Braemar College: Professional Learning Publication (Dec 22)

PL | contents

An Outline | PLTs 5

Ms Emily Ryan

Literacy PLTs 7

Mrs Sharon Hitti

Teacher Teams and the Formative Assessment Project [less is more] 8

Mr Rodney Knight

Professional Dialogue and Practice:

The Literacy Toolkit 10

Ms Lisa-Jayne Lacey

Formative Assessment in the Media classroom 12

Ms Lilly Dusting

PLT Reflection 13

Mrs Jenni Gadd

Formative Assessment in Humanities 14

Mr Greg Robinson

Literacy in Encounter 16

Ms Louise Pope

Formative Assessment in VCE English 17

Mr Anthony Young

Literacy PLT reflection 18

Mrs Jen Dowling

PLTs for the early-career teacher 19

Miss Nicole Gertos

Literacy in the Investigate classroom 20

Ms Sue Mullen

Formative Assessment in Music 21

Dr Jacqueline Ogeil

Welcome

Braemar College’s mission is to provide a highly supportive and comprehensive learning experience, which develops the skills students will need to be open-minded and independent life-long learners, who contribute visibly as members of local and global communities (Braemar College Strategic Plan 2021-2025).

Five pillars support the delivery of our vision, mission and values. One of those pillars is Quality Teachers. The use of this phrase, as opposed to Quality Teaching, aims to highlight that our collective professional focus is not just confined to the classroom but to the whole student. Our teachers and leaders seek to know and understand the young people in their care as learners, as well as, people.

Learning and Teaching within the College is directly supported by our Dean of Learning and Teaching, Ms Emily Ryan, as well as the broader Leadership Team. Modelling authentic distributive leadership, learning and teaching has been guided by an enthusiastic and driven team of educators. One mechanism for improving student learning outcomes has been developing and implementing Professional Learning Teams or PLTs. The collective efficacy of our teachers and leaders focussing on improving student outcomes via the PLT process has grown in strength and therefore impact in 2023.

I congratulate our staff and PLT leaders, who, led by Emily Ryan, have created a strong learning culture, embracing new and experienced teachers. I hope that you enjoy our 2022 reflections.

Mr Russell Deer Principal.

an outline | PLTs

Schools are notoriously busy places with a plethora of competing priorities related to teaching and learning, all vying for attention. Each of them are important - mapping curriculum, analysing learning data, reviewing reporting practices, to name a few – so it is crucial to have a clear understanding of what actually has the biggest impact on the learning of our students.

Fortunately, it is well established that after the student, the teacher has the single greatest impact on student learning (Hattie, 2012; Marzano, 2003), and that what happens in the classroom is what makes a difference. Knowing this has helped us declutter out priorities and focus on what is most important – strengthening our collective focus on pedagogy to develop the capacity of teachers in order to improve student learning. Teaching is such a complex job that even the most experienced of us can improve.

From the beginning of 2022, Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) have been our vehicle to help every teacher get better. This format has allowed teachers to share their experiences, gain new insights, and exercise choice to gradually embed new strategies within their classrooms. We have incorporated Peer Observation into this process, so teachers are supported to reflect on their practice, while enabling them to see how others approach their lessons. Most importantly, the content of learning within PLTs has been embedding formative assessment strategies into our lessons and the explicit teaching of writing. A limited number of priorities allows us to have a clear focus as a College, where teachers are united as they strive towards similar goals. In the pages that follow you will read reflections from Braemar College teachers about how these two areas have impacted their practice.

Within the Formative Assessment component, teachers learnt how to elicit evidence of student learning to adapt their teaching and be more responsive to student needs. They also considered how to help students become owners of their own learning through reflection, metacognitive strategies, feedback and exemplars so that students share the responsibility of identifying where they are at, where to next and how to get there. In a groundbreaking review of research evidence related to formative assessment practices, Emeritus Professor Dylan Wiliam and colleagues found that effective use of formative assessment strategies can double the rate of student learning. It is one of the most cost effective and impactful things that teachers can focus on and is at the heart of effective teaching, hence the focus on this important area. The Literacy component armed teachers across all subject areas with the knowledge and skills to explicitly teach students how to write. Sharon Hitti will elaborate more on this work in her piece on the following page.

