Learning and Teaching News

Mood Food Presentation

Huge thank you to those parents who were able to join us for the Mood Food Presentation last week. We had over 120 parents in attendance.

This presentation was led by two dietitians, discussing the importance of gut health and its link with mental health – specifically anxiety and depression. I will be delivering this message to our boys throughout Term 2.

Marist Father/Son Reading Night

On Tuesday 18 May, we are holding a Marist Father or Significant Male/Son Reading Night.

The benefits of reading on our cognition are well-researched and it is known that reading increases our cognitive function, working memory as well as higher-order thinking such as creative problem-solving.

Further information will be sent in Week 3, but please keep this night free. We will have a special guest author joining us for this event!

Diary Use

Every student at the College has been issued a student diary. This diary is a vital part of being organised and successful at school. It is an expectation that your son has his diary for every lesson. He will need to be writing down his homework, and it is an opportunity for teachers to communicate home if required.

The Term 2 assessment calendar will be released shortly. All students must write in their draft and due dates in their diaries. If your son has lost his diary, please help us to keep your son organised by purchasing a new one from the Monitor App in Parent Lounge.

Year 10 Subject Changes

The Year 10 subject change window is currently open and will run until Wednesday 26 April. If your son is looking to change one of his elective subjects for study in Term 2 and beyond, please ensure he visits the Studies Office to see Mr Knight or Ms Smeed for a conversation and to collect relevant paperwork. Subject change requests after this date will not be made for Term 2.

Register Your Interest: Year 12 Exam Invigilators

The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) welcomes early registrations of interest from community members who would like to work as invigilators at Year 12 exams being held in schools throughout Queensland in October and November. These are paid positions. Invigilators must be over 18 years old, eligible to work in Australia, and hold a current paid blue card, exemption card, or a Queensland College of Teachers registration.

Register your interest now and get notified when applications open in early June. By organizing your documentation early, you'll be ready to apply straight away. Visit the QCAA website to find out more and register your interest.

Year 12 Unit 3 Report Cards

Year 12 Unit 3 Report Cards will be released to students and parents at the end of Week 3. As with all Year 12 summative results, the marks included in these reports remain provisional until confirmed by the QCAA. Parents will receive an email when these reports are live in the Parent Portal. Following the publishing of these results, Year 12 Academic Interviews will be scheduled for commencement from Sunday 22 May. More information about booking these interviews will be emailed to parents in the coming weeks.

Tutoring at the College

Tutoring at the College is available for all students, and outlined below are faculties where your son can receive assistance.

*Other faculties by appointment with classroom teacher.

Additionally, the CLE run touch-base tutoring for specific students in the College. For more information, contact CLE@marash.qld.edu.au 

If you would like an external tutor, please find a list of Old Boy tutors here.

Senior Library Hours

Our senior library is open from 7:30am every morning until 5:00pm Monday-Thursday. It closes at 3:30pm on Fridays. 

Your son is encouraged to head to the library before and/or after school to complete his homework or study, free from the distractions at home.

Study Hall

Year 12 Night Study Sessions

The Night Study Sessions are weekly study times available to Year 12 students who wish to work in collaboration with their peers for assessment, complete revision, revisit classwork or work on external exam preparation. 

When: Every Wednesday during term time from 5:00pm-8:00pm

Where: Senior Library

Who: 2023 Year 12s only

Requirements:

• Current ID card is to be presented on arrival
• All students must sign in and out of the library
• All standard library rules are to be followed (including no eating)
• Normal student behaviour expectations apply; if these cannot be met, boys will be prohibited from returning to future sessions
• Students are free to wear full College uniform or plain clothes
• Students are free to arrive and leave as they see fit. Supervision is only provided in the library between 5:00-8:00pm.
• Students are to be in the library only. This is not a time for sport or social gatherings. 

A librarian will be on duty from 5:00-8:00pm to assist if required; however, these are not tutoring sessions. Students are encouraged to work collaboratively.

