Teaching and Learning

Just as the students have had to adjust to this new mode of learning, our teachers and other staff have been challenging themselves to embrace the challenge of how best to assist the students in this new learning environment. 

Many staff have become master film makers with the videos they are creating to demonstrate particular skills and ideas. Others have been trawling the internet for interactive sites and tools that they can use with their students to engage them and provide the much wanted feedback.

Still others have been collaborating to create tasks that empower the girls to explore their own learning styles to ensure they can achieve their best in this remote learning experience. 

And many have been crafting Google Meets that aim to ensure the students can still feel connected to their teachers and classmates. 

While we may not be able to see each other, the staff of Killester are working tirelessly to ensure that they are providing the girls with the best possible learning experience suitable for this unprecedented situation we all find ourselves in.

Regards

Faye Jamieson

Staff Development Coordinator

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity"

It is this quote from none other than Albert Einstein that encapsulates our quest to offer our students to pursue their passions by way of a project while learning in this remote environment. Hence, last week we launched Change yourself; Change The World, an opportunity for all students in Years 7-10 to inject their own voices, motivations and interests into their learning. 

As parents and teachers, and often as both, we know that learning is rarely divided into subject areas, especially once we leave formal educational institutions. Thus in providing choice and voice, we hope to encourage the vibrant and vital young people we have as the focus of our community here at Killester College, the power to make decisions to really pursue what they love or what they know they have an aptitude in already, so that they may broaden and deepen their knowledge and skills. Even more importantly, the project process has been designed to enable your daughters to reflect on, think deeply about, and control the learning that comes from learning, developing and improving oneself.

To support this process, please talk with your daughters about their passions and their projects. Ask them if they are truly working on a project based on what they love and what they are good at. The students will self assess their progress rather than the product or outcome of the Project therefore, while many students may focus on what they think their Mentor teacher wants, they  are strongly advised to put themselves at the centre of the learning.

In our next newsletter, I hope to inform you of some of the exciting projects your daughters are creating, investing and exploring. Anecdotally, there is a huge range and variety of very exciting projects that we hope to showcase upon return to school, somewhere in the future.

Steve McPhail

Head of Learning and Teaching