Learning, Teaching & Innovation

Goals & Intended Outcomes

Our major goal for 2021 was to continue to develop our new Learning and Teaching Framework and Guiding Principles.

Mazenod College educates young men utilising the principles of the Visible Learning framework, with a focus on Explicit Direct Instruction and a whole of school Visible Wellbeing approach.

Our Learning and Teaching framework at Mazenod College recognises that young men have particular learning needs. Drawing on research commissioned by the International Boys School Coalition, of which Mazenod College is an active member, Dr Michael Reichart and Dr Richard Hawley have identified the core elements for boys’ learning. Boys are relational learners and ‘learn’ their teachers – they choose to learn based as much on teachers as on subjects. Positive and authentic relationships between staff and students, centred around “conversational learning” and founded in mutual respect, are therefore fundamental to what Mazenod does.

We use a Visible Learning Framework based on the research of Professor John Hattie to ensure that we are making a positive difference to maximise the learning outcomes of our students. Visible learning occurs when learning is the explicit and transparent goal. By making learning visible, teachers are more empowered to intervene in meaningful ways to enhance student achievement.

The advocated instructional practice is Explicit Direct Instruction as outlined in the research of John Hollingsworth and Silvia Ybarra. Teachers use a strategic collection of instructional practices combined to design and deliver well-crafted lessons that explicitly teach content to all students. To further support teachers in the design of their lessons and instructional practices, the ten research based principles of instruction outlined in the work of Professor Barak Rosenshine are referred to.

Visible Wellbeing techniques are integrated into teaching practices to build student wellbeing. This approach brings wellbeing to life in practical and accessible ways, extends beyond the classroom into co-curricular activities and seeks to embed a culture of wellbeing across the broader College community. Designed by Professor Lea Waters, wellbeing is made visible by combining the science of wellbeing with the science of learning and teaching.

Guiding Principles Underpinning Mazenod College Learning and Teaching – Developed in 2020

Mazenod’s learning and teaching pedagogical framework is set upon a set of guiding principles that are followed by all teachers and in all subjects. Teachers collaborate to achieve a consistent approach to these principles:

• respectful relationships: these underpin our learning and teaching. All members of the community display courtesy and respect to one another.

• discipline: Mazenod College values and seeks to instil a discipline towards learning, with resilience and a willingness to learn as features.

• high expectations: in regard to behaviour, attitude, commitment and academic performance.

• equity: a set curriculum and course delivery and a preparation for assessment and assessment tasks that is common across classes within the same subject.

• continuity and progression: are seamless across the year levels with evident pathways for student development in particular subject areas.

• personalised: provision for all students including those with individual needs and those with particular gifts and talents. Enhancement pathways, special needs, modified programs and options in assessment for mainstream are all provided.

• rigorous and relevant: a robust curriculum that is thorough and challenging. The curriculum is regularly reviewed and updated with reference to State and National requirements.

• lifelong learning: a curriculum that is designed to be relevant as both preparation for future learning demands and for a happy and prosperous adult life.

• explicit and scaffolded lessons and tasks: explicit step by step instructions are provided, that graduate learning, building from simple tasks to more complex tasks. Our lesson design seeks to provide a scaffold that enables students to complete tasks, together with a clear understanding of what students are learning and why they are doing so. This is further articulated in rubrics for assessment of tasks and projects.

• regular feedback: Mazenod provides regular assessment for students in many forms including both formative and summative. Feedback is provided in a variety of forms including marking sheets, rubrics, written, audio or video teacher comments, peer feedback and self-evaluation. Student work is returned in an appropriate timeframe, typically within two weeks.

Learning at Mazenod College

A shared framework was developed in 2020 to outline what Learning and Teaching at Mazenod College looks like:

Mazenod College teachers educate young men by cultivating strong relationships with and between their students. Cultivating strong relationships involves: • Maintaining high standards of boys' conduct promoting high expectations of work quality; • Acknowledge students' academic, social, and cultural backgrounds; • Encouraging them to respect differing viewpoints and to take responsibility for their own beliefs and actions; • Stimulating engagement and imagination through the sharing of interests and passions using humour, story, discussion and focussed games.

Mazenod College teachers utilise our visible learning framework that involves:

• Setting clear learning intentions and appropriately challenging goals for our students providing success criteria and modelling what success looks like; • Employing a selection of research-based high-impact teaching strategies using evidence-based techniques to inform pedagogy; • Adopting a differentiated teaching approach using data collected via a formative and summative assessment; • Using a range of regular and continuous feedback methods to enhance learning.

Mazenod College teachers implement an explicit direct instructional practice that involves:

• Structuring lessons with clear learning objectives and success criteria strengthening previous learning with regular review; • Presenting new material in small explicit steps involving direct instructions modelling exemplar responses and guiding student practice; • Using a variety of formative assessment tools to ascertain student progress, altering the lesson trajectory accordingly; • Implementing a range of strategies to support mastery learning in the classroom.

