Student Forum 4^th April 2008Student Forum Response Greg Elliott, Dean of Curriculum of St Mary Star of the Sea College, leads a team of eight KLA ccoordinators in their research projects. In his paper, “Student voice as the cornerstone for strategic planning”, on iNet. 2007, he describes the plans for a

In this process of review it is assumed

That students ‘ voices are critical in the review process, as they are the key stakeholders in school improvement, and are a powerful source of evidence for the efficacy of our teaching;

Professor Susan Groundwater-Smith, of the Division of Professional Learning, at the University of Sydney, has accepted the role of critical friend for the College ‘ s review process. Her work in the area of practitioner enquiry and the development of organisational learning is seen as most valuable for the type of review being contemplated for the College. One of her penchants in research has been to ‘ listen for the silences ‘, that is, to discern what it is that is not being said in an organisation.

The College’s original strategic plan suffered from a deafening silence when it came to the area of student voice in the reflection and planning cycle. The other silence that could not be ignored was the critical evaluation of objective evidence. These two areas became the natural starting points for our action research. [1]

In the project “Art Growth“, listening to the student’s voice is an integral part of the strategy of our backward planning action research project. On the 4^th April 2008, a forum was convened of Yr 11 Visual Art class, parental consent was obtained.

Introduction

The project was introduced as they were seated around a large table on which was scattered a number of visual stimulus material. Students were asked if they minded if their conversation was recorded. There were no objections, they were happy to be involved in a school wide learning research project; an iPod was placed on the table.

Process

They were invited to choose an image that strongly appealed to them.

“Choose an image that relates to how you are feeling about yourself / your skills as an artist?”

After they all had chosen they were then asked to draw the image, and to record their reasons for doing so. They were reassured that this was to concentrate their attention on details, or the focal point and to start the process of analysis of what initially attracted their attention. There was no right or wrong reasons; this is a starting point to explore the focus question. 

The iPod was moved around the group as each student responded.

Recorded conversation: 15 minutes

Their responses initially were very descriptive of the image eg “its colourful”, “Heaps abstract”, “it’s emotional”, description of media “which I’m better at, like oil stick”, they had to be prompted to reference how they felt about themselves / their skills as artists.

Comments emerged that were more reflective such as “I never thought to make a painting like that” – “I would have drawn it differently “, “I could learn how to paint a portrait of a woman, I like drawing people. This is realistic, instead of abstract”, “This is different to my work- I like to complicate it, to not look real”, “its about the environment, this is how I like to paint”, “I find it hard to draw like this, mine is more cartoon like, I appreciate this, I like it – I can’t do it”, “the reflection on the water, draws me through the artwork, taking photographs is my favourite art”

Secondary questions were introduced:

• “What do I like or admire in art? What engages triggers a response or inspires you?

One student was emotionally touched by her image of an aerial view of a surfing beach, “it reminds me of one of my friends, who is having a down time at the moment”, “my image is a photograph of three girls, and one may be a princess. Art can be in any form, it may be textiles, dresses”.

The process was stymied by my suggestion that we let everyone respond to the question, to move anti clockwise, around the group. I locked myself into a situation where they were politely listening to each other. Not engaging in an exchange of views.

The situation loosened up after everyone had spoken and further questions were added:

• “In an art studio context what type of experience do you find the most satisfying?
• “How would you like to be taught artmaking”

Students became very animated and wanted to give their opinions, unfortunately the recording was full of static for the next 4 minutes only a few dislocated sentences are clear.

Unrecorded conversation

Students complained about how they were rushed all the time, from one assessment task to another. One student said that they do the same thing every year, she said that if you looked at her VAD, her art folios for each course this would be demonstrated. Another believes that art outside of school is more fun, I get more done in one class (2 hours) than I do for a week at school (4 lessons). We get many interruptions. Students were asked at the end of the session, in the next 24 hours to take a photo of a …………. ,that resonates with them as being an image that stimulates their creativity.This is a good starting point for the next Forum, where I will provide them with feedback for them to verify. 