We hope you enjoy reading this Professional Learning Publication, and that it provides you with valuable insight into the learning that is taking place at Braemar College, by students and teachers. A big thank you to all of the PLT Leaders for facilitating their sessions. Wishing you a very happy and restful break.

Ms Emily Ryan Dean of Learning and Teaching.

“As well as learning together, it also provided a time to celebrate wins, sometimes sigh together in frustration and debrief alongside our colleagues at the end of a busy day.”

Literacy PLTs

It is at this time of the school year that the practice of teaching and learning is both critiqued and celebrated, and none more so than when reflecting upon a school wide PLT program in its inaugural year. As Emily Ryan has touched upon, there are multiple reasons that a school wide professional development program works. It is efficient and effective and unites teachers as a professional body who value themselves enough to invest time into their teaching practice.

This year, our focus in the Literacy PLT has been on improving writing. Undisputable is the fact that to succeed in both schooling and in life, people need to know how to communicate in written form. Every year the education system comes under scrutiny about how the educational journey ends for students – silent, sitting at single tables, pouring out all they can recall and apply in 2-3 hours. Despite such controversy, the educational outcome of writing is never questioned. Regardless of the student, the learning domain or even the philosophical stance on education, teaching students to write clearly and cohesively is our obligation.

Accordingly, presented in the Literacy PLT sessions this year was an approach to writing that improves student writing by providing instruction that is systematic, cumulative and explicitly teaches students how to write. Our sessions

were based on the ‘The Writing Revolution’ which is an approach that at its most strategic and effective, begins at the sentence level and builds to extended pieces of writing. The approach values the planning and editing stages of writing, and the rigor of the learning relies on the content of the curriculum for which it is embedded. It also adheres to the broader body of research known as the Science of Writing. So how did we go in our first year in the Literacy PLT with a focus on writing? We discovered that regardless of where a teacher is at in their journey of teaching writing in the classroom, our writing PLT provided knowledge to arm teachers with explicit teaching strategies, formative tasks and a language to dissect the writing of students. It built upon sentence level work and progressed to paragraph writing with scaffolding to support any writer. One of the best things that came out of the writing PLT was the discussion and interest that it generated. Conversations in the sessions were constructive and illuminating, and while we were all learning together, we also shared practice and learnt from each other. It was affirming to hear how the teaching of writing works in the classrooms of Science, Indonesian, Drama and Art, alongside the more traditional writing-based subjects of English and Humanities. We learnt that the writing needs of students has commonalities in every classroom and is best taught using the lesson

content to provide the purpose for writing. In the Art classroom for example, while the opportunity to write is not as prolific, it still needs to be focused, organised and use subject specific vocabulary. Similarly, the metalanguage for teaching writing in any classroom is important, and if used consistently across a whole school, it can reduce the cognitive load that students undergo when writing. Writing is one of the hardest things we ask our students to do and the more we unpacked it during our sessions, it became obvious that students rarely become good writers without effective instruction.

Although our Literacy PLT sessions have come to an end for the year, the knowledge that we have shared about writing is in its infancy. This type of approach relies on longevity, consistency and most of all the belief that it will enhance both the learning outcomes and the life experiences for our students. I would like to thank those who shared their experiences in our PLT sessions this year. As well as learning together, it also provided a time to celebrate wins, sometimes sigh together in frustration and debrief alongside our colleagues at the end of a busy day.

Mrs Sharon Hitti

Instructional Leader - Encounter, Middle School Encounter Teacher.

Teacher Teams and the Formative Assessment Project [less is more]

Luke Jones is the leader of the formative assessment team that I belong to. The team is very collegial and Luke facilitates our work really well, with good humour, understanding and patience. At face value, it may perhaps appear that these teams are a modest and low key approach to professional learning with staff in small groups, discussing their core business, reading, trialling initiatives, reporting back on progress, sharing and observing one another teach.

I need to remind myself though, that at its heart, the Formative Assessment Project is much more far-reaching than it may at first appear as we walk away from our team sessions and reflect on what we have learnt. In having us undertake this project, it seems to me from my discussions with her, that Emily Ryan is really driven by the objective of staff and students being actively engaged in the construction of their own learning with an explicit focus on deep thinking and improvement.