Mazenod College teachers incorporate a visible wellbeing approach to implementing strategies into their daily classroom practice that use the SEARCH framework to foster student wellbeing in the following domains:

• Strengths • Emotional Management • Attention and Awareness

• Relationships • Coping • Habits and Goals

Learning and Teaching Achievements

A continuing learning and teaching achievement for 2021 was our management of lockdown and growth in approaches to flexible learning.

Mazenod College focused on clarity of expectations and structures right from the outset of lockdown keeping things simple and common - while allowing flexibility within that for the early adopters and those more comfortable in the new environment; as structured as following the standard normal bell times every day and recording attendance every lesson. We leveraged existing structures such as teaching team meetings instead of faculty meetings, sharing lesson plans or outlines on common unit pages for each subject, and providing common structures to lessons within a year level team. This strategy simplified, clarified, and bought consistency to the use of our LMS for online delivery; and this in turn supported our students with certainty and daily connection.

Unlike in 2020, 2021 saw staff well versed in online teaching methodologies, and students easily transitioning in and out of lockdown. Upon return to face-to-face teaching in Term 4, the focus turned to rebuild the learning culture, and this focus will continue into 2022.

Value Added - Learning Diversity and Student Learning Support

The Learning Diversity Team at Mazenod College is dedicated to supporting the individual learning needs of all our students. The team, with a staff of 13 dedicated teachers and learning support officers, ensures that Mazenod College is able to offer well structured Literacy & Numeracy support programs, in addition to 1:1 in class assistance. This support is vital in ensuring that all students are able to access the learning that is available. In addition, the team provides activities such as Homework Program and Film Club.

In 2021, the leadership team worked to develop supportive processes to assist teaching staff in maintaining appropriate personalised learning programs along with supporting adjustments and evidence for students identified in the annual Nationally Consistent Collection of Data. In 2021, 221 students were identified as having adjustments made to their program and were included in the NCCD.

Of these 221 students, 186 were identified as requiring supplementary or substantial assistance. The funding provided by the Commonwealth Government ensures that the College can staff the support team to assist the relevant students in accessing their learning on the same basis as their peers.

Value Added - Enhancement Program

Mazenod College offers a comprehensive enhancement program in areas such as Humanities, Music, Mathematics, English, Robotics and Information Technology. Many students are involved at all levels in the following programs: • Enhancement English Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 • Enhancement Mathematics Years 7 & 8 • Enhancement Mathematics Year 9, Year 10 • Enhancement English Year 10, Science Year 10, Biology Year 10 • Enhancement History Year 7, Year 8, Year 9 • Enhancement STEM (Robotics) Year 8 • Enhancement Music Year 8 • Enhancement Religious Education Year 9 • VCE Units 1 & 2 History Year 10 • Religion & Society Units 3 & 4 in Year 11 • Numerous other Units 3&4 in Year 11 • University Enhancement subjects in Year 12

Value Added - Learning and Teaching

Despite the challenges of COVID lockdowns, students were still offered rich learning experiences within and beyond the classroom, including:

Humanities:

• The Australian History Competition (entered by our Year 9 Enhancement History students) two saw students awarded High Distinctions; • The Parliament Prize (run by the Victorian Parliament, entered by our Y11 Politics students); • The Hotham Writing Prize (run by the office of Clare O’Neil MP, the Federal Member of Hotham, entered by our VCE Politics students) – a Year 11 student was the winner of the Prize in 2021 (resulting in

Mazenod College being mentioned in Federal Parliament).

Science:

• Students from Mazenod College participate in the International Science Competitions and Assessments for Science (ICAS), with many High Distinctions, Distinctions, Credit and Merit Certificates. High

Distinction Certificate achievers are rated in the top 1% of all entrants. Statistically 50% of students from

Mazenod College achieve a certificate of credit or higher, an outstanding performance. • The Science Talent Search is an annual competition open to all primary and secondary school students in Victoria. The Year 10 Enhancement Class participates in this competition, with a few bursary winners.

Many students from Mazenod College are given special mention on their practical investigation tasks from the judges. • Our Year 8 Enhancement Students participate in a semester long Robotics course using the Lego

Mindstorms kits.

Mathematics:

• Students achieve great results in the Australian Mathematics Competition. A very large number of students participate in the competition with numerous High Distinctions (top 3% in Country) and distinctions (top 20% in Country). • Our Year 7&8 Enhancement students participate in the Da Vinci Decathlon.

Careers:

• All year 11s participated in the Careers and Industry Conference for three days residential in the city

Languages:

• Our VCE Japanese students participate in a mock UN General Assembly; • Our language students participate in the annual Dante Alighieri competition; • Year Ten Japanese and Italian students participate in interschool language clubs with other local schools studying these languages. This activity strengthens our bond with other nearby Catholic schools, networking and language learning.

General:

• Many of our Literature, Enhancement and Visual Arts students were published in Catholic Education annual anthology Shared Stories; • Students participated in our Book Club and Kerbal Space Program in the Library; • A large number of students participate in the Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge with many successfully meeting the challenge to read the required number of books between February and August.