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106: Showcase: Assumption College (Self-Directed Choice Curriculum, Multi-Age Learning)
27 Plays3 years ago
This podcast is our first of what we’re calling the “spotlight” series. Every so often, we’ll reaching out to schools who are doing intriguing progressive practices that could inspire and influence others to do the same. Each has a twist on how their school is operated, and we’re bringing in students and teachers to talk about it. They’re not all perfect, and they’d all acknowledge there are things they’d change; but there’s so much to learn from these schools as we reimagine education in our communities.
We are joined by students and faculty from Assumption College, a Catholic co-ed 7-12 secondary school located in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia, featuring 1,200 students, some of whom board on campus. Assumption is doing a lot of fascinating work that would interest people interested in progressive education and reform measures. In the last few years, they’ve transferred to the “MyMAP” program, which stands for Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose. Instead of assigning students to traditional classes, students have the option between many different classes that are then mapped to traditional graduation needs. This means that students that have an interest in the arts will have a drastically different curriculum than say, engineering.
To learn more, we’re talking today with Kate Fogarty, the principal; Vaughan Cleary, the Deputy Principal; Kendall Aglinskas, Professional Practices Coordinator and Learning Leader; and Bel Luscott and Billy Carlin, both year 11 students. All of these folks have been at Assumption before and after their self-directed curriculum began.
SCHOOL
Assumption College, a Catholic co-ed 7-12 secondary school located in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia
RESOURCES
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Spotlight Series
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 106 of our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:00:10
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:00:15
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Jordan Vaca, Rachel Lawrence, and Lisa Scharstein.
00:00:23
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
00:00:24
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
00:00:33
Speaker
This podcast is our first of what we're calling the Spotlight Series.
00:00:37
Speaker
Every so often, we'll be reaching out to schools who are doing intriguing progressive practices that could inspire and influence others to do the same.
00:00:45
Speaker
Each has a twist on how their school is operated, and we're bringing in students and teachers to talk about.
00:00:50
Speaker
They're not all perfect, and I think they'd all acknowledge that there are things that they'd change, but there's so much to learn from these schools as we reimagine education in our communities today.
Highlighting Assumption College's MyMap Program
00:01:11
Speaker
Today, we are joined by students and faculty from Assumption College, a Catholic co-ed 7 through 12 secondary school located in Kilmore, Victoria, Australia, featuring 1,200 students, some of whom board on campus.
00:01:25
Speaker
Assumption is doing a lot of fascinating work that would interest people involved in progressive education and reform measures.
00:01:31
Speaker
In the last few years, they transferred to what they call the MyMap program, which stands for Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose.
00:01:38
Speaker
Instead of assigning students to traditional classes, students have the option between many different classes that are then mapped to traditional graduation needs.
00:01:46
Speaker
This means that students that have an interest in the arts will have a drastically different curriculum than, say, engineering.
00:01:52
Speaker
To learn more, we're talking today with Kate Fogarty, the principal, Von Cleary, the deputy principal, Kendall Aglinskis, professional practices coordinator and learning leader, and Belle Luscott and Billy Carlin, both year 11 students.
00:02:05
Speaker
All of these folks have been an assumption before and after this new self-directed style curriculum began.
00:02:13
Speaker
Thanks, Chris.
00:02:14
Speaker
It's lovely to be with you and to be able to share a little bit of what's been happening here at Assumption.
00:02:18
Speaker
So Assumption is a Catholic day and boarding school in Australia.
00:02:23
Speaker
In Australia, Catholic schools are also government funded.
00:02:26
Speaker
So we're not, you know, a private or a
00:02:28
Speaker
independent school we are within the system and we have about 1350 students and about just over 100 teachers and about another 80 other staff on site we do have day students predominantly day students but about 70 students who are boarding who live here on site
00:02:48
Speaker
So we're just to the north of Melbourne.
00:02:51
Speaker
We're in a country town, Kilmore.
00:02:54
Speaker
A number of our students come out of the suburban areas, but the vast majority come out of little country towns in about a 100 kilometre radius of us.
00:03:03
Speaker
So a lot of them are on the bus for an hour or so before they get to us each morning.
00:03:08
Speaker
It's a very interesting model because it reminds me a lot more of a liberal arts college as opposed to a traditional school.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, we're a big school.
00:03:17
Speaker
We're on an enormous campus.
00:03:19
Speaker
We've got four Australian rules football fields or cricket pitches, which I know won't be familiar to a lot of your listeners, but are big, big playing fields for our students.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
12 tennis courts, you know, a big hockey pitch where we've got a big sport and cultural program.
00:03:38
Speaker
We run a farm.