I need to remind myself that underpinning our formative assessment project is the significant body of international, educational research data, which identifies what actually constitutes effective teaching and learning, that is, what really adds value to student learning. Examples of high impact student learning may include, students thinking deeply about their own learning and taking increased responsibility for it, being more actively involved in the classroom, assessing their own work and that of others and also teaching one another.

The Braemar model draws heavily on the formative assessment strategies of Dylan William, an internationally acknowledged educational researcher and practitioner who is a key driver of the world-wide school improvement movement. At the core of this model is the staff working together in teams developing a shared understanding of high leverage strategies and how to engineer classrooms to further enhance student learning. Teacher teams discuss the trialling of these strategies in the classroom and then engage in the observation of one another’s teaching as the central and ongoing vehicle for driving improvement in the teaching and learning programme. The international research regarding school improvement is quite clear. Building teacher capacity is absolutely critical and the most effective way to achieve this is through work embedded professional learning, based on collaboration within and across learning areas, that is aligned to school goals. Teams of teachers working on a common value adding learning project, developing a shared language, shared understandings and enhancing practice across the school is fundamental if sustained improvement is to emerge.

So we know what actually constitutes effective classroom practice and we know what constitutes effective professional learning in order to deliver that practice and in so doing enhance student learning outcomes. Some of the key objectives of our formative assessment project would include: strengthening the quality of learning and teaching, strengthening the focus on pedagogy, strengthening the staff learning culture - learning across, not just within disciplines, strengthening peer observation as a key vehicle in professional learning and empowering students as owners of their own learning and enhancing student learning outcomes.

Because we have the data regarding effective school improvement and the building of teacher capacity this should arguably be the major focus of professional learning for perhaps the next five years. We need to be abundantly clear with one another, parents and students about this as our key learning initiative. The risk with trying to roll out several initiatives simultaneously is that little if anything really changes. The initiatives become, in effect, paper initiatives. In terms of improvement initiatives, arguably less is more. So to return to where I began, thank you Luke Jones and Emily Ryan for setting such a strong foundation for our formative assessment project journey.

Mr Rodney Knight VCE History and Politics Teacher

Professional Dialogue and Practice: The Literacy Toolkit

Literacy skills extend beyond the four walls of the English classroom and are, in fact, fundamental to the curriculum, with many disciplines having very specific literacy demands. Beyond the school gates, literacy instruction better prepares our students to access a wide variety of opportunities, thereby allowing them to thrive and achieve success both personally and professionally. Moreover, literacy skills contribute significantly to community involvement and civic engagement. Consequently, improving literacy outcomes has been central to my purpose throughout my career as both an English teacher and instructional leader and, over the last fifteen years, I have sought out numerous professional development opportunities related to literacy development in secondary schools.

Upon joining the Braemar College staff in 2022, I was, therefore, excited to learn about the Professional Learning Team (PLT) structure and participate in a literacy focused PLT. Our regular meetings proved to be both practically rewarding and inspiring as they offered the chance to explore a range of strategies from Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s guide, The Writing Revolution, with the aim of enabling our students to

become proficient writers, readers and critical thinkers. In addition to the exploration of literacy teaching strategies, we were able to engage in rich professional discussion about the implementation of these strategies in a variety of classroom settings, discuss potential challenges, share ideas and celebrate improved literacy outcomes.

A particularly informative part of the PLT process was the opportunity to engage in peer observations focused on the teaching of a literacy skill. In Term 2, I was invited to observe a senior class with a learning intention to improve the specificity and sophistication of persuasive arguments. To achieve this, students were guided through the process of using a variety of conjunctions to convert simple sentences expressing basic ideas into either compound or complex sentences. Having revised and practised this skill, students were able to apply the strategy to their own writing, thereby improving their ability to expand on their initial ideas and articulate more complex arguments. Witnessing student engagement in the writing activity and the success of this strategy inspired me to trial the mini lesson with my own class. Once again, explicit teaching of this skill provided

students with the tools to articulate more complex ideas, thereby enhancing the quality of student writing.

