College News

Open Plan Classroom Research

St Mary’s College for the deaf and St John’s Regional College have partnered with researchers from Deakin University and the University of Melbourne to investigate how well students can understand speech in different types of classrooms. Open plan classrooms – where multiple learning groups share the same space – are becoming increasingly common in Australia. Open plan classrooms provide flexibility to schools and enhance students’ opportunities to learn collaboratively. However, there are some concerns that concentrating larger numbers of students in one space can generate too much background noise compared with traditional enclosed classrooms. This may make it harder for some students to hear, particularly if they have a hearing impairment or language background other than English.  

The research being conducted aims to investigate the extent to which classroom type affects students’ speech perception. That is, does students’ speech perception differ in open plan classrooms compared to enclosed classrooms, and if so by how much? To answer this question, a group of students completed a listening activity in a traditional classroom, to find out how much speech they understand under “normal” conditions. They will then repeat the activity in an open plan classroom, to see if there is any change in how much speech they understand. The listening activity involves recorded words and sentences being played through a speaker at the front of the classroom at average “teacher volume”. Students use a website to indicate what they heard when each sentence is played.

As open-plan classrooms become more common, it is important to determine what activities and classes they are best suited for. This research project will allow St Mary’s and St John’s to gain data that will determine the most appropriate use for their open-plan classrooms. In particular, they will be able to establish which activities may (or may not) be most suited to these spaces, and will be able to further tailor learning for each individual student’s needs. Deakin University and the University of Melbourne would like to sincerely thank both St Mary’s College for the deaf and St John’s Regional College for taking part in this research. Thank you in particular to Ms Melissa Lucy, Mr Paul Wintle, and Ms Lisa Jacobs for the time and effort they have put into assisting with scheduling and data collection. Most of all thank you to the wonderful Year 7 and Year 8 students and their families who agreed to be our “testing groups” and took part in the listening activities. 

Melissa Lucy, Deputy Principal - St Mary's College for the Deaf 

Year 9 Topics of Interest

The Year 9 Enrichment class has recently been teaching the class a topic of interest to the class. We have been learning about topics such as racism, Asian culture, the history of noodles and sporting skills. We worked together to work out the skills we needed to teach the class, how to gain attention and how to communicate information in an interesting manner.

Kent and Martin taught the class about the History of Noodles with a PowerPoint demonstration, a Kahoot! quiz and a practical demonstration where we got to try udon and ramen.

Rachel Towns, Literacy Coach