00:03:40
Speaker
So we have an agriculture program as well with large animals and small animals from snakes through to big cows and everything in between.
00:03:48
Speaker
So, yeah, we've got a lot going on.
00:03:50
Speaker
We say we're a juggernaut.
00:03:52
Speaker
We're a really big school and we go 24-7.
00:03:54
Speaker
Mary, you raise snakes.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:03:58
Speaker
I've had a couple.
00:03:59
Speaker
It is a thing.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's the kids studying to be vets, apparently.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah.
Exploring MyMap's Social and Emotional Development Focus
00:04:04
Speaker
To take a slight pause here, here's an overview of the MyMap curriculum from Assumption College.
00:04:18
Speaker
MyMap acknowledges that students learn at different speeds and have different strengths.
00:04:24
Speaker
It provides learning opportunities across six semesters or three years that align with four levels.
00:04:30
Speaker
In MyMap, the four distinct colours of our college crest represent the four levels of learning.
00:04:36
Speaker
White is the first level, so it represents the foundational courses assessed against Level 8 of the Victorian Curriculum.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yellow courses provide a more enriched experience and typically relate to Level 9.
00:04:49
Speaker
Light blue courses align to Level 10 and dark blue courses are designed to extend students and are mapped to Level 10 of the Victorian Curriculum and beyond.
00:05:00
Speaker
In addition to subjects that align to one particular level of the Victorian curriculum, some courses will be multi-level.
00:05:06
Speaker
For example, a subject such as visual communication and design could be offered to students across both the white and yellow levels.
00:05:15
Speaker
Other subjects may even align with two learning areas.
00:05:18
Speaker
An example is the science of sport, which connects both physical education and science.
00:05:25
Speaker
Subjects like this are designed to prepare students for future courses that have similar knowledge and skills.
00:05:31
Speaker
In this example, VCE physical education and VCE physics.
00:05:37
Speaker
Complementing our academic program is My Being, a three-year program where the social and emotional development of each student is fostered.
00:05:46
Speaker
My Being explores topics such as personal relationship building, learning to learn, food, nutrition and education, safety online and in-person, vocational pathways and mindfulness.
00:06:02
Speaker
So about six years ago Vaughan, myself and Kendal and a number of the other leaders of the community were watching our student data really plateau and they didn't seem to be progressing in their learning.
00:06:17
Speaker
We were running a very traditional curriculum
00:06:19
Speaker
And our cultural data that we're receiving from large scale surveys was showing, particularly in those middle years, you know, the 12, 13, 14, 15 year olds, they were just getting more and more disengaged in their learning.
00:06:32
Speaker
So we looked at all of that data, spoke to a number of people,
00:06:37
Speaker
institutions around the place and organisations and really reflected ourselves and thought we need to do something radically different here to get our students back on track and really invigorate and be able to demonstrate growth for these kids and provide them with interesting and exciting pathways.
00:06:55
Speaker
So we put in place some sub-teams who were looking very closely at various areas of the school curriculum.
00:07:02
Speaker
So that included everything from we were looking at a stage, not aged learning.
00:07:06
Speaker
We saw some real possibilities there.
00:07:09
Speaker
We were looking at the data that we had available and really how well or not we were sharing that with students and helping them to understand their learning journey.
00:07:18
Speaker
And we were looking at just how much breadth we could offer and really still keyed, you know,
00:07:24
Speaker
hone in on those key skills that the Victorian government, our state government, but also what we knew in our hearts needed to be a part of our kids' curriculum.
00:07:34
Speaker
So it really, we put everything on the table.
00:07:36
Speaker
We tried to be as courageous as possible saying we don't have to do things the way they've always been done.
00:07:42
Speaker
We kept using the mantra students at the centre, this whatever we do has to meet the needs of our students and help them really engage in their learning in new ways so that we could really help them to be the best that they possibly could be.
00:08:00
Speaker
So Chris, just to also add in a little bit of a background, one of the things that we found, you know, at Assumption is that the narrative that was quite common in the staff is that the kids were not motivated.
00:08:14
Speaker
And, you know, in many ways, you know, the way that a traditional curriculum was set up, you know, meant that students really struggled to engage with, you know, with classes and curricula that perhaps didn't suit their needs.
00:08:26
Speaker
So one of the things that we wanted to do is to try to create a program that actually met, you know, the needs of the students and hence the origin of MiMAP, you know, really is the work of Dan Pink and his work drive, you know, focusing on mastery, autonomy and purpose.
00:08:41
Speaker
And it really is a take on, you know, self-determination theory from Dietschy and Ryan, where we wanted to create an environment to meet the needs of the students.
