Dispositions for 21st Century Learners

CONCEPTS, ULTRANET & LEADERSHIP Prior to attending the Dispositions for 21st century learning Pd, our School was in the processof reviewing its 'Integrated Studies' scopeand sequence.Sowhen the 10 week workshop was offered to the M& M network, a group of 10 curriculum leaders from Wembley Primary School jumped at the opportunity to participate. The main aim being to gain a better understanding of how concept based learning worked.

To build our scopeand sequenceframework, we realised that we first had to understand how we would integrate our strong literacy and numeracy programs into our world knowledge pieces(integrated).

This learning began to take shape as we tackled planning for term 3 as a collective team. Our next step was to think of vels as a triple helix model, and use this knowledge to plan units of work that would build breadth and depth with our students. While building on our curriculum knowledge we were trying to incorporate ICT (in particular the ultranet) into our daily instructional practice. We had some challenging but powerful discussions about the core purpose and value of the Ultranet. These discussions allowed us to create a demand. We knew that if we wanted staff to buy in and use the Ultranet in an authentic and purposeful manner, we had to show them ways that it could drive the curriculum and improve teacher’s instructional practice. We both developed ultranet design spacesthat would encourage teachers to plan, use and implement these practices in their own classroom. We wanted our teachers to use ICT as a tool to support student learning and engagement. The Ultranet is a place our students can investigate our concepts in a safe and targeted way.

Our learning has led us to a place where we know we must support the needs of teachers in different ways. The teachers involved in this professional development have becomethe vesselsto drive our school forward. They are leading by example as you will/ have seen tonight. And their reaction to this school change has been first order. They have needed to step up and explore our learning through mastery experiencesand have in turn becomethe inspiration other staff have needed to get on board.

We will hopefully have our ‘Concept-Based’ scopeand sequencecompleted by the end of this term and strong links to literacy and numeracy would be outlined. We felt that our learning, along with our colleagues(all other Wembley teachers), can be summed up by our students’ responsesto 3 key questions. Check out the accompanying video.

Trish Glover & Jackie Mouratidis