(1) Elliott, G., (2007), “Student voice as the cornerstone for strategic planning”, paper on iNet. http:/www.ssat-inet.net/resources/olc/papers/studentvoiceasthe.aspx

Student Forum 4^th April 2008

Greg Elliott, Dean of Curriculum of St Mary Star of the Sea College, leads a team of eight KLA ccoordinators in their research projects. In his paper, “Student voice as the cornerstone for strategic planning”, on iNet. 2007, he describes the plans for a
….. system of recursive evaluation at St Mary Star of the Sea College, in New South Wales, Australia. This system of evaluation is based on action research, as described in Groundwater-Smith‘s book, A Corporate Learning Portfolio (1999 & 2004).In this process of review it is assumedThat students ‘ voices are critical in the review process, as they are the key stakeholders in school improvement, and are a powerful source of evidence for the efficacy of our teaching; Professor Susan Groundwater-Smith, of the Division of Professional Learning, at the University of Sydney, has accepted the role of critical friend for the College ‘ s review process. Her work in the area of practitioner enquiry and the development of organisational learning is seen as most valuable for the type of review being contemplated for the College. One of her penchants in research has been to ‘ listen for the silences ‘, that is, to discern what it is that is not being said in an organisation. The College’s original strategic plan suffered from a deafening silence when it came to the area of student voice in the reflection and planning cycle. The other silence that could not be ignored was the critical evaluation of objective evidence. These two areas became the natural starting points for our action research. [1] In the project “Art Growth“, listening to the student’s voice is an integral part of the strategy of our backward planning action research project. On the 4^th April 2008, a forum was convened of Yr 11 Visual Art class, parental consent was obtained.IntroductionThe project was introduced as they were seated around a large table on which was scattered a number of visual stimulus material. Students were asked if they minded if their conversation was recorded. There were no objections, they were happy to be involved in a school wide learning research project; an iPod was placed on the table. ProcessThey were invited to choose an image that strongly appealed to them. “Choose an image that relates to how you are feeling about yourself / your skills as an artist?”After they all had chosen they were then asked to draw the image, and to record their reasons for doing so. They were reassured that this was to concentrate their attention on details, or the focal point and to start the process of analysis of what initially attracted their attention. There was no right or wrong reasons; this is a starting point to explore the focus question.         
The iPod was moved around the group as each student responded.     Recorded conversation: 15 minutesTheir responses initially were very descriptive of the image eg “its colourful”, “Heaps abstract”, “it’s emotional”, description of media “which I’m better at, like oil stick”, they had to be prompted to reference how they felt about themselves / their skills as artists. Comments emerged that were more reflective such as “I never thought to make a painting like that” – “I would have drawn it differently “, “I could learn how to paint a portrait of a woman, I like drawing people. This is realistic, instead of abstract”, “This is different to my work- I like to complicate it, to not look real”, “its about the environment, this is how I like to paint”, “I find it hard to draw like this, mine is more cartoon like, I appreciate this, I like it – I can’t do it”, “the reflection on the water, draws me through the artwork, taking photographs is my favourite art”Secondary questions were introduced:

• “What do I like or admire in art? What engages triggers a response or inspires you?

One student was emotionally touched by her image of an aerial view of a surfing beach, “it reminds me of one of my friends, who is having a down time at the moment”, “my image is a photograph of three girls, and one may be a princess. Art can be in any form, it may be textiles, dresses”. “The process was stymied by my suggestion that we let everyone respond to the question, to move anti clockwise, around the group. I locked myself into a situation where they were politely listening to each other. Not engaging in an exchange of views.The situation loosened up after everyone had spoken and further questions were added:      

• “In an art studio context what type of experience do you find the most satisfying?
• “How would you like to be taught artmaking”

Students became very animated and wanted to give their opinions, unfortunately the recording was full of static for the next 4 minutes only a few dislocated sentences are clear.Unrecorded conversationStudents complained about how they were rushed all the time, from one assessment task to another. One student said that they do the same thing every year, she said that if you looked at her VAD, her art folios for each course this would be demonstrated. Another believes that art outside of school is more fun, I get more done in one class (2 hours) than I do for a week at school (4 lessons). We get many interruptions. Students were asked at the end of the session, in the next 24 hours to take a photo of a …………. ,that resonates with them as being an image that stimulates their creativity.This is a good starting point for the next Forum, where I will provide them with feedback for them to verify. 

May 8th

Students verified feedback, they were disappointed that the recording failed after 15 mins but were satisfied that the synopsis was valid and curious about how their imput would be used. They were pleased at being part of a process to improve teaching and learning and were looking forward to the next session.

[1] Elliott, G., (2007), “Student voice as the cornerstone for strategic planning”, paper on iNet. http://www.ssat-inet.net/resources/olc/papers/studentvoiceasthe.aspx

More recently in January 2008, an opinion article, was published in The Canberra Times

ACER eNews

An excellent teacher for every child

The Rudd government was elected with the promise of a ‘revolution’ to provide Australia with a world-class education system. Why is an education revolution required, and what forms could it take? In this recent opinion article, published in The Canberra Times, ACER chief executive Professor Geoff Masters looks at Australia’s education priorities. (ACER News Issue 61, January 2008)

Professor Masters identifies the characteristics that ‘excellent teachers’ have in common. For example:

• they create classroom environments in which there is a belief that all students can learn successfully, where students are motivated by curiosity, value learning for its own sake, and feel supported and safe to take risks.