00:08:52
Speaker
On top of that too, a lot of the research that we looked at, such as stage environment theory from Eccles and colleagues, you know, basically indicated that the way secondary schools are set up were not conducive to meet the needs of students and other factors such as identity formation, relationship building, etc.
Addressing Student Disengagement with MyMap
00:09:10
Speaker
Again, were just not being met by, you know, what was a very traditional curriculum.
00:09:14
Speaker
So what we have is a four-year MyMap program where the students come into secondary school from over 50 different primary schools or elementary schools around the state, and they start a semester program that we call QIRAE, and QIRAE means to seek.
00:09:30
Speaker
So our seekers are our curious learners who basically engage with all the different learning domains and by the end of their first semester they're ready to select a personalised learning program, you know, based on their strengths, interests and needs at that point in time.
00:09:48
Speaker
So what the students can do is basically select their own personalised program.
00:09:53
Speaker
We ask our students to select an English of their choice.
00:09:56
Speaker
They've got about 10 different types of English to pick from, a religious education of their choice.
00:10:03
Speaker
And the same thing, we've got over a dozen of different options.
00:10:07
Speaker
And they also engage in a Mass Pathway program, which is basically a digital program that's personalised for them.
00:10:15
Speaker
In addition to that, between the middle of year seven, right through to their senior pathways, students get to pick about 25 different mastery courses.
00:10:23
Speaker
And these mastery courses are not aligned to a traditional year level.
00:10:27
Speaker
They're actually aligned to a different colour.
00:10:30
Speaker
And our college colors include sandstone, white, yellow, light blue, dark blue.
00:10:35
Speaker
And our mantra is as the colors intensifies, so does the learning experience.
00:10:39
Speaker
So our students can engage with different learning domains with different colors at a level of their choice.
00:10:47
Speaker
This is fascinating because it's really exploring changing systems that in most environments are not being tackled, especially implementing
00:10:54
Speaker
multi-age learning and changing how we view curriculum and choice.
00:10:58
Speaker
To quickly understand about how you establish those classes, let's say that you have 10 English classes on a variety of topics.
00:11:06
Speaker
How did you then come up with those 10?
00:11:09
Speaker
I guess the biggest thing when we were going to transition to MyMap was the importance of collaborating as teams.
00:11:15
Speaker
And, you know, we needed to make sure that everyone was on the same page and everyone had buying to that vision that we had because, you know, I think that was something that some of the teachers were a bit hesitant about, but I think coming together was a really important part of that.
00:11:28
Speaker
So for the English faculty, for instance,
00:11:32
Speaker
And we had a lot of meetings with all of us there.
00:11:34
Speaker
You know, a lot of the time we do have meetings with everyone, but a lot of the times they meet kind of in little team groups or things like that.
00:11:40
Speaker
So coming together as a large team for three or four weeks in a row, you know, was a time commitment for all of us.
00:11:47
Speaker
And we just spoke about what was working well in the current program, what techs we really enjoyed, what the kids were really engaging with.
00:11:54
Speaker
We did a lot of Google Forms with the kids to get some feedback about what was working well, even better if.
00:12:01
Speaker
and just some dreams that they had.
00:12:02
Speaker
You know, if you could choose to study anything, what do you think you'd like to study?
00:12:06
Speaker
And so we heard from a lot of students about, you know, quest narratives, so adventure stories or science fiction, which we really hadn't covered in the curriculum before.
00:12:13
Speaker
So that was really interesting to us and fantastic.
00:12:17
Speaker
So when we started to kind of look at this, the progression from year seven, our tech selection and what units we were studying right up to our mandated VCE curriculum and what we have to do at our senior secondary school,
00:12:30
Speaker
we kind of tried to sort out where those gaps were.
00:12:33
Speaker
So looking at what genres were we potentially missing or what periods of history were we potentially not looking at?
00:12:40
Speaker
Have we got enough female voices?
00:12:42
Speaker
Have we got enough male voices?
00:12:43
Speaker
You know, have we got people from different cultural backgrounds?
00:12:47
Speaker
Do we have Indigenous Australian texts?
00:12:48
Speaker
You know, have we got Australian narratives that we're hearing as well?
00:12:51
Speaker
So we really tried to look at those and had for English,
00:12:57
Speaker
a book club so everyone kind of went okay cool let's go speak with our experts the librarians who read very regularly let's speak to our students about what they're reading and really enjoying and we were just passing around books and thinking okay well where do these fit in so the kind of 10 subjects came from the thematic based so we have for instance at a yellow level so a traditional level nine
00:13:18
Speaker
something called to adventure so it's all about quest narratives so they watch the film Rango with good old Johnny Depp there with the chameleon they read a lot of yeah like these quest narrative stories where they're seeing this this adventure happen and then recreating that
00:13:34
Speaker
And we found those sorts of things were really engaging to our students.
