LOP

Engaging Students to Enhance Learning

As adults," in our young people’s evolving learning lives", and with this opener I speak of society as a whole, we... are... stumbling. The disparities and disturbances between tradition, innovation, expectations, and future forward thinking are never more profound than they are now, and change, BIG change, in how we think, strategise, and develop policy around learning is exigent.

 

This point was made abundantly clear by a panel of six young learners at the recent Catholic Secondary Schools Association forum: “Engaging Students to Enhance Learning”. Representing a diverse mix of metropolitan, urban and rural areas, these young people were tasked with answering questions around their thinking about learning for a roomful of principals and NSW diocesan officials. They responded to the following:

 

What should the purpose of schooling in the 21st century be? 

What knowledge, skills and attributes should every student develop at school and why?

What engages you currently in your learning?

How much ownership of your learning do you currently have and what does that look like?  Is it enough?

What does learning need to look like for you to be the learner you want to be?

How could the curriculum better support every student’s/your learning? 

 

The students eloquently highlighted, that for them, the purpose of contemporary learning shouldn’t be about facts and figures, memorisation and regurgitations, exams, assessments, and grades all targeted towards an antiquated end of learning phase assessment, irrelevant in today’s dynamic post-school learning climate. Rather, it needs to be about developing holistically into empathetic individuals with the ability to self-regulate and work towards a greater good. 

 

When focused on the learning in the classroom, learning needs to ‘ignite passion’ through a collaborative partnership in which both the teacher and the student are valued, and value the very essence of schooling. The students identified that this looks like flexibility in the curriculum where our senior years are restructured to reflect a more tertiary like system where the learning could be scaffolded through a series of units. Learners work towards success in a variety of elected modules gaining credit points towards a cumulative total that is transferable to learning beyond school. They further suggested ‘‘Passion Projects’, where students are supported to discover, develop and deepen their knowledge and understanding in a self-identified interest area. Every idea that they put forth synthesised with the thinking around the NSW Curriculum Review Interim Report and strengthened the importance of our politicians, media, and the public revisioning and reworking our current system of learning sooner rather than later. If we are to ‘nurture wonder, and ignite passion’, then now is the time to not only hear the voices of our young learners but to listen and enact their future forward thinking.

 

Congratulations to our O’Connor representatives, Cyan McLauchlan and Ehan Boshoff, for raising their voices and being heard!  

 

Eli Simpson

Leader of Pedagogy