Learning how to learn

We believe that the aim of education is to develop the most important skill of all: learning how to learn.

EMILY FITZSIMONS, OUTGOING DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Education is certainly a fast-moving industry and, in reflecting on the past few years, I have been struck by the sheer scale of what we, and indeed many schools, have achieved. The Geelong College’s teaching and learning program has seen significant change over the past four years, some of it strategic and some driven by external forces. Throughout, we have remained focused on our vision of developing learners who are curious, self-regulated, and ready to serve the world. I believe it is not so much in spite of the challenges of the global pandemic, but because of it, that we have been able to transform, with agility, so much of what we do. In early 2019 we embarked upon a learning culture project, with the key aim of enhancing our learning practices, as well as the agency and capacity of our students in driving their own learning. Several key programs have been instrumental in evolving our approaches to teaching and learning. Here are a couple of them: • Our Year 9 cohort, for the past four years, have worked with a worldrenowned Neuroscientist, Dr Jared

Cooney Horvath in a program called the Cognizance Research Project.

A joint venture with Independent

Schools Victoria (ISV), the program consisted of a series of up to five

workshops for our students, led by Dr Jared, teaching them about the science of their brain and metacognition. The student response to the program was extraordinary. • Our teaching staff have also undertaken significant work with

Dr Jared, including the teacher workshops attached to the

Cognizance Research Project, wholestaff professional learning days on

The Foundations of Learning and

The Learning Trajectory. Both days explored the neuroscientific basis for human learning and development. • Our Junior School has transformed the approach taken to teaching

reading, adopting a new framework called the Science of

Reading. Our teachers have been trained in this new approach, have re-worked their programs, assessments, documentation and pedagogical approaches to teaching reading to our youngest students. The outcomes of this change are already evident in our children and their progress with their reading. • Teachers have begun working on our understanding of feedback and its importance in learner agency and development.

Learning from Emeritus Professor

Dylan Wiliam earlier this year, 26 of our teachers from across F-12 are developing implementation plans for evolving formative assessment and feedback practices in their schools. • Our teachers, students and parents have been embracing our new learning management system, SEQTA. Introduced across the College in 2019, SEQTA provides a single site for learners and families on curriculum, assessment and feedback, as well as obtaining semester reports. It has allowed more timely feedback on student learning throughout the semester, as teachers place results directly onto the portal.

It has also been delivering more task-specific feedback for students than previous end-of-term or semester reports could offer. Perhaps the most significant challenge of the past few years has also been one of our greatest success stories – remote learning. Manoeuvring an entire school from face-to-face into remote learning was certainly something of which we could not have even conceived a few years ago. Students have acquired a raft of contemporary skills in the use of technology, communicating in different forms, working independently, time management and responding to feedback on their learning when physically separated from their teachers. But, perhaps less well-known, is the extraordinary work undertaken in the background of school operations to enable our wellregarded learning program to take place. Rolling out new platforms, supporting teachers and students to learn how to use Microsoft Teams, establishing policies and procedures to keep learners safe online, reconceiving staff meetings and team planning opportunities, rewriting entire programs of work to suit online learning, establishing systems for completing assessments at home, finding ways to deliver physical resources to students, keeping learners feeling connected to the College, their teachers and each other. So many facets to a remote learning program, all of which had to be implemented in real-time. We are incredibly proud of the quality program we offered over the two years, and are heartened to hear words of appreciation from students and families.

As I conclude my time at The Geelong College this year, I want to express my gratitude to the community for a wonderful few years. My colleagues in all corners of the College have made this chapter wholly satisfying and special.

Nathan Morton, incoming Director of Teaching and Learning

Nathan is currently Deputy Head of Senior School – Teaching and Learning at Kardinia International College, Geelong. He has held this position for seven years and during that time has led a number of curriculum initiatives including the development of a teaching and learning framework and a contextual definition of High-Quality Teaching and Learning. Nathan’s current focus has been around enabling teaching practice which empowers students to identify their own learning growth and to assist them to take the steps they need to experience further growth. In joining College, Nathan is looking forward to celebrating and embracing the past work and achievements in the area of teaching and learning. Some of his priorities include building the leadership capacity of staff; developing a framework for Professional Learning; and, ensuring that strategic decisions around our teaching and learning programs are based on timely data analysis and interpretation.