00:13:38
Speaker
And they just were able to have that choice with what they were studying rather than, you know, everyone being told you're reading this book, you know, the whole year level is doing it.
00:13:46
Speaker
And there wasn't a lot of choice in that.
00:13:48
Speaker
So, yeah, that was kind of, I guess, how we came up with those as well.
00:13:52
Speaker
I think what I enjoyed of watching this process of these new courses being developed was that staff were able to bring their own passion.
00:14:00
Speaker
So suddenly we had science courses or, you know, humanities courses or whatever it might be where staff were able to share their passion with students too.
00:14:11
Speaker
And very often that, you know, when teachers can teach from their point of passion rather than from a textbook or from
00:14:18
Speaker
you know, a curriculum that's been handed to them from somebody else, that brings another level of aliveness for the students to what's being, you know, what's being learnt together.
00:14:29
Speaker
So we had, you know, subjects being thrown up as suggestions to, there was a committee who were ultimately deciding
00:14:37
Speaker
you know, was that meeting the standards, the government standards?
00:14:40
Speaker
Was it, you know, did it fit in with a line of progression from the junior level learning right through to what needed to be done for the students to receive their final certificate?
00:14:51
Speaker
You know, did everything fit together?
00:14:52
Speaker
But, you know, it was so surprising to us the vast, the variety of subjects that our staff were able to take from their own passion or from what they'd been working on with kids and seen a spark of interest in
00:15:05
Speaker
and then create still sticking to the government prescriptions,
00:15:09
Speaker
these amazing subjects.
00:15:11
Speaker
And, you know, we've seen a wholesale change of students flooding into the science subjects in a way that we couldn't have predicted because these subjects are now tailored to pathways and they're tailored to interest as opposed to let's just do year eight science.
00:15:27
Speaker
So that's been really pleasing to us that that sort of an outcome has come, that people's passion's been reignited from staff right through to students.
00:15:37
Speaker
And I would guess that because there's more passion from the teachers, it's then a more intriguing class.
00:15:43
Speaker
Because there's certainly things that I currently teach that I'm not passionate about.
00:15:46
Speaker
And although I might try, it's still a pretty meh experience.
00:15:51
Speaker
So then you also have this color system that corresponds with the difficulty level of the courses.
00:15:59
Speaker
is choosing that difficulty something that students choose to gauge and then tackle based off what they want to accomplish?
00:16:06
Speaker
Or is it a recommendation from the advisor that's sort of negotiated upon?
00:16:11
Speaker
Chris, at the end of the day, it's ultimately the students' choice.
00:16:16
Speaker
We wrap a series of layers of support around the students.
00:16:22
Speaker
And, you know, we've used the metaphor of journey, you know, via my map, you know, with our students.
00:16:27
Speaker
And, you know, we say the adults in the kids' lives are their tool guides.
00:16:32
Speaker
So sometimes they need to nudge, push, maybe sometimes hang back students in regards to, you know, the sorts of subjects they should pick.
00:16:40
Speaker
You know, we have, you know, learning mentor teachers that are walking alongside the students along their journey.
00:16:47
Speaker
And because they're with the students from the start of year seven, they ultimately know and love these students in incredible depth and engaging the parents as well, as well as the subject teachers.
00:16:58
Speaker
So, you know, ultimately having the students having choice,
00:17:03
Speaker
you know, gives them the power to make good decisions for themselves.
00:17:07
Speaker
And we know that, you know, every decision that a student makes is, you know, perhaps ideal for them or perfect.
00:17:14
Speaker
And that's okay.
00:17:14
Speaker
We're teaching the students to, you know, make decisions, to self-regulate, to have ownership of their learning.
Personalized Education Through Course Selection
00:17:21
Speaker
And, you know, if they do make mistakes,
00:17:23
Speaker
that's okay, they see out the subject and they pick something different the next time.
00:17:28
Speaker
So I think ultimately, you know, 99% of the cases, they're making good decisions and, you know, giving them those choices that works out in their favour.
00:17:38
Speaker
One of the portions we haven't talked about here though, is we are of course doing some standardised testing of the students.
00:17:44
Speaker
We have a national standardised testing program, but we do do some additional testing.
