Showcasing Action Research at MGC

The two models below inform Action Research at MGC:

Small groups of teachers in Professional Learning Teams choose an aspect of their classroom teaching on which to focus. The choice is based on available data. The impact of the strategies put in place are measured and the research evaluated.

The following is an example of Action Research from the Year 12 English Professional Learning Team (Paul Carter, Nunu Bisogni and Liam Brown)

Focus - improving student cohort results in the Year 12 English exam Language Analysis task.

Reasons for choice – Review of Language Analysis exam results from the period 2013 to 2016

Strategies

1. Moving the initial SAC assessment to the start of the year;

2. Focusing upon a specific theme (‘Australia Day and issues of Australian identity’) as part of the teaching of the initial unit.

3. Revising Language Analysis skills fortnightly for the remainder of the year in the cohort’s shared seventh-period class;

4. Teachers collaborating on individual lessons to target specific language analysis skills, such as analysing the progression of an argument and building metalanguage for comparative analysis.

5. Semester Two practice exam to be externally assessed by VCAA assessors.

Results - Student results from the Year 11 end-of-year exam, Unit 3 SAC, ongoing Language-Analysis assessment in Units 3 and 4, and from the end of year practice exam and VCAA exam will be analysed

Measure of impact - seeking to improve the cohort median result in the Year 12 Language Analysis exam assessment by >5%.

Regards,

Tip Kennedy

Assistant Principal