Australian Curriculum

ABC Splash for teachers, parents and students

Published by Nick

This looks like a great new resource produced by the ABC. The statement below is taken directly from the site.

ABC Splash brings you the best Australian content from across ABC TV and Radio plus high-quality video from around the world.

  • a new world-class education website for Australia
  • packed with hundreds of videos, audio clips and games
  • 100% free to watch and play at home and in school

See volcanos erupt and microbats fly. Investigate fossils, megafires and worm farms. Meet fairytale monsters. Unwrap an Ancient Egyptian mummy and explore the Great Barrier Reef without getting wet!

Not only is there a great range of resources it is also connected to the Australian Curriculum. Definitely worth putting in your favourites.

Click here to visit the ABC Splash site to view a quick video explaining what ABC Splash is about.

Australian Curriculum Lessons – Website

Published by Nick

Here is a resource for teachers that provides lessons that are specifically designed around the Australian Curriculum. The subject areas covered by this site include English, maths, science, history and the arts. Year levels range from Foundation (Reception) to Year 10. I am assuming the web site has only been around since last year so not every subject area in every year level has lesson plans in it. English and maths have the most lessons while lessons are being added regularly (I noticed one uploaded on the 26th January 2013).

Lessons are split up into sections which include Summary, Australian Curriculum Links, Lesson, Assessment and Resources. I have had enough of a look through this site to highly recommend that you should look through it and add this site to your favourites list for future reference.

The home page shows the latest lessons uploaded across all subject areas and you can go back through all the lessons in this way or you can click on the subject area and year level at the top of the web page. The home page also shows links to popular lessons, lesson tags i.e. maths games and a search bar. You can also follow Australian Curriculum Lessons on Twitter at @AusLessons.

I would like to mention one specific lesson called Reciprocal Reading Groups Lesson. The reason is that reciprocal teaching was ranked number 9 out of 138 on John Hattie’s list of influences on student learning. Click here to view post on John Hattie. The lesson provides two great resources, one of which is a Power Point that outlines how reciprocal reading works. So for staff at PBAS who may have wondered how reciprocal teaching worked here is a great explanation applied to a reading lesson (series of lessons). Click here to view this lesson.

To go to the website home page click here.

Australian Curriculum Geography Draft Curriculum F-12

Published by Nick

Geography is a structured way of exploring, analysing and explaining the characteristics of the places that make up our world, through perspectives based on the concepts of place, space and environment.

Geography is broken into two strands. Geographical Knowledge and Understanding and Geographical Inquiry and Skills. There are seven major concepts in the draft Australian Curriculum Geography are: place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change.

Geography will be taught across two year bands, the same as the Arts.

  • Foundation–Year 2 Curriculum focus: Exploring local and more distant places.
  • Years 3–4 Curriculum focus: Investigating places.
  • Years 5–6 Curriculum focus: Analysing and managing places.
  • Years 7–10 Curriculum focus: regional and global places in an environmental and human geography context.

 

For more detail go to the link below to view the full draft curriculum including General Capabilities, Cross Curriculum Priorities, Content Descriptors and Achievement Standards.

The draft Australian Curriculum: Geography

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Australian Curriculum – The Arts

Published by Nick

For those teachers who will be teaching The Arts AC here is an overview from the Arts Draft  Curriculum document.  I have tried to put some key points in this post from the 150 page draft document.

Australian Curriculum: The Arts comprises five subjects:

  • Dance
  • Drama
  • Media Arts
  • Music
  • Visual Arts

The Arts in each subject has two interrelated strands:

Making – using processes, techniques, knowledge and skills to make art works.
Responding – exploring, responding to, analysing and interpreting art works.
In the Making strand, content descriptions focus on students:
  • Imagining and improvising
  • exploring the elements/materials/techniques/processes
  • shaping their art works
  • practising skills and techniques
  • communicating ideas through their art works
  • linking their art works to other Arts subjects and learning areas.

In the Responding strand, content descriptions focus on students:

  • reflecting upon their own art works
  • responding to others’ art works
  • considering the broader context of arts works, such as the social, cultural andhistorical context of the artist and of the audience/s.

The Arts curriculum in each subject is written in bands of year levels This is different to English, maths, history and science which are written to individual year levels.

Foundation to Year 2

Years 3 to 4

Years 5 to 6

Years 7 to 8

Years 9 to 10

The general capabilities and cross curriculum priorities are the same as for every Australian Curriculum subject area (for detail on these click on the link below to visit the full draft AC curriculum for The Arts.

Teachers use the Australian Curriculum content and achievement standards first to identify current levels of learning and achievement and then to select the most appropriate content (possibly from across several year levels) to teach individual students and/or groups of students.

Teachers also use the achievement standards at the end of a period of teaching to make onbalance judgments about the quality of learning demonstrated by the students – that is, whether they have achieved below, at or above the standard.

If you would like to read the content descriptions and view the achievement standards you will need to go to the link below to visit the full draft paper. If you are teaching in this area this will be a good starting point to begin familiarisation of The Arts Australian Curriculum.

Click here to view the Draft Curriculum – The Arts.

Week 9 Staff Meeting AC/TFEL

Published by Nick

Unfortunately this will be our first AC/TFEL meeting for the term.

 

The Term 3 (proposed) plan was for the following to occur:

R-7: Focus on programing, assessing and reporting to Australian Curriculum. Plus looking at the English curriculum during meeting times.

8-10: Focus on English. Tanya and Justin working together.

TfEL: Includes Liz, Tim, Rob, Dave and Nick looking at students feedback on our teaching. Ed and Caddy can slot into this OR may wish to continue focusing on the Maths/Science AC in preparation for next year i.e. looking at programing and assessing.