00:17:48
Speaker
And one of the real keys to this program working well is
00:17:52
Speaker
was the work that we did with learning mentors, so our staff, to work with each student so that they understood their own data, so they could see where their progression points were against a standardised set of data, so they could read their own school reports from their teacher properly and understand what was being fed back to them, and so that they and their parents, so we included the parents in those discussions, and that happens a few times a year,
00:18:19
Speaker
you know, they're not going in and just saying, I want to do a whole lot of sport and that's all I want to do.
00:18:24
Speaker
There are adults walking with them and helping them, you know, make wise choices, but also, you know, as Vaughan said, nudging them where they need to be pushed a little bit ahead or perhaps even, you know, held back in a subject or perhaps, you know,
00:18:38
Speaker
literacy is not going so well how about you take two Englishes this semester rather than just the traditional one so you know there is there is a lot of very rich conversation happening around the individual student and what we know about them and where their passions are but also what what what a whole range of other sources of information are telling us about their learning.
00:18:59
Speaker
I would imagine then, as a result of not restricting the challenge, that many students who are very passionate about a subject, but perhaps historically were labeled as not being able to accomplish a difficult course, are then able to rise to that occasion because they have an interest in it.
00:19:17
Speaker
And of course, in the exact same way, if you really don't like something, you can just take the easy course and get it out of the way.
00:19:29
Speaker
Apologies for a brief ad break, but I wanted to share a second about our upcoming Conference to Restore Humanity 2022.
00:19:36
Speaker
If you're listening to this before July 2022, I've got great news.
00:19:40
Speaker
HRP is hosting a virtual conference soon.
00:19:43
Speaker
Conference to Restore Humanity is an international invitation for K-12 and college educators to engage in a human-centered system redesign.
00:19:51
Speaker
centering the needs of students and educators toward a praxis of social justice.
00:19:55
Speaker
Through a conference designed for virtual learning, participants will engage in a classroom environment that mirrors the same progressive pedagogy we value with students.
00:20:03
Speaker
After selecting a track, educators will be placed with like-minded cohorts over four days to imagine and build new ideas together.
00:20:10
Speaker
We have keynote conversations with Dr. Henry Giroux, founding theorist of critical pedagogy, Dr. Dinesha Jones, educator, activist, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter at School, and the Circle Keepers from Harvest Collegiate High School, a student collective focused on social justice.
00:20:24
Speaker
Plus, our tracks push a new narrative for education, with topics including anti-carceral pedagogy, disrupting discriminatory linguistics, designing for neurodivergence, and promoting childism in the classroom.
00:20:35
Speaker
It's from July 25th to July 28th, and as of recording, early bird tickets are still available.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's $150 for four days, with discounts available for the BIPOC, AAPI, Trans and Disabled Communities, as well as group rates.
00:20:48
Speaker
Plus, we'll award certificates for teacher training and continuing education credits.
00:20:52
Speaker
See our website, humanrestorationproject.org, for more information, and we hope to see you there.
00:21:02
Speaker
I would like to turn to the students who are joining us today.
00:21:05
Speaker
Can you describe, like, what is a day in the life like for you all?
00:21:10
Speaker
What are you experiencing?
00:21:11
Speaker
What does this look and feel like?
00:21:13
Speaker
So, essentially, school starts at 8.45 when we all make our way to homeroom.
00:21:18
Speaker
We get our name marked off at homeroom.
00:21:21
Speaker
It goes for 15 minutes.
00:21:22
Speaker
We'll talk us through the whole day.
00:21:25
Speaker
If there's any announcements, we'll do the morning prayer.
00:21:27
Speaker
Then we'll move on to period one.
00:21:29
Speaker
Three...
00:21:30
Speaker
classes for each subject each week.
00:21:33
Speaker
So we'll have period one, recess, period two and three, back to back, lunch, and then period four.
00:21:43
Speaker
So there's only four periods in the day.
00:21:45
Speaker
And then of those four classes, so these are all fairly unique, I think.
00:21:51
Speaker
What's like one that stands out to you as being especially interesting?
00:21:54
Speaker
So I do systems engineering.
00:21:57
Speaker
which is, yeah, it's like mechanics and stuff.
00:22:00
Speaker
I find that really interesting.
00:22:01
Speaker
Really?
00:22:02
Speaker
And kind of turning the same question to you, Val.
00:22:06
Speaker
I like to do a bit of everything, and I found that's kind of where MyMap has led me.
00:22:12
Speaker
So I did a bit of everything in MyMap, and now even when I'm in...
00:22:16
Speaker
Year 11, doing my like senior school studies, I've chosen a bit of everything.
00:22:21
Speaker
So I do two Englishes, English and literature.
00:22:26
Speaker
I do two maths, so methods and we call it further maths.
00:22:31
Speaker
And then I also do a science, chemistry and a PE.
