Year 8 Math – Chance Problem Based Lesson

Students in Year 7 & 8 participate in a Problem Solving lesson in different units across the year. The aim of these lessons is to provide students with the opportunity to apply their learning and numeracy strategies to real life math based problems. Students work independently as well as in small groups to share their ideas and reasoning and solve the given problem.

VCAL Work Related Skills

VCAL Students learn OHS principles in an innovative team building project

This term, VCAL Work Related Skills (WRS) Intermediate students are building a virtual version of Monopoly based on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) learnings. This project has students create a board game from scratch to review everything they know in OHS! In turn, students are learning how to work cohesively in a team and to complete a complex work-related activity. This project is aimed to meet learning outcomes within the VCAL curriculum in an engaging and entertaining way. Indirectly, the project also builds further understandings of core concepts in OHS.

Significant preparation time went into classroom instruction to teach students skills in basic project management techniques, teamwork, and key success factors. Students used a democratic approach and elected Team Leaders to head up 2 project groups. Students then had an initial meeting and contributed original and resourceful ideas in brainstorming sessions. Team leaders then allocated tasks and responsibilities to students and as a group they have begun the task of building a project plan with key performance indicators and evaluation mechanisms.

Our Team Leaders (Jayden Sheehan and Atem Thon) have demonstrated the skills to leads their group in its initial stages, outlining issues, communicating direction and desired outcomes, and helping participants understand their tasks, roles, and contributions to the process. Well done!!

I have been impressed how students have embraced this project and have taken personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of work and have got on with achieving results with little oversight. As students continue to have team meetings and complete the work, I am looking for students to build constructive working relationships characterized by a high level of acceptance, cooperation, and mutual respect. I like how the project incorporates a large amount of research requirements, using technology and teamwork. Most of all, it is an applied learning project that encourages team unity through sharing information or expertise, working together to solve problems, and putting team success first. Special mention here for our student, Tarney Grinter, who demonstrated her skills and creativity using an iPad to design concept drawings.

The true benefit of this project has been to form explicit linkages to the OHS curriculum in Term 1 and between their existing understanding of how project management and teamwork functions in the real world. By making these connections, students can rapidly apply these “new” concepts into their existing understanding of the real-world work industries, and hence fast track their comprehension and socialisation i.e. they “get it” sooner in their progression through their studies. The key learning is the importance of project-based curriculum that maximises the learning experience for our students.

Tuning Into Teens Program

Headspace Melton