Throughout the PLT experience, I have been reminded of just how important it is to keep our literacy toolkit on hand. Whilst students may have learnt core literacy skills in early years, regular review, practice and development is needed to achieve a degree of automaticity and build mastery in the craft of writing. In addition, the process has reinforced my belief in just how much we can learn from engaging in professional conversations and sharing our expertise with colleagues from a wide variety of disciplines. Often, we look to external providers to provide us with opportunities for professional development and, whilst this is highly valuable, there is much to be gained from finding the time to discuss our craft with a view to maximising student learning outcomes.

Ms Lisa-Jayne Lacey

VCE English and English Language Teacher.

Throughout the PLT experience, I have been reminded of just how important it is to keep our literacy toolkit on hand.

Formative Assessment in the Media classroom

I have always been passionate about collaborative professional learning and an advocate for peer observation. Institutional practices frequently encourage their staff to collaborate, however too often we are departmentally or independently siloed, creating little opportunity to experience differing classroom culture. As educators our core purpose is to provide learning opportunities and experiences for our students, and I believe that classroom culture is central to this idea.

This year, I have taken part in a Professional Learning Team, underpinned by Dylan Wiliams’ work on formative assessment. As part of this process, we have taken part in peer observation for the purpose of identifying where learning occurs. The act of inviting a staff member into my classroom has been incredibly rewarding for two reasons. The first is that these observations have provided a springboard for professional discourse. The second, and arguably most important, has been the opportunity for me to share my continued engagement in learning with my students. The subject of Media is essentially a study of semiotics and learning how to look, interpret and contextualise imagery through verbal and written expression. Classes begin with a visual stimulus, for example a photograph or film scene, that we use media language to decipher. All students are encouraged to contribute to class discussion through Socratic questioning and, what Wiliams refers to as, ‘pose, pause, pounce, bounce’ – allowing students to extend on each other’s ideas. Through peer observation, the teacher recorded student contribution and ‘think-time’. We used this as an opportunity to discuss how I was building a culture of creative thinking in my classroom and considerations I could make to enhance this further. This reflection was both valuable and insightful – encouraging me to think about how I structure my lessons and give time to deep thinking.

When being observed, I always make a point of explaining to my students why the teacher is joining us. As an educator, I believe in modelling my learning to others as a means to acknowledge that the learning process is ongoing. The teacher is not only invited to observe, but also contribute to the lesson – sharing their interpretation. In media we speak about the cultural lens and how this shapes audience reading of an image. It’s been beneficial and fascinating for my students to hear differing perspectives and begin to understand cultural context.

Classroom observation is an incredibly important part of building a collaborative learning culture for teachers and students. It’s a way for educators to gain new ideas and students to witness ongoing learning. I look forward to continuing being part of the professional learning at Braemar and contributing to building a rich and exciting culture of learning.

Mrs Lilly Dusting Year Level Leader, VCE Media Teacher.

PLT Reflection

“If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton once said, “it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Here he acknowledged that the ideas of other scientists contributed to his own discoveries, thereby illustrating that Literacy in Science, the conduit for these ideas, underpins advancement in all areas of this discipline. Indeed, every year I assess students on their reading and writing ability, yet too often fail to provide specific and explicit learning opportunities for them to develop their skills. The 2022 PLT program on Literacy changed all that.

I have been teaching for five years, currently within the Year 8 Investigate team, and this year during PLT sessions discovered more about the process of writing than ever before. The program covered fundamental sentence-level writing skills, such as conjunctions, appositives and expository terms, gradually progressing to note-taking and sentence expansion, where creativity and higher-order thinking are promoted. How to structure paragraphs, a skill I am still developing, followed naturally with the course culminating in revising and editing written pieces to produce a finished product. The sequencing of our PLT sessions was affable and logical, encouraging us to build on prior learning as we developed new skills.

Most beneficial for me was the specific examples of teaching techniques provided in the program. I utilised several of these within my classes, such as identifying and incorporating conjunctions and appositives in sentences through specific modelling and colour-coded examples. In addition, students developed note-taking skills using short-hand and the Cornell system, afterward expanding sentences to create summaries. I was surprised how engaged the students were in these scaffolded activities, and subsequently observed not only improved sentence writing across the class, but also enhanced retention of the scientific content. These outcomes clearly demonstrate the importance of modelling and explicit practise of literacy skills.

