Annual Conference 2022
|  |
ACT Education Directorate | Faculty of Education |
proudly present the . . .
Showcasing the collaboration
between University of Canberra and the ACT Education Directorate through the
Affiliated Schools Partnership
** Affiliated Schools Seminar Series **
Celebrating the Partnership in 2022
This year the Affiliated Schools Annual Conference will be delivered in early Term 4 as 3 online seminars plus an in-person celebration of the Affiliated Schools Partnership between the ACT Education Directorate and the University of Canberra.
ALL SESSIONS - 4pm to 6pm
SESSION 1 ONLINE - Wednesday, 12 October 2022
SESSION 2 ONLINE - Thursday, 20 October 2022
SESSION 3 ONLINE - Tuesday, 25 October 2022
SESSION 4 IN PERSON - Thursday, 27 October 2022
The 'Session Details' tab below provides specific information about each of the seminars.
The first 3 sessions are:
- Online
- Co-hosted by Joanne Keens (ED) and Emily Hills (UC)
- TQI accredited for 6 hours (3 x 2 hours)
The final session is:
- At the INSPIRE Centre, University of Canberra
- A ticketed event (more information soon about registering your interest)
| Session Overview |
|---|
SESSION 1Wednesday, 12 October |
Online - 4pm to 6pm |
Funded Research Sharing |
| In this session, researchers from the University of Canberra and within ACT Affiliated schools share the progress and outcomes of the funded research projects they have been conducting in partnerships across the Affiliated Schools. |
SESSION 2Thursday, 20 October |
Online - 4pm to 6pm |
Master of Education Sharing |
| In this session, teachers and school leaders currently studying a Master of Education (MEd) at UC, and recent graduates of the program, share the impact the MEd has had on their classroom and leadership practices and student learning outcomes. |
SESSION 3Tuesday, 25 October |
Online - 4pm to 6pm |
Teachers as Researchers sharing |
| In this session, seven Affiliated Schools currently engaged in the 2022 Teachers as Researchers program share the impact and learning their action research projects have had on student learning. |
SESSION 4Thursday, 27 October |
INSPIRE Centre, UC - 4pm to 6pm |
Celebrating the Partnership – Mentor Awards & PST Poster Presentations |
| The 2022 Affiliated Schools Seminar Series will culminate in a face-to-face celebration. We will present the UC Faculty of Education Mentor Awards, as nominated by UC preservice teachers, recognising the commitment of outstanding mentor teachers; and showcase the final year Bachelor of Primary Education students’ research projects. |
- comprehensive session details
- recordings of each session.
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All sessions have multiple presentations within the session.
In some timeslots you must choose between presentations.
Each Online Session takes place in one or two 'Virtual Rooms'.
Links to the relevant Virtual Room(s) are provided within each Session Listing.
The links will open new tabs on your preferred internet browser.
A guide to the Virtual Room interface is found on the 'Support' Tab.
SESSION 1
Funded Research Sharing
There are 5 x 20 minute sharing timeslots in this session.
In the first timeslot there is 1 presentation.
In the remaining timeslots there are 2 presentation in each.
The entire session takes place in a single 'Virtual Room'.
A link to that room is provided here:
Link to SESSION 1 Virtual Room
When 2 presentations take place at the same time, a 'Breakout Room' will be
created for the presentation listed in 'Room 2' below.
Consider the audience and abstract and be ready to make your choice.
| Time | Room 1 | Room 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | |
4:00 - 4:10 | Acknowledgement & Welcome |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
4:10 - 4:30 | Implementing personalised wellbeing learning at Maribyrnong Primary: A wellbeing pedagogy professional learning and action-research initiative | Dr Thomas Nielsen Audience - ALL | ||
This project aimed to support evidence-based wellbeing education practice at Maribyrnong primary (N=45 staff, 520 students) over a 10-month period. At baseline, over one third of staff (34.4%) reported being unaware of existing personalised and project-based learning practices around health and wellbeing at Maribyrnong Primary, and 44% were unsure or had a low understanding. After the professional learning, over two-thirds of staff (65%-69) reported engaging ‘sometimes’, ‘always’, and ‘very often’ in the professional learning content for their personal wellbeing and professional practice. Staff were in favour of implementing more school-based preventative wellbeing measures if these were effectively resourced with staff time taken into account. Overarching wellbeing frameworks can help schools to better streamline and synthesise existing curriculum requirements and frameworks. However, concretising of pedagogy tailored to the school needs to be led and implemented by staff in situ with careful consideration of existing barriers and facilitators to facilitate meaningful change. | ||||
4:30 - 4:50 | Reinvigorating Country as teacher pedagogies in ACT schools: Teacher’s direct experiences of ‘relating with Country’, and impacts on teaching and learning for students | Dr David Spillman Audience - ALL | The impact of structured and unstructured loose parts play on children’s mathematical creativity and mathematical skills for children in middle primary school years | Dr Tracy Logan Audience - PRIMARY |
| In 2021, twenty-four teachers from four ACT schools embarked on a transformational journey; firstly to cultivate a personal practice of ‘relating with Country’, and subsequently to incorporate the facilitation of similar opportunities for the students within their curriculum areas. The majority of teachers were immediately challenged due to their habitual prioritisation of rational-analytical thinking, a future-focus and the need for control and certainty, habit which have been reinforced and promulgated through the education system and society more broadly. Despite these limitations, most persisted to a breakthrough or threshold moment where attainment of inner stillness (mindlessness) enabled clear experiences of relating with Country. These direct, personal experiences had a substantial impact on teacher’s approaches to their work with students. In this presentation, we will discuss both teachers’ experiences ‘relating with Country’ and their reflections on student experiences. | Creativity is a twenty first century skill that has been linked to improved academic grades. Researchers and educators recognise play as a tool to increase creativity, however little evidence supports this, particularly in the middle primary school years. In an effort to understand the impacts that play has on creativity, this study examines the impact of structured and unstructured loose parts play on creativity through a mathematical lens. This project will deliver an experimental 8-week intensive play program, using Nudel Kart loose parts resources, at Arawang Primary School. The project will compare academic mathematical grades and creativity measures in a control group, and two treatment groups, pre and post intervention. The project will run in Semester 2 of 2022 and will demonstrate how play can increase opportunities for creativity and whether there is learning transfer to mathematics. | |||
4:50 - 5:10 | Quality Physical Education in Early Childhood Affiliated Schools Project using a Personalised System of Instruction | Associate Professor John Williams Audience - ECP | Using Civic Online Reasoning to fact-check in ACT public schools | Dr Rachel Cunneen Audience - UPPER PRIMARY |
| Across all four terms in 2022, our project has implemented a pedagogical approach to reconfigure how Physical Education is taught in Early Childhood Education. This has involved ongoing professional learning for participating Year 1 and 2 teachers on how to teach a Personalised System of Instruction for Year 1 and 2 and students in our five project schools. We consider the project as a collective endeavour or a community of practice for how Physical Education is taught in context, and where the viewpoints and knowledge of all involved are valued, acknowledged, and encouraged. Collectively, this approach has demonstrated an approach to differentiated learning that is educative, engaging, student-centred, and inclusive, offering a proof of concept for upscaling how contemporary Physical Education may be taught across the ACT. | The digital media environment is saturated with claims. Being able to identify truthful information online is now an essential civic skill. In today’s ‘attention economy,’ time is precious, but many medial literacy educators still encourage deep, critical engagement with online information. This strategy is too time-consuming: students must be taught the means to quickly assess which claims are worthy of attention. Our pioneering study investigates how primary and middle school students in three ACT schools interact with a ‘lateral reading’ fact-checking framework. Underlying lateral reading is the principle of ‘civic online reasoning’. This focuses on action: not what students know, but the steps taken to verify information. Challenging negative perceptions of Wikipedia’s reliability in the teaching community, we promote the use of Wikipedia as an effective fact-checking tool. Our lesson plans, co-developed with teachers, outline traditional and crowdsourced means of generating and accessing encyclopaedic knowledge. Through engaging scenarios, these lessons then aim to instil ‘fact-checking’ reflexes in students. We present findings of how students reacted to these lesson plans, and whether their fact-checking skills improved. | |||
5:10 - 5:30 | Teachers’ Role in Personalised Learning: Lessons from a Systematic Literature Review | Dr Maya Gunawardena Audience - ALL | The PLC Imperative: how schools navigate the dynamics of systemic and school-based demands in PLC implementation | Sally Rule Audience - ALL |
| Personalised Learning (PL) is a proposed alternative solution to address the limitations of mass production education systems augmenting equity by every child’s opportunity to learn and grow. Teachers and students are the key actors of PL; however, teachers’ role is unsolidified and loosely guided, so much so that PL has been seen as teachers’ ideology. Driven by our inspiration for promoting PL, we conducted an in-depth analysis of twelve systematic review papers on PL published between 2016-2021 to find out how teachers’ role is stated and defined. The study has also manually located 66 out of 948 papers under review in the twelve systematic review papers where teachers’ contribution or role is specified. This study highlights the key characteristics of PL affecting teachers. The findings from this study provides implications for teachers to implement personalised instructions in their own settings. | Worldwide, there is a growing tendency for education reform initiatives to adopt a system-wide and system-led approach to school improvement, with an emphasis on drivers that foster teachers’ collective capacity. A Professional Learning Community (PLC) approach has been identified as a particularly powerful driver of school improvement and many education systems have adopted system-led PLCs as a core component of school reform agendas. Implementing a system-led professional learning imperative can create complex dynamics that need to be navigated within the existing demands of schools. This study captures perceptions from system Leaders, School Leaders, PLC leaders and PLC participants and explores the factors that enable and impede schools to implement professional learning communities and the role the system plays in that process. Using a qualitative, multiple case study approach, experiences of implementing and developing PLCs will be explored with a view to providing insights around how systems might support and empower schools to implement professional learning community approaches in ways that optimise their school-improvement potential. | |||
5:30 - 5:50 | Empowering school leaders and local school communities through distributed leadership in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic | Dr Bernard Brown Audience - ALL | Equity & Curriculum form: Access and achievement in the Senior Secondary Curriculum | Dr Phil Roberts Audience - COLLEGE |
| This research project is focused on the functioning of distributed leadership in the schools, practised through school professional learning communities (teams) and their assigned leaders. The project has been designed in a collaborative partnership with an ACT secondary college and a year 7 to 10 high school. The project is set in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges faced by school leaders arising from this crisis. The research employs a mixed methodology which involves analysis of key school policy documents and data collection in the form of interviews, focus groups and a quantitative survey. The study aims to examine how a distributed leadership model can lead to evidence-based school improvement and leadership capacity building in local schools. Conducting this research will also provide an opportunity to capture salient lessons about strategic planning and management of schools in times of significant crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. | This session presents elements of a larger project examining access, participation and achievement in the Senior Secondary Curriculum. Research to date has drawn on evidence from the NSW higher school certificate, with work beginning in relation to the ACT Senior Secondary curriculum through an ASRP project. In this session we will present the theory and history of research on equity in the senior secondary curriculum and the main findings of the NSW work to date. The research has shown how the concept of a curriculum hierarchy is understood and how it operates in the NSW system (and Victoria), the influence of student socio-economic advantage, and relative school advantage on access, participation and achievement in the senior secondary curriculum. This provides a basis for thinking about comparisons with the ACT system and the influence of the form of the curriculum and assessment systems in the ACT senior secondary system. | |||
| Dr Phil Roberts' session has been held over to a later date. | ||||
5:50 - 6:00 | Thank you and Feedback |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
SESSION 2
Master of Education Sharing Session
The Impact of the MEd on classroom practice and student learning outcomes.
There are 3 x 20 minute sharing timeslots in this session.
There is a 10 minute Q & A after each timeslot.
In each timeslot there are 2 presentations.
The session takes place in two 'Virtual Rooms'.
The session will start in ROOM 1 and when 2 presentations take place at the same time,
your host will pop a link to ROOM 2 in the chat, for your convenience.
Links to those rooms are also provided here:
Consider the presenters and be ready to make your choice.
| Time | Room 1 | Room 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | |
4:00 - 4:10 | Acknowledgement & Welcome |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
4:10 - 4:20 | Overview of the MEd Program. What is it? Why do we do it? What are the scholarships that are available in the future? Value of it and pathways afterwards. | Chris Morrissey Mandy Kalyvas | ||
4:20 - 4:40 | ECP 1st Year | Jamie Walkden Annie McAppion | Secondary 1st Year | Jo Cook Please note that the recording below only picks up the last couple of minutes of Jo responding to questions. Her slide show however is available for download here: |
Recordings | ||||
4:50 - 5:10 | ECP 2nd Year | Gabor Hajdu Mark Shiels | Secondary 2nd Year | Victoria Margrain Brooke Walsh |
Recordings | ||||
5:20 - 5:40 | ECP Graduate | Emma Smallmon Rebecca Rizzo | Secondary Graduate | Nicole Linsell Rebecca Doyle |
Recordings | ||||
5:50 - 6:00 | Thank you and Feedback |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
SESSION 3
Teachers as Researchers Sharing
There are 5 x 20 minute sharing timeslots in this session.
In most timeslots there are 2 presentations.
The session takes place in two 'Virtual Rooms'.
The session will start in ROOM 1 and when 2 presentations take place at the same time,
your host will pop a link to ROOM 2 in the chat, for your convenience.
Links to those rooms are also provided here:
Consider the presenters and be ready to make your choice.
| Time | Room 1 | Room 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | Presentation Details | Presenter(s) | |
4:00 - 4:10 | Acknowledgement & Welcome |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
4:10 - 4:30 | Building the capacity of every teacher to be a confident and knowing disciplinary teacher of literacy | Lake Tuggeranong College | Beyond the Gate: connecting with parents and community | Maribyrnong Primary School |
4:30 - 4:50 | Inclusive practices and equity across the school | Melba Copland Secondary School | Building the capacity of our teachers to confidently use high impact strategies when teaching mathematics | Monash Primary School |
4:50 - 5:10 | Equity and Inclusion for Staff Wellbeing: Understanding the issues affecting staff wellbeing and morale | Dickson College | ||
5:10 - 5:30 | Improving writing outcomes and growth across the school | UC High School Kaleen | Establishing a successful coaching model to improve learning growth for all children | Southern Cross Early Childhood School |
5:30 - 5:50 | Increase growth in numeracy for all students | Melrose High School | ||
5:50 - 6:00 | Thank you and Feedback |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | ||
SESSION 4
Celebrating the Partnership
Mentor Awards & PST Poster Presentations
The 2022 Affiliated Schools Seminar Series culminates with a face-to-face celebration.
