PoLT Online Professional Learning Resource – Principle 6

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Components Unpacked

6.1 - The teacher supports students to engage with contemporary knowledge and practice

This component refers to the need to present ideas and their applications in a contemporary context. Conceptual and procedural understandings should be linked to their use in the community and by different professions. Contemporary understandings may of course be informed by consideration of their historical lineage.

This component is demonstrated by teachers:

• providing the opportunity for students to experience the learning as it would be experienced and used by people in their professional lives
• using industry, contemporary technologies, and everyday events and artefacts, as the context for learning
• making links with stories reflecting the historical roots of the ideas
• engaging with rich tasks that link the learning to a variety of aspects of real life
• equipping students with skills for self-extending learning aimed at enabling them to keep pace with current trends and practices.

The component is NOT demonstrated when:

• students are taught narrowly defined skills that are not self extending or transferable
• the classroom program focuses on formal aspects of the subject matter knowledge only
• ideas are taught without reference to contemporary application.

Examples to illustrate the component.

• Students investigate alternative use of vacant land in their local area. They prepare feasibility studies and write reports which are presented to the local council for consideration.
• Students are given opportunities to grow and market produce from the school garden to gain insight into how businesses are run.
• A bulletin board is managed by students to display current news items relevant to the topic.
• During a unit on ‘disease’, current newspaper and magazine articles and current affairs TV programs are introduced to help shape and clarify the ideas and their relevance to contemporary personal and social issues.

6.2 - The teacher plans for students to interact with local and broader communities

This component emphasises the importance of the connectedness of schools to the community and society more generally. It promotes the idea of the porous classroom. ‘Communities’ would include the parent community of the school and the school community in general, local communities, which might provide speakers or be the target of community environmental or aesthetic projects, through to national, international and interest based (eg scientific) communities accessed through the internet, guest speakers and other forums.

This component is demonstrated by teachers:

• linking the classroom with the community by arranging incursions or excursions to a variety of venues, including studies of the local environment, surveys in the local community and local industry visits.
• basing sequences of work around local or global community projects, such as environmental maintenance or studies of local industries or social groups
• using parents with special expertise to provide input or support in a topic
• arranging links and collaboration with other schools and classrooms or professional institutions, through the internet
• targeting individual students to take advantage of camps or conferences.

The component is NOT demonstrated when:

• units of work are entirely bound within the walls of the classroom
• little or no use is made of the school ground or local neighbourhood for exploration of, for instance, plant reproduction and growth, discussions of structures and design of humanities and civics investigative surveys
• excursions are not effectively integrated with the curriculum
• concerns of the local community (eg. environmental, or consumer based) are not raised, nor are the class’s studies communicated to parents or the local community.

Examples to illustrate the component.

• Students are encouraged to develop a network of contacts within the school and wider community to access information and to solve problems.
• Year 5/6 students interact with a local engineer in pursuing an integrated project focusing on the design and construction of a go cart for a state wide competition.
• Students are taught the skills to organise their own work experience placement.
• Students participate in an Enterprise Education project to raise the notion and value of paid and unpaid work.
• A Year 9 unit on motion involves a trip to the local fun park where students take measurements of the acceleration and speed of rides with data logging equipment. The students take the measurements back to school to analyse.
• Links outside the classroom might include visiting speakers and practitioners, online collaborative projects, student projects that draw on community resources, displays in local shopping centres, entry of students in competitions, reports in local newspapers, family collaborative learning evenings, excursions, local environmental community action projects, etc.

6.3 - The teacher uses technologies in ways that reflect professional and community practices

New technology challenges and changes the way we behave and learn in our contemporary society. Learners need to develop a mastery of contemporary skills and techniques and their application through new media and new technologies. When used in ways that reflect their contemporary use, learning technologies can provide powerful stimulus for students to operate autonomously and develop expertise. Learners use a range of learning technologies to create new knowledge and understandings.

This component is demonstrated by teachers:

• developing students’ capabilities with generic software such as spreadsheets, design tools and communication technologies
• using learning technologies to support quality learning behaviours such as exploration, conjecture, or collaboration
• using ICT to increase student choice and flexibility with respect to their learning
• having students collect information by electronic means such as data probes, digital cameras, video recording, digital displays
• having students use the internet for information searching and to communicate with special interest groups
• having students explore ideas and possibilities using simulation software
• encouraging students to present results and publish reports using a range of software.

The component is NOT demonstrated when:

• students are exposed to a limited range and uses of ICT
• students are not educated or encouraged to make choices about what learning technologies they use or when and how they use them
• the use of computers does not encourage increased dialogue and questioning, but tends to isolate individuals within their tasks.
• technologies are not used in ways that take advantage of their particular potential to support learning.

Examples to illustrate the component.

Technologies are used to support:

• varied ways of collecting data (data probes, databases, digital displays, video and digital cameras, DAT audio recorders, microscope with digital display)
• varied methods for analysis (spreadsheets, graphical software, programmable calculators, purpose built data analysis software, video editing software) so that students can make choices.
• mathematical modelling through the use of graphics calculators or spreadsheets and graphical packages.
• interactive modelling, control, simulation and design (robotics, design and simulation software)
• varied communication modes (email contact with other schools or special interest groups, the internet)
• manipulating media (image and sound manipulation)
• designing, creating and producing media (multimedia, graphics, film, animation, music and print production packages)
• a variety of modes of presentation, publication and distribution.