Writing is fundamental to the way we communicate knowledge and learning in Science, and the Literacy PLT program supplied exactly the support I needed to embed writing into my Investigate lessons. My hope for 2023 is that I can add more to my toolbox of writing tricks in order to develop literate young Scientists - or in the very least, students who feel confident they can write a decent prac report!

Mrs Jenni Gadd Middle School Investigate Teacher.

Formative Assessment in Humanities

Hello. My name is Greg Robinson. I am a Commerce teacher having taught for 15 years across Accounting, Business Management, Economics and Legal Studies, just to name a few. I have been at Braemar for two years and stepped into the role of Acting Instructional Leader – Humanities this year. Prior to commencing PLTs I had a little bit of knowledge about Dylan William’s work, having rescued his text Embedding Formative Assessment from a previous school.

The PLT experience this year was very useful and a great way to interact with astute teachers who you never really get the chance to interact with. Positives were the ability to share stories, ideas, triumphs and failures in the classroom all in the name of striving for continuous improvement to assist us in being the best teachers we can be. Just listening to what everyone else was trying sparks ideas that you could possibly integrate into your teaching. I really enjoyed just being able to listen to my fellow colleagues. Challenges faced were aligning periods for peer observation and sometimes mustering the energy for our PLT sessions during busy times of the year.

Early in the year Catherine Cruickshank shared that she used a Jar with named paddle-pop sticks to draw students names out to have a go at answering questions. I used this idea in my Y11 Business Management class with a modern twist, using a random name generator program on my phone. It was a bit of an incentive to try and ensure students were doing the questions set and knowing they could be called on at any time to answer questions. The aim was to have some accountability for their learning. This was used for Exit tickets too and I found that if it was applied consistently, the students got used to it and it just became an everyday part of most lessons. My next trial was at Y12 Economics with the Cornell Note-Taking which was introduced at a Senior School Meeting mid-year. Katie French Peer Observed the first class. The process employed was to explain Cornell Note-Taking. The class then watched a 10 minute Economics clip and emphasised key words and jotted notes. We then had a group discussion and the students finally wrote summary notes of the economic content they watched. It was all about getting students to think and find a more efficient way to take notes. Katie observed that I used highly reflective questioning and the students considered the process useful for revision. This method was not a one-off as we watched many short economics clips and applied the Cornell Note-Taking to embed the skills learnt in the first initial lesson it was used. The students became familiar with the process and saw the effectiveness of applying these skills to gain a more efficient way of taking and understanding notes based on the economic content we were covering.

Another approach used was activating students as owners of their learning by sharing exemplars and evaluation with marking schemes in Y11 Business Management. Students were provided with:

• the process of breaking down a question

• definitions of content words

• SAC questions and an exemplar responses

• Examples of High, Medium and Low answers given by the class

• Marking Scheme

The process of breaking down a question was explained to the class. An explanation of the key content word and what the question was asking was discussed. We then looked at the High, Medium and Low responses and determined why each was given a certain amount of marks matched to an exemplar response that was detailed and answered exactly what was being asked in the question. Heidi Rees peer observed this class and noted “the teacher explains why marks are awarded or not and what to look for so students can apply method to their own work. Teacher encourages students to state the reasons why marks were allocated”.

By undertaking this process, I was trying to get students to identify that to do well, they need to know the key terms, such as evaluate, and understand that they need to identify strengths, weaknesses and provide an opinion. The exemplar response and marking scheme demonstrates to the students’ the level of effort required, and by having the students use this information and match to a High, Medium and Low response from the class, it hopefully aides in their understanding of where marks are allocated. Overall, I felt the PLT groups created valuable discussions to assist us to try new things in the classroom to improve outcomes for our students. Regarding the activities I tried, I believe they worked well but only because they weren’t used in isolation as a novelty. I continually tried to incorporate the activity, whether it was the random name generator or Cornell note-taking as often as was practicable to embed it in my teaching to assist student learning. The activating students as owners of their learning by sharing exemplars and evaluation with marking schemes was only tried in November and I plan to continue to use this method with Y12 Business Management in 2023.

