Evidence for Learning acknowledges the many schools who have engaged with us to illustrate evidence-informed practices across a range of contexts. Illustrations have been sourced from Victorian schools in partnership with the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership. This work has been generously supported by The William Buckland Foundation.
Bairnsdale West Primary School
Designing for explicit teaching and reflective practice
At Bairnsdale West Primary School, all staff have a commitment to improving SEL, recognising the importance of these skills in developing resilient learners and positive relationships within the school community. The staff use Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships to teach core topics of SEL explicitly and sequentially, focusing on the use of collaborative learning techniques in the delivery of concepts.
Clear, personalised student goals become a starting point for the explicit teaching of SEL, informing what is taught, how it is taught – such as through discussions and games, and finally how it is assessed. Sessions follow a flexible, but distinct pattern, beginning with priming activities, for example using open-ended questions or a story book prompt, to activate and consolidate prior knowledge. New concepts and language are then introduced, building on the language of SEL, common across the school, and varying in delivery to ensure all students are catered for. Each session concludes with opportunities for reflection, both individually and at the whole-class level.
Importantly, once a session is complete, teachers, education support staff and other adults involved have dedicated time to reflect on what was observed during the session and discuss the outcomes of the session in line with established learning intentions – an essential part of the monitoring process which is then used to inform further planning and integration into other curriculum areas.
California Gully Primary School
Monitoring learning to improve comprehension
Staff at California Gully Primary School had identified that student engagement in reading was low. Looking to reverse this trend, school leadership explored a number of avenues before landing on metacognition as a way to empower and engage students.
Prior to introducing the new metacognitive strategy to students, the leadership team focused on building the confidence in staff to deliver the explicit strategies and to model them. Regular professional learning sessions linking metacognition to comprehension were complemented by professional reading and supporting resources.
Upper primary students were given tools to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. A focus on comprehension has enabled the school to trial an annotation code for students. This code guides students to classify their thinking through the application of key prompts such as:
- Important information,
- Questioning,
- New learning,
- This reminds me… (connections).
Initially, the annotation code was explicitly taught to students, and is now being used to track student internal voice as they engage in shared, guided, and independent reading activities.
Dandenong North Primary School
Dandenong North Primary School (DNPS) is a large primary school in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Of the 830 students at DNPS, 90% have a language background other than English and many are new arrivals, so a focus on literacy is fundamental to ensuring all students can access learning.
- Hear from Assistant Principal Jenny Mackay to understand how Dandenong North are using evidence to improve literacy outcomes for their students.
http://youtu.be/Cozzk8n1Biw?list=PLx-XLTQzmAdRGq2QDtO6phmuZbxYaJDTU - You can also read about how DNPS is supporting students literacy as they return to school after periods of home-supported learning in the E4L Guide to Supporting School Planning and Recovery.
Korumburra Secondary College
Exploring learning techniques in Outdoor Education Studies
The leadership team at Korumburra Secondary College embarked on a path to improve the teaching of metacognition to develop skills that students require to learn with greater independence. Senior students studying Outdoor Education Studies were involved in a pilot program which staff designed to gather information about which metacognitive strategies students were already using and relying on.
Students were given a task with a week to prepare and were asked to predict their results, to record their preparation, and note the content areas that they saw as strengths or weaknesses for themselves. Following the task, students self-assessed using a rubric and reflected on their pre-task predictions.
The class then explored Dunlosky’s research on effectiveness of learning techniques guided by the teacher, and analysed their own practices against the low-, moderate-, and high-utility techniques. Many of the approaches that students had drawn on were low-utility techniques. This opened a discussion about the effectiveness of each technique and students were then engaged in re-designing their preparation with new knowledge about the techniques that show greater effectiveness.
In response to the trial with these students, the school has devised explicit learning opportunities for students before they reach Year 12 to support the adoption of effective techniques to support independent learning and study preparation.
Monterey Secondary College
Monterey Secondary College is a small secondary school located in Frankston, catering for 280 students with a broad range of backgrounds.
- Read Monterey's Implementation Plan which illustrates how a focus on student wellbeing is leading to improved engagement and student outcomes.
- You can also read about how Monterey has approached student wellbeing during periods of home-supported learning and in the return to school in the E4L Guide to Supporting School Planning and Recovery.
Wodonga Senior Secondary College
Wodonga Senior Secondary College, located in the regional hub of Wodonga, is one of Victoria’s largest Senior Colleges and caters to 820 students in years 10, 11 and 12.
- Read Wodonga's Implementation Plan which demonstrates how they are approaching metacognition as a key to improving student capacity.
- You can also read about how Wodonga has tackled periods of home-supported learning and the return to school in the E4L Guide to Supporting School Planning and Recovery.
