How can student voice be amplified by Year 10 Elective Geography students, so they are future-ready? An action research project to investigate student and parent understanding of transdisciplinary skills to help the Geography, Business, Economics (GBE) Department develop future ready global citizens.
1. Critical thinking – Geography students at Pymble are encouraged to critically evaluate information and arguments, identify patterns and connections, construct meaningful knowledge, and apply and assess this knowledge in the real world.
Liam Hume Geography Teacher and Celestino Project Lead Debra Owens Geography, Business and Economics Teacher
Following the MMG Student Wellbeing Survey 2020 (an annual survey undertaken by Year 5 to 12 students), student voice was identified as a growth area across the College, primarily in Years 8 to 10. Student voice can come through feedback, involvement in decision making or by allowing students to exercise some autonomy over what they learn and how they learn (Gonski, 2018). Through future imagining workshops, we aimed to investigate how the Geography, Business and Economics (GBE) Department can give students a voice in directing their learning and building their own capacity to gain the knowledge and transdisciplinary skills they need to contribute to a better world. These transdisciplinary skills include
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Illuminate Research and Innovation | Edition 7 2022
2. Collaboration – Geography students at Pymble work interdependently and synergistically in teams with strong interpersonal and team-related skills, including effective management of team dynamics and challenges, making substantive decisions together, and contributing to learning from and having an impact on others. 3. Creativity – Geography students at Pymble are encouraged to have an ‘entrepreneurial eye’ for economic and social opportunities, expressing oneself in unique ways, asking the right inquiry questions to generate novel ideas, and leadership to pursue those ideas and turn them in to action. 4. Communication – Geography
collaboration, creativity, citizenship,
students at Pymble communicate
communication, critical thinking and
effectively with a purpose and
character. This action research chose to
voice in a variety of models and
focus on the following transdisciplinary
tools (including digital) and tailored
skills, as identified by Fullan, Quinn and
to impact a range of audiences
McEachen (2018, p.17):
and learning outcomes.