Mr Greg Robinson VCE Humanities Teacher

Literacy in Encounter

Hi, I’m Lou Pope, Yr 8 Encounter. I started teaching in 2006 and have been lucky to have worked across a variety of contexts in that time, mainly in the Humanities and Wellbeing domains. However, my professional focus has been very much slanted towards the literacy realm since returning to teaching after a ‘mum’ hiatus. Having not come from an English major, I stepped back into the classroom, feeling somewhat the ‘weakest link’ in my teaching team, so I’ve made it a priority to develop my teaching of reading and writing over the last few years. More recently, within the Braemar Community, I’ve been engaging in ‘The Writing Revolution’ and ‘Science of Reading’ programs. This meant that the Literacy PLT really complemented what I was already trying in my own classes.

I really enjoyed the PLT - Kristen Malia did a great job leading and affirming us and I was impressed with the willingness everyone showed to try out different methods in their own classes. Most participants were affirming of the changes they were seeing in student outcomes, however small.

From an Encounter perspective, some of the techniques I used that were particularly meaningful were sentence expansion, using appositives and notetaking exercises to enhance comprehension. These, used repetitively, really did enhance student understanding and quality of writing.

By the end of it, students would ask how to enhance their own sentences and results. This was uplifting to see. I went into some of the exercises unsure of the benefits, but they were obvious after trying them out. This was affirmed when during an observation I was told ‘They (yr 8s) were actually trying and doing it!’.

I believe that if we adopt a whole school approach of embedding these techniques into our instructional model, then our literacy data should improve, and we will see the ‘language of literacy’ become a known expectation in student work across all years. However, I use the word should, with a disclaimer as teaching is complex and there are always many variables that influence student learning. I found that the writing strategies when combined with small group discussions, workshopping and

providing exemplars helped me to meet the diverse learning needs of my students.

I structured activities that would provide me some insight into how students’ in my class learn best. I found that, breaking down the content, sitting with small groups of students and adjusting tasks according to individual students significantly enhanced results. I enjoyed this part as it allowed for student/teacher collaboration, boosting confidence and I saw the results. An ongoing challenge is how to reach all students when working with small groups and ensure they take ownership of their learning and value feedback. This challenge is important to address as we need to bridge the literacy gap that has emerged among young people. Has this gap been influenced by COVID, or is it a systemic cultural shift in focus and the dependence on devices? I’m not sure, but I’m enjoying the professional journey I’m on to find answers and am thankful for the opportunity this PLT provided.

Ms Louise Pope

Middle School Encounter Teacher.

Formative Assessment in VCE English

In Year 11 English Mrs Jones circled three words on my practice essay on Macbeth and wrote ‘a little bit pregnant’ in the margin. I had no clue what she meant so assumed she was indicating I had written something that was overly-wordy and that I could be more efficient in my analysis. Naturally, I got the same feedback in almost the same place for my final draft, except this time it was in all caps and a more aggressive shade of red pen. How was I to know she meant that I had suggested a degree of agreement where there was no possibility to have hedged my bets either way? How was I to know Macbeth couldn’t be somewhat fated to suffer just as one cannot be a fraction with child. Her cryptic margin comment was lost on me and I was fated to repeat my error. This experience is often at the forefront of my mind when I provide feedback on student work.

There are at least seven elements that go into making a good introduction for a text response essay in Year 12 English and these can be included in varied ways. In Literature there are no introductions and students are just asked to ‘Discuss’ so there is even more variation. Providing feedback on this can be fraught and time consuming. Annotating students work for individual feedback is really the bread and butter of what I do

and I take ages at it because I want to be clear and ensure both I and the student can see a clear path to improvement.

The PLT’s have affirmed the importance of this investment of time but have also offered opportunity to understand the theory behind what I am doing in my practice. In most cases I have found I am using techniques that academics have named and researched. In other cases, I have used these same academics studies to streamline or refine my existing approach. One aspect I have particularly reflected on is the smaller incidental feedback cycles that occur during class discussion or as I move around the room reading over students’ shoulders. I have also leveled up the amount and precision of students’ self and peer assessment, giving them greater agency and ownership over their own learning. Placing greater value on the moment to moment discussions or the casual answering of questions and sharing of ideas as we study has taken some pressure off the red pen annotation on longer pieces of work late in units of work (although that is still happening). This in turn has seen a more gradual build towards students achieving their goals rather than more common fits and bursts in growth I have traditionally seen.