00:22:34
Speaker
So I kind of like having a variety of
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah, I was looking at your schedules before the podcast, and you are basically virtual opposites.
00:22:44
Speaker
And what's interesting about all of this is that both of you were enrolled at Assumption prior to the school shifting to this MyMap philosophy.
00:22:55
Speaker
What was that transition like?
00:22:56
Speaker
Was it simply a traditional school day transitioning to something with choice, or was it something else?
00:23:01
Speaker
I found that it was a pretty easy transition.
00:23:06
Speaker
So even though we'd all completed two years of that traditional learning where you got told what to do and you had to pick, like you had to do everything,
00:23:18
Speaker
ranging from like drama and dance to PE and humanities when you had to transition to picking your own subjects it was really easy because even in those traditional based programs you did have your favorite subjects and the stuff you knew what you didn't like and you knew what you liked and you had interests outside of that so it wasn't easy it was an easy transition because
00:23:42
Speaker
you kind of just followed with what you'd previously known you enjoyed.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
And I'm assuming it's the same for you, Bill.
00:23:51
Speaker
Easy transition over to that.
00:23:53
Speaker
I noticed that,
00:23:55
Speaker
Even when the transition was fairly easy because the days were still the same, the periods were changing, time wasn't changing.
00:24:02
Speaker
But I found in the actual classes, it was a lot easier to focus because you're doing things that you enjoy.
00:24:09
Speaker
Everyone else in the class was doing things that they enjoy as well.
00:24:11
Speaker
So there was a lot less behavioural issues.
00:24:14
Speaker
Even the teacher was more engaged in the class, I found.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, I say this not to take anything away from what you all are doing, but that concept just seems so common sense.
00:24:25
Speaker
When you really cut back on all of this, if you provide students choice in what they do during the day, of course they'd be more interested and engaged in learning.
00:24:35
Speaker
When we remove some of that bureaucracy, and I suppose industry, from the classroom curriculum and change these systems, this idea of, hey, we should just let students sign up for the classes that they want to sign up for, of course leads to better results all around.
00:24:52
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about the mentoring and class selection process.
00:24:56
Speaker
Let's say that you're interested in English or maybe engineering.
00:25:00
Speaker
Do you have to take a certain number of classes in certain subject areas or are there mandated classes?
00:25:06
Speaker
What does that look like?
00:25:07
Speaker
You have to do an RE, English, and then the Maths Pathway program.
00:25:13
Speaker
The Maths Pathway program is also from year eight to ten and then everyone just pretty much does their own thing.
00:25:20
Speaker
The teacher helps guide us and we follow our own path in that.
00:25:25
Speaker
In terms of the, what we have to do, is it seven electives?
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, roughly per year, Billy.
00:25:34
Speaker
So over the three and a half year journey, it equates to about 25 different mastery courses of pure choice.
00:25:41
Speaker
Ample selection, but very, very small limitations on what we have to do.
00:25:48
Speaker
which is really awesome.
00:25:50
Speaker
And in the English and the RA, you also have a choice.
00:25:54
Speaker
And I would imagine that the English and math portions are required because of standardized testing, which makes sense.
00:26:00
Speaker
And to me, that's inspiring, because that means that these reform measures are possible in places other than Assumption College.
00:26:07
Speaker
I mean, that's a very common problem in most places.
00:26:10
Speaker
Let's talk then about choice in terms of difficulty.
00:26:14
Speaker
Are you all taking the hardest classes possible?
00:26:17
Speaker
Are you mixing and matching your courses?
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, acceleration was a big part in decision making.
00:26:26
Speaker
So I'd found like I knew I was more advanced in like certain areas, mainly speaking like English.
00:26:35
Speaker
And from a traditional classroom, it's where everybody's at the same level.
00:26:41
Speaker
So you could be in a classroom where the majority are at, for instance, in year eight, year eight English.
00:26:47
Speaker
You've got kids who are year nine or above, but you've also got kids who
00:26:52
Speaker
who are below.
00:26:54
Speaker
So I found through my map, I could push myself in certain areas.
00:26:59
Speaker
So I was surrounding myself with other students who were at my own level, which made a massive difference in my schooling.
00:27:09
Speaker
because you could not only was the classes different and it was more engaging because you were doing stuff that challenged you on a daily basis, but it was also it was really good to be able to work with kids who were at your own level, bounce ideas off people.
00:27:26
Speaker
The teachers were it made teaching easy because you were teaching a core group of kids who were all at that same level because they'd all picked to be there.
00:27:36
Speaker
It reminds me a lot of some of my experiences in school.