 

Proposed plan for week 9 Tuesday staff meeting is for:

Primary Staff

Primary staff to use this time to investigate the AC English Curriculum either individually or in small groups. Possibilities for this time are:

  • Have discussions around the curriculum itself. Get the AC website up and investigate/familiarise
  • Planning for 2013 using the English AC.
  • Look at and discuss with a colleague the work sample portfolios. Discuss how these compare with current student samples from PBAS. Can these samples be used to assist assessment in 2013?

Tanya and Justin

Tanya and Justin to use this time to investigate the AC English Curriculum either individually or in small groups. Possibilities for this time are:

  • Have discussions around the curriculum itself. Get the AC website up and investigate/familiarise
  • Planning for 2013 using the English AC. I know Justin has begun this process and maybe some sharing can occur at this time.
  • Look at and discuss with a colleague the work sample portfolios. Discuss how these compare with current student samples from PBAS. Can these samples be used to assist assessment in 2013?

One major issue here – last term Justin started the TFEL Student Surveys and handed them out. I asked him (without thinking) to meet with the TFEL group so he could have time to analyse his data. This however leaves Tanya with no one to discuss the English curriculum with. Can I ask that Tanya and Justin get together for a quick chat to decide if Justin is going to be with the TFEL group (and therefore Tanya is by herself) or work with Tanya on the AC English curriculum.

TFEL – Tim, Rob, Dave and Nick

Meet and discuss TFEL student surveys. Nick will show how he has analysed is feedback. Have some time to discuss/analyse results from students and what this means for our teaching (either with a partner or individually).

Ed and Allan

Can come and join the conversation with the TFEL group and we can share how we constructed our surveys and their analysis OR continue with your discussion around the AC maths curriculum which could include the following:

  • Have discussions around the curriculum itself. Get the AC website up and investigate/familiarise (you may be passed this).
  • Look at and discuss the work sample portfolios. Discuss how these compare with current student samples from PBAS. Can these samples be used to assist assessment in 2013?
  • Planning for 2013 using the Maths AC.

Australian Curriculum Update

Published by Nick

If you teach in the following areas (or are likely to) you may like to make comment about the direction that these areas are taking. I was able to comment on the HPE curriculum when it was available for consultation and found this useful. Once consultation was completed a consultation report was collated and made available on the ACARA website. The HPE consultation report is now available and can be viewed by clicking here. This made for interesting reading for me as part of the report highlighted issues and ACARA’s reponses to those issues.

Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Arts

Click here to give feedback on the Arts Shape Paper              

  

Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business

Click here to give feedback on the Economics and Business Shape Paper

 

 

 

Learning Design Part 8

Published by Nick

The information below is taken from the Leaders Resource – Getting Started developed by the Teaching and Learning Services team DECD.

This is the final post in the series on Learning Design. The sixth part to the Learning Design process is Design the teaching and learning plan.

The final part to Learning Design requires less explanation than the others, having said that it is extremely important. Designing the teaching and learning plan requires the bringing together of the main ideas from all the other parts. Having decided on what those key ideas are from parts 1-5 of Learning Design consideration can be given to:

• What planning is needed?
• What is the sequence of experience/tasks/opportunities?
• What resources need organising?
• What else?

Learning Design Part 5

Published by Nick

Click to enlarge image.

Step 3 in the Learning Design process is ‘What could the intended learning look like at this level?’ This statement relates directly to the Australian Curriculum content. Whether we have vertically grouped classes or not, we need to ensure that we look at the scope and sequence of our subject areas to see how the learning looks across the year levels. To download the scope and sequence charts for subjects click here. This link will take you to the Australian Curriculum website page that enables you to download the Scope and Sequence documents for all AC subject areas.

Below are some questions we can ask ourselves in relation to ‘What could the intended learning look like at this level?’

  • What examples have we seen of high quality learning at this level?
  • How will students know what is high quality learning?
  • What does ‘at this level’ mean?
  • What intended learning is not evident in the achievement standard?

We are yet to work through some of these questions fully as teachers. There have already been some discussions around ‘moderation’ and looking at samples of work but we are yet to see samples of ‘high quality’ learning as part of this process (although they are supposed to be coming). The discussion around applying grades has also generated discussion and the term ‘at this level’ has teachers asking “How do I know the A I’m giving at this level is the same as the A being given by another teacher in another school?

 

There are two key points to remember that relate to ‘What could the intended learning look like at this level?’

1.Letting our kids in on the secret of what high quality learning is (make it clear by showing examples and explaining what demonstrates high level learning) AND

2. Not all of the intended learning is evident in the Achievement Standards in the Australian Curriculum (so don’t just rely on these to set your tasks for students).

 

 

Australian Curriculum & the General Capabilities

Published by Nick

On Friday at the Australian Curriculum day in Kadina I attended the General Capabilities session at the end of the day and thought I would share some of the information that was delivered. There is nothing mind blowing in this information but I do think it is important to have a look at the capabilities and understand their connection to the content.

The General Capabilities are (click here to view):

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy
  • Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability
  • Critical and creative thinking
  • Personal and social capability
  • Ethical behaviour
  • Intercultural understanding

Below are some key points that I got from this session:

  • The General Capabilities are embedded within the Australian Curriculum and only need to be covered so far as they appear in the curriculum content.
  • Even though the capabilities are embedded into the curriculum teachers should be aware of where they are in the content and their importance within the curriculum. This can be done by selecting the appropriate box on the website that shows the General Capability icons within the content.
  • Although teachers know that the General Capabilities are embedded within the curriculum there is nothing to stop teachers from taking advantage of opportunities that arise to focus on a capability within a topic.
  • There was some discussion around some of the General Capabilities(Personal and Social and Ethical Behaviour) being used in pastoral care.