He believes that ‘learning cultures’ of this kind are more effective in the long term than ‘performance’ cultures in which learning is driven by external demands, competition and the threat of failure.

• Outstanding teachers also monitor the progress and learning needs of individual learners. They take time to understand children’s interests and motivations and to diagnose individual difficulties and misunderstandings.

This is a challenge in the average classroom in which some children can be five or six years ahead of other children of the same age.

• Excellent teachers understand that teaching is more than delivering a fixed curriculum to a class of students. They appreciate the importance of catching learning problems early and know that, unless educational needs are identified and addressed, some children will fall further behind over time.
• Having identified students’ learning needs, outstanding teachers use evidence-based strategies and interventions to target those needs.
• They draw on a body of professional knowledge about effective methods of teaching: what works, for whom and under what conditions.
• They are eager to learn from research and practice, to experiment and to share successes and failures with colleagues.
• They know that becoming a better teacher requires ongoing learning and that teaching expertise, like other forms of expertise, requires years of work.

The emphasis for these teachers is on seeing every child make substantial progress. They recognise and celebrate such progress, even if a child is still performing below most children of the same age.

At the front end of a project, you can hold focus groups to help refine your educational objectives. You can discover what participants already know about a topic, what material they already have and what they think they need, and how they envision using different types of information and related materials.[1]

Forum: 8th April 2008 _ Yr 11 Preliminary Visual Art

• Introduction and orientation (1 minute) Location Studio F117 at St Mary Star of the Sea College.
• General issues (1 minute)
  • Quality teaching – brief introduction of the school based research projects on Quality teaching & Learning, supported by the school board.

• Issues specific to project (1 minute)
  • Inquiry-based teaching, Action research –
  • “How are you feeling about your skills as an artist”

• Viewing of and choice of stimulus material. (1 minute)
  • Art prints & photographs
  • 

“Choose an image that relates to how you are feeling about yourself / your skills as an artist?” 1. Draw the chosen image

• Recorded conversation:
  • “What do I like or admire in art? What engages, triggers a response or inspires you?
  • “In an art studio context what type of experience do you find the most satisfying?

• Students asked at the end of the session, in the next 24 hours to take a photo of a …………. That resonates with them as being an image that stimulates their creativity.

Quality teaching is pivital in improving student outcomes. In 2003 The NSW Department of Education and Training, produced a Discussion paper Quality teaching in New South Wales public schools, which had a significant impact on teaching in NSW.
It builds on the growing documentation of best practice in NSW and

• explains why a central focus must be placed on the quality of pedagogy

• supports the dimensions and elements of the NSW model of pedagogy as they have been successfully applied in a range of school contexts and shown to lead to improved student learning.

The importance of Quality Teaching

Australian educational researchers working within the effective schools tradition have now established clearly that teaching is a prime factor in promoting improvements in student outcomes (Hill and Rowe, 1998).

There are at least two significant qualifications that have to be acknowledged here,and have received signifi cant attention from some of Australia’s foremost educational researchers. First, pedagogy does not occur in isolation from the rest of school life. In particular, we know that the nature of the curriculum with which teachers work has a serious impact on just what kind of outcomes students obtain (Teese, 2000; Teese and Polesel, 2003).

This paper identifies one of the main things schools differentiate in the context of differential curriculum is the quality of pedagogy.

The second qualifi cation is that it is incredibly difficult to determine just which kinds of pedagogy actually do promote improvements in student learning outcomes, given the complexity of studying these phenomena. The history of research into teaching is full of studies that have either failed to achieve this goal or only met with very modestsuccess (see Gage, 1978). That history has been changing, and recent developmentsn educational research have led to some serious insights into the fundamental educational question of what makes effective pedagogy.

The model of pedagogy presented in the Quality teaching in New South Wales public schools: Discussionpaper is built from these recent developments.

So, why focus on pedagogy? Simple: the answer is because it matters most when itcomes to improving student outcomes, and because we now have a good idea of justwhat kind of pedagogy works.

have been successfully applied in a range of school contexts and shown to lead to improved student outcomes.

4 An annotated bibliography

More recently in January 2008, an opinion article, was published in The Canberra Times