A highly motivated, committed and creative team of Carey teachers have been working on four research and innovation projects this year. These exciting projects are designed to build on some well-developed initiatives that have been a strong focus at Carey over many years. Each project will further develop student learning outcomes and will create efficiencies for the School community, while also contributing to the wider educational dialogue and reform in Australian schooling.
Personalised Learning Model: focussed on growth
Our focus on student growth stems from the reality in every classroom that the most advanced 10% of students in any year group are between five and six years ahead of the least advanced 10% of students. We often find that students in the same year group are not all equally ready for or able to benefit from the same year level curriculum. Teachers are required to have a deep understanding of what long-term progress in their area of learning looks like, but, as we know, students are only graded and assessed on curriculum content that is chunked and delivered in topics or timeframes such as terms, semesters or over a year.
At Carey, we are developing learning progressions to provide a frame of reference for establishing where each student is in their learning and for monitoring growth over time. Currently we are writing and trialling learning progressions in the learning areas of English, Mathematics, Science, Languages and in immersive year level experiential programs. This will complement and build on what has been done at the Junior School level in this area.
Digital Learning Resource
Carey aspires to be a leading digital school that provides a unique personalised learning experience for our students, teachers, parents and the School community. We recognise that we have a new generation of learners who are actively using technology to learn on multiple devices, and who welcome engaging, interactive, on-demand course materials and support, anytime and anywhere. The face-to-face component of teaching will always be our priority and primary method of education; however, there is an opportunity for this to be augmented by a high quality online digital environment.
The innovation team is working to further develop the Carey digital resources to create this unique personalised learning experience. Building on the Learning Management System Canvas, we are creating online skill-based support materials and online trial courses for families, staff and students. Some of these courses include coding, learning how to learn and study skills, STEAM for families, and how to conduct research, among many others. Other priorities for this team include the exploration of micro-credentialing, which involves collecting digital ‘credits’ which can be used as set of evidence for the learner profile, online courses for staff, project learning and learning design materials.
An update on our further two projects – Student Learner Profile and Student Knowledge System – will follow in next term’s newsletter.
Kate Croft
Deputy Principal – Learning
