculum for the future …. Which direction? Where are we now? What are the issues, dilemmas and challenges we face? Where do we want to be?

There is no such thing as ‘best practice’ or even ‘next practice’ – in abstract. You cannot say what is good teaching, good school organisation, good leadership, (or even good curriculum?) until you have specified what it is you want youngsters to have gained, in the light of the particular world they are being readied for. Guy Claxton 2006

OUR EDUCATIVE PURPOSE What is powerful to learn? What is powerful learning and what promotes it? Who do we report to? LEARNER Victorian Essential Learning Standards Principles of Learning and Teaching Students Parents Colleagues School System How do we know it has been learnt? Assessment Advice

Curriculum Planning Modules Module 1 - Whole school curriculum planning to suit our students Module 2 - Planning programs for cohorts of students

Module 1 Whole school curriculum planning to suit our students Activity 1.1 Characteristics of effective whole school curriculum planning Activity 1.2 School context Activity 1.3 Victorian Essential Learning Standards Activity 1.4 Drivers for student learning Activity 1.5 Curriculum design Activity 1.6 Learning, teaching and assessment

Characteristics of effective whole school curriculum planning • Use template 1.1B in your school team to audit your current practices.

SCHOOL CONTEXTWhere are we at with student learning?

Equity funding, ESL funding MIPS funding LSF funding Other……

School Context • What are our goals and targets? • What are our key improvement strategies?

Victorian Essential Learning Standards Everyone (leadership team and teachers) must be familiar with: • characteristics of learners (adolescents) • domains • dimensions • purpose of each domain & dimension • standards • learning focus statements

Curriculum drivers Curriculum drivers: • are a way of structuring learning to connect domains and dimensions in the Victorian Essential Learning Standards • reflect our students’ learning needs and provide a structure for them to achieve the Standards

Drivers for student learning Curriculum drivers may reflect: • what we want our school to stand for • the diverse needs, backgrounds, perspectives, interests, achievements and ways of learning of our students • the ‘big ideas’ that we want our students to engage with deeply • the future learning needs of our students • particular domains

Drivers for student learning – some examples • Environmental sustainability • Studies of Asia • Globalisation • Multiculturalism • Healthy school • Civics and citizenship – leadership • The Arts

Humanities – some essential questions • Why do people seek to discover what is unknown? • How does learning about other cultures help us understand ourselves? • What does it mean to ‘come of age’ and how does it differ across culture, time and gender? • Can we all be individuals as equal parts of a whole? • What keeps people of different cultures from living/working successfully together? • How does reflection on your work and thinking help you understand? • How do we find out the truth about things that happened long ago and far away? How do you see through bias? (from Ron Ritchhart ‘Intellectual Character’)

English – some essential questions From English KLA – GWSC • How does studying our texts inform us about the world we live in? • How does the study of literature (our texts) deepen our understanding of the human condition? • How does reflecting on my English skills in journals and reflective pieces improve my ability to communicate? • How does being able to use the conventions of English improve our ability to communicate? • How does the use of diverse spoken language skills aid in communicating with an audience?

English – some essential questions, cont… • How does knowing how to create a dynamic interaction of various spoken language skills improve our ability to engage an audience? • How does writing about my experiences differ from other kinds of writing? • How should imagination be used in developing skills in the English language? • How does studying an issue develop our ability to think using the English language?

Possible design options • Incorporate the interdisciplinary and physical, personal and social strands of the Standards into existing discipline-based subjects and broaden their focus in this way. • Integrated approach where one or more disciplines and other relevant domains are combined and addressed through key questions or themes. • Combine all three strands in the context of extended projects that students are to complete. • Mix of integrated and domain specific subjects • Different approaches at different year levels • A mix of approaches at each year level • PLUS others

What might a future curriculum look like? Learning would be structured mainly through projects. Some projects would be individual, while many would be group-based. Problems and goals would not be completely predefined by the curriculum. Students would repeatedly practise identifying and solving problems, rather than having them placed before them. Learning would take place in a range of contexts and use a range of methods. Projects would not all be research-based or within a traditional classroom environment. Students would be involved in doing as much as in thinking or knowing.

Alongside more traditional, teacher-centred assessment, students’ work would be evaluated by field experts, peers, parents and so on. It would be evaluated for different kinds of skills and knowledge - interpersonal, thinking strategies, self-organisation, depth of understanding and so on. Thinking and self assessment would be embedded across the curriculum. Students would focus particularly on learning to make connections between different contexts - the transfer and application of knowledge across different domains. Skills would be revisited and practised over time, so that knowledge gained earlier in an educational career could be applied creatively to new problems.

Students would gain depth of understanding in a number of disciplines, or domains of knowledge, including traditional academic subjects. They would also learn explicitly how to combine interdisciplinary knowledge in completing a project goal. The Creative Age- Knowledge and Skills for the New Economy.DEMOS 1999.

Curriculum Models • Look at different curriculum designmodels from various schools. • What are their strengths? • What are their limitations? Community views? Implementation issues?

Reporting (as distinct from teaching) • Who will report to parents on each of the domains? • Consider: • elements of domains and dimensions covered in each subject/program • identification of teachers who will report on particular domains and students • coordination of information for reporting purposes if more than one teacher has assessment information on a domain/s for particular students

Transition Model for reporting against the Standards 2007 to 2008

Office of Learning and Teaching