Learning and Teaching 

 

at MFG

Year 12 Graduation

Congratulations to our Year 12 students who celebrated the end of their journey through secondary school last week at our Valedictory Dinner. We are so proud of you! We wish you all the very best and remember to keep ‘Looking Forward’.

Mural – Carla McCrae

A few weeks ago Carla McCrae finished our new House Mural. Carla’s description of her work:

Four girls represent their Houses, in qualities and colour palette. The girls are standing alongside each other, equal and with an expression of openness and determination, looking towards the future. An energising, bright colour palette has been chosen that is led by the House colours, favouring strong, deep hues over traditionally feminine ones.

The houses are represented with the qualities below:

Freeman: green jersey, hair clips in the colours of the Indigenous flag

Lipson: red shirt, playing the saxophone - to represent Ross and the Sweethearts.

Gilmore: dark purple shirt, classical hairstyle, blue headscarf and holding a pencil ala Mary Gilmore and to capture Gilmore’s activism for all women

Beachley: yellow rashie-style top, slicked black hair and determined posture

Parent Opinion Survey 2019

The responses were limited but there are a few aspects worth celebrating:

• Overall, I’m satisfied with the education my child receives at this school – 86% positive responses
• I feel confident that this school provides a good standard of education for my child – 90% positive responses
• Teachers at this school expect my child to do their best – 95% positive responses
• The academic standards of this school provide challenge – 86% positive responses
• Teachers are enthusiastic and positive about teaching – 95% positive responses
• My school provides opportunities for my child to develop a sense of responsibility – 90% positive responses
• The school provides my child with opportunities to build confidence – 90% positive responses

Two areas for further investigation and improvement, based on this survey, are parental involvement and participation with just over 50% being positive and around 30% being neutral. The other is ‘teachers communicate with me often enough about my child’s progress’ with 47% positive, 33% neutral and 24% negative.

MFG Traits: Overview example 6

This year one of our goals as a group of teachers will be to develop an overview that describes each of our 11 MFG traits. Each of our teachers, as part of their Performance and Development Plans, is incorporating one or more of our traits into their teaching.

Below is another example of an overview of one of the traits.

PROBLEM SOLVERS

What is this trait and what does it look like in action?

What is problem solving?

We know problem solving includes a complex set of cognitive, behavioural, and attitudinal components. Problem solving as a multiple step process where the problem solver must find relationships between past experiences (schema) and the problem at hand and then act upon a solution. 

• Problem solving is cognitive but is inferred from behaviour
• Problem solving results in behaviour that leads to a solution
• Problem solving is a process that involves manipulation of or operations on previous knowledge.

To help novices become better problem solvers, they need to develop a stronger base of declarative or domain knowledge, synthesize their knowledge into appropriate mental models, and recognize common solution strategies across many problems and contexts.

• Form mental models to help address the problem
• Remain calm and think logically through an established sequence
• Have a system through which to tackle problems
• Use mistakes as opportunities to learn another direction/way
• Are willing to keep going and think through the process
• Clearly record our thinking and make it visible and are able to replicate this
• Are resilient/don’t give up
• Are confident
• Seek out and use resources to assist us
• Use various thinking routines to assist us
• Discuss and share our ideas with classmates
• Show our understanding in different ways
• Link ideas and concepts with prior knowledge
• Don’t (always) rely only on our teachers for assistance
• Devise a plan (hypothesise, estimate, look for patterns, eliminate possibilities, work backwards)
• Reflect on the problem and how we arrived at our solution

The MFG Design Process

Strategies and Techniques that our teachers use to develop and teach this trait include:

• Polya’s 4 step Problem Solving Process
• C3B4ME  (see three before me)
• Use concrete/hands on resources
• Scaffold activities to give the knowledge appropriate to solve specific problems
• Design Cycle for Textiles
• STAR – Problem Solving Model for Maths (Stop, Think, Act, Review)

Our teachers can ask the following questions:

• Why did you do it this way?
• What do you think?
• What else could you do with this?
• Can you put it in a table / draw a diagram / put it in a sentence / create an equation?
• What is important / not important?
• What strategies have you used / could still use?
• What is the question really asking you?
• What else could you use to help you?
• Is there another way to go about this?

Thinking routines for Problem Solving

• KNWS Graphic organiser (Know, Not need, What do I need to find out, Strategy I’ll use)
• See, Think, Wonder
• Try it, Discuss it, Connect it
• Agency by Design Thinking Routines: