in the classroom students as they then think about the next set of tasks or the next set of proficiencies that are in the learning structure ?
I think that the reporting piece has to be looked at from a broader perspective , not just assessment around specific assessments . One school that I was chatting with recently talked about the impact of the learning cycles and how they would use technology to automate some of that learning , that assessment and reporting , so that there was space and time in that activity for the parents to be more effectively engaged in the conversation . They had evidence in front of them , and they could actually start to build on that more face-to-face experience when they were at home supporting teachers to be included in a productive and poignant way in that reporting structure .
Do you think a nationally consistent way of reporting on student achievement would be a good idea with common , plain and meaningful language for students and parents ? I think your comment around accessible language is really important . Geoff Masters talked about the way in which a paradigm change can occur and a paradigm change thinks about proficiency-based learning .
We know that there ’ s different capability groupings within school , or within classes . Some kids are operating two , three years ahead of the mean or median achievement grouping in the class , and then you ’ ve got kids who are a couple of years behind . His thinking was , instead of having a linear approach to curriculum and a linear approach to rubric , how do we stack that in a more vertical way so it provides opportunities for more personalised and individual learning plans , without the overheads required to do that ? Essentially , teachers are already working with two , three , maybe four groupings of capabilities within their class anyway .
We ’ re not trying to reinvent the curriculum . We ’ re just trying to reinvent how we stack that learning and how we report on it . I think the reporting has to be relevant to the state . We can take national leads on things like proficiency-based or outcome-based learning competencies , base learning if that ’ s what we ’ re talking about , but the schools themselves need to be able to weld this into a way which is specifically tied to their local communities . That just takes us back to the mid-80s when we talked about community-based curriculum design out of Canberra . So , it ’ s really a continuation of that 80s work in effect , but just updating it for today .
What do you think is the major purpose of reporting and for whom is it intended in your mind ? I think if we ’ re considering the data that ’ s been brought up at a national level around PISA and the high-stakes testing at the moment that ’ s in place with NAPLAN , it ’ s about getting datasets that give us an indication of how cohorts are operating and achieving at a point in time .
But I think if we go back to first principles , we have to think about the fact that students are at the centre of everything we do . So , while we ’ re collecting data and we ’ re looking at those broader success factors , we always have to come back to the fact that reporting is about our desire to help the student be the best they can . Everything we do within the school has to be predicated around that three-way relationship between students , parents and teachers or the school , if you like , and all of the stakeholders within the school .
Reporting has to be effective , transparent and valuable at that school level , at the individual level for the student . But we also have to have a way of reflecting back those broader datasets , so I think it ’ s almost ‘ how long is a piece of string ?’, but fundamentally , it has to be about student success and it has to be personalised and contextualised for each student and family group .
What are some of the things you ’ d like the government to focus on in a funding sense ? If we don ’ t have the right skills in place , if we don ’ t have the right understanding of the proficiency or the competency of those skills in the workplace , we ’ re going to struggle to see the productivity gains that we should see out of the government ’ s investments in education .
I ’ d like to see a more robust and connected conversation around things like micro-credentialing . The Federal Government ’ s already put a toe in the water around this , and I think it ’ s a great start , but I think we need to take this further .
I was speaking recently with one university that ’ s going through a procurement process . When we came
We always have to come back to the fact that reporting is about our desire to help the student be the best they can .
to talking about their view of microcredentialing future skills based on research from the Foundation for Young Australians , it wasn ’ t on their radar . Within two days , I was having conversations with three of our schools and they saw micro-credentials as fundamental for how they move forward as a learning community , because it gives them a way to be able to build a signature experience for their students , communicate the value of what ’ s being learned and be able to build a framework that is evidence-based that shows student performance and improvement .
That means there ’ s an easy way for students to show what they ’ ve learned , that demonstrates a skill , and for parents to understand how effective and how valuable the learning is that ’ s taking place . As those students exit out of secondary school , for instance , there is a way by which you can then reflect that learning through portfolios or badges or whatever to other institutions , to workplaces .
I think there ’ s a really interesting opportunity to bring evidence , transparency and a framework for understanding how our students are learning and their successes in a more useful way . I ’ d like to see something around a threading together of all those various initiatives and a more explicit focus on micro-credentialing as a structure or as a scaffold for that performance evaluation .
TAFE Queensland is working on a really interesting project with the Foundation for Young Australians around the spaces where future skills need to be built . And they ’ re taking that research from the foundation to think about the way in which they build micro-credentials and how they then take those to the market in a sense , because one of the other things that we have to consider here is as soon as you start thinking about microcredentials , you have to think about an underpinning business model . ■
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