00:27:40
Speaker
Like I guess like most educators, I was a pretty decent student.
00:27:43
Speaker
I took mostly honors or AP courses, but I just really disliked science, so I took the typical science class.
00:27:51
Speaker
I never felt like I was in more of a holding cell than that course because the lack of choice meant that almost no students wanted to be there.
00:27:59
Speaker
Students were there because there was nowhere else to go.
00:28:02
Speaker
I was fortunate in kind of a twisted way that most of our assignments at school were able to be done at home.
00:28:08
Speaker
And frankly, I was true at multiple times because I just didn't like going to school in general, let alone those science classes.
00:28:15
Speaker
A lot of learning just felt like someone was just trying to control the class through a lot of constant work, as opposed to any sense of wonder or discovery or even fun for that matter.
00:28:25
Speaker
It's very interesting how then curriculum and discipline and choice all tie together.
Teacher Adaptation to MyMap Curriculum
00:28:31
Speaker
Question for you, Kendall, seeing this from a teaching and learning angle.
00:28:36
Speaker
From your perspective,
00:28:37
Speaker
Is that transition for teachers the same?
00:28:40
Speaker
Because I would imagine that this may appear overwhelming to transition to these types of courses to some that have taught in a very specific way.
00:28:49
Speaker
I think we were quite shocked at the
00:28:52
Speaker
lack of issues we actually had in transitioning with the staff.
00:28:55
Speaker
I think we were very prepared in the way that we went about, I guess, getting these different groups around the school to kind of buy in.
00:29:03
Speaker
We did a lot of small team discussions, so really getting those core groups of people who we knew were going to be really important voices in their offices or in the faculty area to jump on board.
00:29:14
Speaker
So we really sold it in that way.
00:29:15
Speaker
And when the transition happened, you know, as Kate mentioned before,
00:29:20
Speaker
There's staff members now that are teaching archaeology that was never even a course.
00:29:24
Speaker
And that's something they did at university and really loved.
00:29:27
Speaker
And we've got kids that are, you know, just flooding to those courses or journalism, for instance, or things like that, where, you know, in a traditional system, you wouldn't have had that opportunity to do.
00:29:36
Speaker
So I think that buying from staff was really key.
00:29:40
Speaker
we had a lot of hesitancy in terms of the timing and, you know, teachers, our one big thing is always time, you know, where's the time to do this?
00:29:50
Speaker
And I think they were a little concerned about the time to write courses because pretty much all of our courses were going out the window with the traditional curriculum and we were creating these really great new MyMap courses.
00:30:02
Speaker
So while you might have kept a couple of units here and there,
00:30:05
Speaker
Largely, they were being rewritten.
00:30:06
Speaker
So I think the hesitancy in that regard was definitely present.
00:30:10
Speaker
And we put a lot of emphasis in 2020 in our first year on, you know, the time for staff and really taking back our professional learning and giving them the autonomy to just meet as teams, work collaboratively together to create these courses.
00:30:26
Speaker
And the time to also, you know, play around with what was working in those courses, what wasn't and adjust them as they went.
00:30:31
Speaker
So, you know, now we're seeing that in a few years, you know, a couple of years down the track.
00:30:36
Speaker
And that's really evident within the classrooms and how engaged the students are as well.
00:30:40
Speaker
Another thing that was really important, Chris, from a change management perspective is the fact that, you know, when Kate and I, you know, were talking to staff about this change program, we're really, really open with explaining the why.
00:30:54
Speaker
And our staff...
00:30:55
Speaker
and students and parents have been absolutely outstanding in actually understanding the philosophy behind the program.
00:31:03
Speaker
And once that was explained and understood, it meant that the staff themselves could develop causes of their choice.
00:31:10
Speaker
And we also sent a really strong message to our community that we are going to eradicate the hierarchy of subjects.
00:31:20
Speaker
So the first time ever, you know, the visual arts teacher was given the same amount of time in the curriculum than a high performance basketball teacher, you know, than a master teacher or an English teacher.
00:31:30
Speaker
So it really did say to our staff that their own learning domain that they're passionate about is of equal importance.
00:31:39
Speaker
And I think that, you know, really sent a strong message to everybody that, you know, they're all valued.
00:31:44
Speaker
So that was a significant part of our, I suppose, support for our community.
00:31:50
Speaker
And I guess the other part of that, you know, as we were preparing staff is there was a bit of anxiety around you.
00:31:57
Speaker
What do you mean I'm going to have, you know, 13-year-olds and 16-year-olds in the same class?
00:32:02
Speaker
How is that going to work?
00:32:03
Speaker
And how am I going to manage these kids who are different levels?
