Teaching and Learning

Teachers as Learners

As part of our ongoing commitment to improving teacher practice, this term we have continued working alongside our Critical Friends Bronwyn Jones and Tom Campbell, as well as take up support offered by the Department of Education in both the PLC and EAL space. 

As part of our involvement in the Victorian PLC Initiative Callum Shaw from the Department of Education came out to visit the College to see how we run our Professional Learning Communities. Callum sure is our PLC Manager and works alongside us to ensure we are remaining focused on learning growth for all students. Callum noted how enthusiastic and willing our staff were to discuss their students and that we had a strong culture of learning and collaboration amongst the staff. Our next steps are to continue to remain curious about what works best for the students we have here at Edgars Creek through trying a range of teaching strategies that are evidence-based. Our chosen College wide focus for Terms 3 and 4 is on Literacy teaching practices across all subject areas. 

Bronwyn Jones also visited classrooms and provided the following feedback regarding what she saw:

• Passionate teachers
• Teachers modelling strong academic vocabulary and subject specific language
• Teachers using kind and respectful language, showing a regard for everyone in the learning space
• Teachers checking understanding of expectations throughout a lesson
• Teachers roving to provide targeted feedback
• Teachers setting problems/work at different levels, depending on student need

It is always valuable to have people outside the College view our work here and help us continue to move forward. 

Coaching cycle 2.0: Show us your best!

This term teachers invited a member of the Leadership team into a class that they felt has been going well. In the busyness of day to day life at the College, we can sometimes forget that there are lots of excellent things happening in each and every class and year level. Some of the excellent work shared this term included:

• Passionate and respectful debate amongst students.
• Teachers working hard to pitch Math skill building work to a level all students can work to- this included 10 different activities going on at once!
• Students educating each other around what constitutes safety in community and whether the funding of the Police is related.
• A musical vocabulary scavenger hunt.
• A ball run Physics experiment. 

Staff reported many benefits to this coaching cycle including working with leaders and teachers they normally wouldn't, feeling more comfortable opening up their classrooms and be able to share the positives of their job.

This sharing of positive practice helps to build a culture of openness around teaching which can lead to targeted improvement.

Taryn Godley

Assistant Principal - Curriculum & Pedagogy