INSPIRE Centre UC, Building 25
4pm – 6pm
| Time | Event | Presenter(s) | Inspire Centre Room |
|---|---|---|---|
4:00 - 6:00 | Poster presentations | 4th Year Pre-service Teachers |
Studios 1 & 2 TEAL Room |
4:00 - 6:00 | Refreshments | Entrance Foyer | |
4:30 - 4:35 | Acknowledgement of Country | Shavaun Andreou | Flexispace |
4:35 - 4:40 | Welcome |
Joanne Keens (ED) Emily Hills (UC) | Flexispace |
4:40 - 5:10 | Keynote Address |
Professor Barney Dalgarno Executive Dean, Faculty of Education University of Canberra | Flexispace |
5:10 - 5:30 | Mentor Awards | Associate Professor Chris Morrissey | Flexispace |
5:30 - 5:40 | Address and Acknowledgements | Yvette Berry, MLA | Flexispace |
5:40 | Closing Remarks | Professor Barney Dalgarno | Flexispace |
| Session / Time | Presentation | Presenters and Email Addressses |
|---|---|---|
SESSION 1 | Funded Research Sharing | Emily Hills Joanne Keens |
4:10 – 4:30 |
Implementing personalised wellbeing learning at Maribyrnong Primary: A wellbeing pedagogy professional learning and action-research initiative (Audience: ALL) | |
4:30 – 4:50 |
Reinvigorating Country as teacher pedagogies in ACT schools: Teacher’s direct experiences of ‘relating with Country’, and impacts on teaching and learning for students (Audience: ALL) | Ben Wilson David Spillman |
4:30 – 4:50 |
The impact of structured and unstructured loose parts play on children’s mathematical creativity and mathematical skills for children in middle primary school years (Audience: PRIMARY) | |
4:50 – 5:10 | Quality Physical Education in Early Childhood Affiliated Schools Project using a Personalised System of Instruction | Associate Professor John Williams |
4:50 – 5:10 | Using Civic Online Reasoning to fact-check in ACT public schools | |
5:10 – 5:30 | Teachers’ Role in Personalised Learning: Lessons from a Systematic Literature Review | |
5:10 – 5:30 | The PLC Imperative: how schools navigate the dynamics of systemic and school-based demands in PLC implementation | |
5:30 – 5:50 | Empowering school leaders and local school communities through distributed leadership in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic | |
5:30 – 5:50 | Equity & Curriculum form: Access and achievement in the Senior Secondary Curriculum | |
SESSION 2 | Master of Education Sharing SessionThe Impact of the MEd on classroom practice and student learning outcomes | Emily Hills Joanne Keens |
4:10 – 4:20 | Overview of the MEd Program. What is it? Why do we do it? | |
4:20 – 4:40 | ECP 1st Year - Jamie Walkden | Jamie Walkden Annie McAppion Jo Cook |
4:50 – 5:10 |
ECP 2nd Year - Mark Shiels ECP 2nd Year - Gabor Hajdu Secondary 2nd Year - Brooke Walsh Secondary 2nd Year - Victoria Margrain | |
5:20 – 5:40 | ECP Graduate - Emma Smallmon | |
SESSION 3 | Teachers as Researchers Sharing | Emily Hills Joanne Keens |
4:10 – 4:30 | Lake Tuggeranong College Session Topic: Building the capacity of every teacher to be a confident and knowing disciplinary teacher of literacy | Team Leader: David Briggs UC Critical Friend: Matthew Brown |
4:10 – 4:30 | Maribyrnong Primary School Session Topic: Beyond the Gate: connecting with parents and community. | Team Leader: Anna Thorpe UC Critical Friend: Dr Andy Ross |
4:30 – 4:50 | Melba Copland Secondary School Session Topic: Inclusive practices and equity across the school | Team Leader: Tabatha Kellett UC Critical Friend: Michaela Vergano |
4:30 – 4:50 | Monash Primary School Session Topic: Building the capacity of our teachers to confidently use high impact strategies when teaching mathematics | Team Leader: Kellie Keefe UC Critical Friend: Chris Morrissey |
4:50 – 5:10 | Dickson College Session Topic: Equity and Inclusion for Staff Wellbeing: Understanding the issues affecting staff wellbeing and morale | Team Leader: Victoria Margrain UC Critical Friend: Dr Thomas Nielsen |
5:10 – 5:30 | UC High School Kaleen Session Topic: Improving writing outcomes and growth across the school | Team Leader: Carol Ellis UC Critical Friend: Emily Hills |
5:10 – 5:30 | Southern Cross Early Childhood School Session Topic: Establishing a successful coaching model to improve learning growth for all children | Team Leader: Kelly Booker UC Critical Friend: Deborah Pino-Pasternak |
5:30 – 5:50 | Melrose High School Session Topic: Increase growth in numeracy for all students | Team Leader: Rachel Kane UC Critical Friend: Jonathan Adams |
Support to help you maximise your enjoyment of this event
All Online sessions - 4pm to 6pm
SESSION 1 - Wednesday, 12 October 2022
SESSION 2 - Thursday, 20 October 2022
SESSION 3 - Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Instructions for navigating the Virtual Room