Mr Anthony Young VCE English and Literature Teacher.

Literacy PLT reflection

As a Middle School Digital Technologies teacher, I talk about language and clear communication a lot. It’s not always an obvious link to students but, to write effective code, programmers must follow a basic structure – just like writing an effective sentence.

With JavaScript, the main method is where program execution starts and stops, like the subject of a sentence. Variables tell us about the method, and they can change, like a compliment, while a statement represents an action to be carried out, like a predicate.

I chose to join the Literacy PLT because my students, who range in grade from 5 through 8, all come into the classroom with differing prior knowledge when it comes to writing sentences, paragraphs, and viable code. I wanted to learn how to bring everyone to a baseline with English literacy before attempting to teach another language altogether. Even – sometimes especially! – the kids who can write an ordered algorithm struggle to put a capital letter at the start of their sentence and a full stop at the end. I noticed that, by explicitly teaching how to form a sentence, the bridge between literacy and programming became clearer. They both have rules to follow in order to be understood.

The PLT experience was very interesting! Sharing ideas with colleagues who teach across a variety of age groups and subjects highlighted the fact that clear communication is essential in every discipline. I think it helped the students to have their Technology teacher prioritising paragraph writing at the same time as their Art and Indonesian teachers. There was a bit of resistance at first, but as I began to see the benefit of starting a lesson with a focussed literacy activity, it reminded students that writing with purpose is essential to communicate effectively, whether in words or in script.

Mrs Jen Dowling

Middle School Make (Design, Textile and Technologies) Teacher.

PLTs for the early-career teacher

My name is Nicole Gertos and I have been teaching for around 2 years. My discipline areas are Physical Educational and Health and Human Development, both of which I teach here at Braemar College. I have been fortunate enough to be able to expand on my knowledge of the use of formative assessment in the classroom thought our Professional Learning Teams this year. This was an excellent opportunity to be able to build on methods of delivering formative assessment in class and be able to showcase different strategies amongst teacher in different teaching areas. Our group worked exceptionally well at covering many different methods that were impactful on Middle School students as well as the Senior School students and were able to determine and compare what worked well specifically for each cohort.

Our meetings were a great opportunity to be able to share ideas and resources that have worked really well in my classes including digital applications such as the ‘Wheel of Names’, which increased engagement for students and varied the process of selecting students to answer questions and inform me of their progress throughout a lesson. It was also valuable try out the ‘Ziplet’ website that was suggested by the group as a fast and easy way to administer quick formative assessment style questions that can provide accurate feedback of student comprehension of a topic in real time.

Other techniques I found useful was allowing students to be critical of their own and of other students answers by being able to answer them after receiving teaching feedback and resubmit for further correction. Students were also given the opportunity to complete and submit their own formative assessment style questions which I was then able to redistribute back to students in the form on a quiz for them to complete. I found this to be very helpful as I was able to provide constant formative assessment and frequently empower students to demonstrate their knowledge and capability in particular units.

This experience has allowed me to provide more ownership to students when completing and correcting their work and accurate, quick and helpful formative assessment of students constantly and allowed me to plan future lessons depending on student responses. It was also helpful to allow the students to create their own contributions to classes which really showcased their understanding of content. I also enjoyed being able to sit in on my peers’ lessons and gain further exposure to different teaching styles and techniques I could adapt and use in my classes. Overall a very helpful and rewarding experience that improved my teaching practice around distributing and using formative assessment in my classes.

Miss Nicole Gertos

VCE HPE teacher.

Literacy in the Investigate classroom

I have been teaching for over 20 years, mostly on a part time basis. I am passionate about teaching Maths and Science to the middle years, as I feel these can be seen as years where students and teachers try to survive, rather than thrive in their learning. I believe it is where you can have the largest impact on students’ love for learning.