Thank you to Mrs Mary Stirling and the wonderful librarians for staffing these valuable study opportunities for our 2023 Year 12 students.

Artificial Intelligence 

ChatGPT 

As technology has evolved so have the opportunities to outsource many tasks in our daily lives. Emails have replaced letters and postcards, mobile phones are replaced credit cards and smart watches have told use when to exercise, stand and take time to breathe. In November 2022, ChatGPT was launched and the next step in the use of technology in our lives was taken.

 ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI, designed to generate human-like text in response to natural language inputs. It is based on the Transformer architecture, which allows it to understand the context and meaning of the input text and generate coherent and relevant responses.

ChatGPT has been trained on a vast amount of text data from the internet, including books, articles, and websites, enabling it to understand and generate text on a wide range of topics. It can engage in conversations, answer questions, provide information, and even generate creative writing, among other tasks.

(OpenAI, 2023)

ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Marist College Ashgrove

Chat GPT and other AI tools offer both benefits and possible risks for students and their learning. As AI tools continue to evolve, the College will review advancements and communicate necessary changes to the community. Parents, teachers and students will work together to ensure that all resources, including AI, are used to support student learning, not take away from it.

At Marist College Ashgrove we will:

• Not use ChatGPT to generate assessment task responses as this is not considered students’ own work and will be classified as Academic Misconduct as per the College Assessment Policy.
• Use available AI detection technology to authenticate student work.
• Continue to explore ChatGPT to better understand its capabilities and limitations and to assist students in further developing 21st-century skills.
• Continue to stress the importance of academic integrity to classes. This is in line with QCAA requirements for authenticity and integrity of student responses to each assessment task.
• Be mindful that ChatGPT has potential benefits for both educators and students as a tool for personalised learning content and scaffolds tailored to individual needs.
• Use assessment checkpoints as a means to authenticate student authorship.
• Consider changing assessment methods to allow for authentic student responses e.g., focus on in-class assessments that measure understanding and critical thinking.
• Follow the direction of the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, to ensure the best possible learning experience for our students. 

To date, the QCAA has formed an Artificial Intelligence Working Group which will investigate AI technologies and consider their impact on assessment practices, assessment design and academic integrity. The QCAA continues to support the below strategies that teachers may use to establish authorships of student responses:

• directly compare the responses of students who worked together in groups.
• for text, analyse final student responses using plagiarism-detection software, if available.
• interview students to determine their understanding of, and familiarity with, their responses.
• use internal quality assurance processes such as cross-marking if there is more than one class for a subject cohort.

(QCAA, 2023)

What can you do as a parent/carer?

The College works in partnership with both students and parents/carers; we each have an important role to play to best support each boy. To support their learning, we ask that you:

• Have conversations with your son about the use of AI outlining the benefits and challenges of such technology. This includes that ChatGPT and alike technologies are not always accurate and can produce bias responses.
• Reinforce to students they must not use AI for summative assessment and that there are serious consequences for doing so e.g., failing an assessment task.
• Speak about the times that ChatGPT / AI can be used beneficially e.g. to assist in clarifying learning or generating exam practice questions.

Accessing end of term results 

At the end of last term, Year 5 -10 student results and task-specific feedback for all subjects were released to Student Café. These results and feedback can also be located on Parent Lounge. Please follow the steps below which highlight how to access your son’s results and feedback. 

1 - Open parent portal and click on “Parent Lounge”

2 - On the left-hand tab select “Curricular Activities Due” and select “view all activities” on the top right-hand side of page. 

This will take you to a screen that lists of your son/s assessment to complete or has been completed.

3 - Click on a subject to view feedback. 

4 - Once you click on the subject you will be able to find the following information:

a. Task sheet for assessment – this will outline what your son needs to do to complete the task successfully

b. Draft due dates and due dates

c. Criteria sheet

d. Feedback

e. Result