Image courtesy of IntegrateAV
How to build resilience in our schools This is the story of South Melbourne Park Primary School (SMPPS) in Victoria and how their teaching and learning rapidly evolved throughout one of the world’s longest lockdowns. During this period, the school has had to be agile and constantly evolving its teaching and learning to align with their five cultural values. A connected class model supports a focus on student values during uncertain times As the school faces the uncertainty of these difficult times, they need to continue to be flexible. For instance, teachers may contract the virus, groups of students may be affected by attending events together such as birthday parties or the whole school locked down. These shifting scenarios have impacts on the workload of teachers, so finding a solution for seamless transitions between face-
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Enabling students to interact, collaborate, and connect with the most effective and engaging tools
Rebecca Woolnough
Educator, and Education Advisor, SMART Technologies ANZ
to-face teaching, in-person teaching, hybrid learning, and remote learning is front of mind for SMPPS and for all Australian principals. Through a connected class model, SMPPS has created the capacity to manage these scenarios. A critical part of the connected class model was identifying the right technology to support their pedagogy and focus on their student values: • • • • •
Be curious Be involved Be leaders Be a team Be connected
It was therefore important that the learning designed by teachers could be used flexibly across all possible scenarios including face to face, in person learning, hybrid learning and remote learning at home. The school chose SMART Board interactive displays for their classrooms and Lumio software as part of their teaching and learning solution. The teachers could create content and design learning that was displayed in the classroom on the SMART Board, simultaneously seen by students on their devices at home and access on-demand lessons. Importantly, the software enabled students to interact, collaborate, and connect with that content through what the students called “Hello SMART”. The teachers were not having to design on paper and convert to digital, they could prepare their lessons once. The Lumio
TECHNOLOGY
software made the transition between classroom and remote learning seamless. “Lumio helped me change the engagement of my students by actually allowing them to be present and active listeners and participants in my lessons,” said Hasnaa Hamid, one teacher at SMPPS.
New learning spaces inspire a new generation of curious minds South Melbourne Park Primary School, located close to Melbourne’s CBD, is an innovative school with a vision to inspire a new generation of curious minds. As a new and growing school, it organises the students into multi-age cohorts. Surrounded by inspiring new learning spaces the teachers group the students for Literacy, Numeracy, Enquiry, Passions and Home Groups. However, when the lockdowns began, the questions became… How to sustain these best practices the school had implemented? Term 4, 2022 | school-news.com.au
