From the Director of Pedagogy and Innovation

The Agile Learner 

A significant and exciting part of my work at the moment is rethinking what the Year 7 experience could be for our 2024 cohort and in particular, the types of learners we are trying to grow. When all the options are on the table and there are so many possibilities for schools and students now, selecting and crafting pedagogies and programs is an exciting opportunity.

A significant factor are the disrupters that have, and will continue to emerge. The term ‘disrupter’ has been around in business for some time now, and the COVID pandemic was a prime example of an event or development that forces change when we were not looking for it. The rise of ChatGPT is another example of how schools need to modify, shift and embrace the new normal lest they get left behind or become irrelevant.

In response to disruptions, we need systems and people that are responsive and flexible, and see change as opportunity. This is what we are looking at in the Year 7 program. A phrase that we continue to return to in our planning is ‘how do we guide our young people to know what to do when they don’t know what to do.’

Agile thinking and agile learning build on students’ solid knowledge base and helps them to apply it to their current challenge. We teach them explicitly how to write and communicate well, so when they need to solve a problem they can draw on those skills. Likewise, we ensure there is a robust base of mathematical and scientific knowledge so they can problem solve and reason well. Agile thinking is about looking at problem, identifying key aspects and drawing from a pool of skills and knowledge to solve it.

Helping students to decide what skills and knowledge is pertinent at that particular moment is crucial. Teachers in this case are almost coaching or guiding students thinking, which is very different to the top-down dissemination of knowledge from teacher to student, which has been the previous educational model. 

An aspect of this learning style is the communication and deconstruction of students’ thinking. I often return to the phrase ‘if you don’t know why it is working, you will not know how to fix it when it breaks.’ Leading discussions and providing opportunities to discuss the thinking, rather than the result is another key function of teachers in this new agile environment. 

2024 is shaping up to be a very exciting year in this space. 

Mr Chris Sanders

Director of Pedagogy and Innovation