Prior to commencing the PLT’s, I was pleased to be provided an opportunity to explore literacy within the classroom, as this is a skill that crosses all levels of our curriculum. I enjoyed participating in the Literacy PLT, with a leader passionate about ensuring all students develop their

writing skills to ensure they can succeed at any level of academics.

My group included people with varying teaching backgrounds, years of experience and subject areas. I found that this allowed for meaningful discussions when addressing each of the topics covered in our PLT.

My own personal gains were significant. I enjoyed trying different writing strategies and making specific connections to literacy language within my Science and Maths lessons. One of my favourite tasks to use was the “Because, But, So” activity. Knowing the common language that is used when teaching literacy, with a specific focus on writing has been an

extremely valuable take away for me.

I am now using terms such as ‘topic sentences’ when helping students to write scientific reports, which sounds simple, but reminded me to use familiar language to help further engage the students. This has also allowed the students to see the cross over with their learning in different subjects and allowed me to ensure the language I am using is one that they can recognise.

Ms Sue Mullen

Assistant Head of Middle School, Middle School Investigate Teacher.

I really enjoyed the PLT experience for several reasons, including the opportunity to meet members of staff from across different subject areas and campuses. Having this time to reflect together meant we could share and explore different methods and techniques, brainstorm and workshop together.

Formative Assessment in Music

I joined Braemar College late in 2021, teaching classroom music at Yrs 6, 7, 11 and 12 levels and loving the diversity of the age groups. I am from a family of educators, so being in education is as part of my DNA as much as being a musician. Over 35 years of teaching (primary-tertiary) and education design & delivery I have taught across performance practice, keyboard, choral, ensembles, orchestras, history, theory, musicology and also across eras/genres from medieval to 21C. My PhD is in performance and musicology—which started out in one era and instrument and finished in another. My secondary teaching experience has included the IB. One of my undergraduate degrees is specifically in Music Education/ Pedagogy, and I have supervised trainee teachers for the secondary system.

As a musician, one is always learning, reflecting, and evolving. Pedagogy is central to a life of a musician and is as old as the practice of music itself. Formative assessment is a critical process in music and these PLT sessions introduced me to theories of Dillon Williams.

I really enjoyed the PLT experience for several reasons, including the opportunity to meet members of staff from across different subject areas and campuses. Having this time to reflect together meant we could share and explore different methods and techniques, brainstorm and workshop together. And laugh about our failures. The peer reviews were also useful for

this reason. These PLT sessions have also been valuable because of the explosion of new information now available on the psyche of a learner. Having these sessions strategically presented and followed through in a methodical, formulaic way has played a role in my cyphering my experiences into a format that suits the modern-day learner, specifically at Braemar.

I have been repackaging my knowledge of music to fit the Braemar school life. With one semester of class time to play with at the Middle School level, and with various skill levels from students, I focused the curriculum and teaching mainly on the performance experience, based around rhythm, with some literacy fundamentals. Students are bursting to play and sing music. But they need to know something before they can do it, which is very frustrating in this instant society. Bite-sized formulas were learned and applied within the context of the Kodaly/ Orff method, linking it not only to the Australian Curriculum but keeping an eye on preparing students for the VCE curriculum. I created a workbook to help organise and focus the student experience and designed a variety of tasks to suit neurodiversity in the classroom.

Listening is key to being a musician, so we also focussed on how to listen to music, how to listen to a rhythm and write it down with rhythmic dictation and, importantly, how to listen to each other in performance. Students learned to perform multi-lined scores

with both pitches and rhythmic scores, and keep in time with each other whilst maintaining their own part. Students learned to perform without being selfconscious. Through the PLT I learned some Exit strategies used in other learning areas which I applied at the end of class. The great challenge in a dynamic school environment is to make maximum impact with minimum time and resources. The benefit to student learning was that the students learned several pieces of music, were able to read and perform them with confidence, and with self-awareness and self-control, and had fun doing so. They learned to operate with increased focus and greater self-awareness and control. I was amazed at how parched they were for this experience.

Dr Jacqueline Ogeil

VCE Music Teacher.

The teacher has the single greatest impact on student learning

(Hattie, 2012; Marzano, 2003),