00:32:08
Speaker
within about a week, within a few days of us starting, that question just completely disappeared and all staff were seeing was the group of students in their class who were there to do the subject.
00:32:20
Speaker
So that anxiety around what a multi-age class is like was taken away completely for the staff by their experience.
00:32:29
Speaker
And the students, I know we had a handful of students and families who were quite worried about that too.
00:32:34
Speaker
before the start.
00:32:35
Speaker
And that, again, those voices just fell away within the first week or so, because these kids, as Belle said, they got into their classes, they were there with like-minded students who were pitched about the same level in their learning.
00:32:48
Speaker
And they had these passionate teachers and these
00:32:51
Speaker
Awesome new subjects, you know, you just have to cast your eye.
00:32:54
Speaker
I encourage people to look at our website and cast your eye over the names of the subjects and they just are, they're very exciting.
00:33:01
Speaker
They're all still matched to our state curriculum.
00:33:04
Speaker
So they're, you know, they all provide a pathway, but they actually, because they're much more particular topics,
00:33:12
Speaker
You know, they really just were engaging.
00:33:14
Speaker
So the students, I think students by and large have stopped noticing what year level, you know, that they are in.
00:33:21
Speaker
They've still got their friends who might be from the group who they first entered the school with, but there are a lot more multi-age friendships.
00:33:28
Speaker
There's certainly multi-age learning going on in every classroom, every moment of the day.
00:33:34
Speaker
That weird distinction of, you know, batching kids by their age for their learning has more or less been eradicated, which just, you know, as reflecting as an educator who's watched the system for, you know, a number of years, it just makes such sense.
00:33:49
Speaker
You know, batching kids by their age for a whole range of reasons lets a whole lot of kids down.
00:33:56
Speaker
And this really has, you know, as you keep using the word eradicated, eradicated a lot of those problems because students are,
00:34:03
Speaker
with like-minded students, with a teacher who's, you know, an interesting topic, but they're learning at a level that is pushing them in their particular subject.
00:34:12
Speaker
They can double down in a particular area of school learning.
00:34:15
Speaker
They can let go others that don't have an interest or a pathway for them.
00:34:19
Speaker
they can really tailor a curriculum that's going to take them into, you know, keep it broad.
00:34:24
Speaker
So, you know, they've got lots of options or tailor it very specifically into an area that brings them great joy and passion and advancement in their learning.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, the conjunction between choice and difficulty level, choice and discipline, multi-age learning, it all comes together.
00:34:40
Speaker
I mean, how are you supposed to learn what it means to be a 16-year-old
00:34:43
Speaker
if you're always surrounded by people who are, let's say, 14 years old.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's just not a natural learning experience.
00:34:49
Speaker
I mean, if you're 25 years old and you entirely exclude people who are, let's say, 35 years old, that would be really weird.
00:34:59
Speaker
And I wanted to ask about how all these different things are coming together.
00:35:04
Speaker
I think someone listening in might see this almost like through rose-tinted glasses, like nothing is wrong, that there's no issues with this new system.
Sustainability and Effectiveness of MyMap Amidst Challenges
00:35:13
Speaker
Are there difficulties that you all are facing?
00:35:16
Speaker
Chris, so, you know, it's an interesting question and, you know, to be quite honest, I think we're all pinching ourselves, you know, two and a half years later that, you know, we seem to have transitioned, you know, so seamlessly into this program.
00:35:28
Speaker
We've obviously had COVID thrown at us during this time.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I think, to be honest, Chris, if something was going to derail us, it would have already happened.
00:35:37
Speaker
But during COVID where we did a lot of home learning and
00:35:40
Speaker
Mind you, Victoria was one of the most locked down jurisdictions in the world, that we didn't have one complaint from a teacher or students about a lack of appropriate work.
00:35:49
Speaker
And I think we've found a sustainable model and a sustainable framework that's going to be great moving forward.
00:35:56
Speaker
One of the brilliant things about our program is that we know it will evolve over time and it's not going to remain stagnant.
00:36:02
Speaker
So, you know, any good curriculum will change.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yet we know we've got some subjects that may fade away from the framework.
00:36:10
Speaker
And we've also brought in another 15 new subjects this year that are engaging students.
00:36:16
Speaker
So we see it will develop and mould over time.
00:36:20
Speaker
As I said, I think we've got a sustainable framework.
00:36:23
Speaker
So, you know, cross our fingers, you know, let's hope that our community can, you know, be still doing MindMap in the future.
00:36:29
Speaker
But I think the, you know, the level of engagement with the research and, you know, having really good answers about why we're doing that has meant that we've all focused on the goal of a student-centered education, as Kate mentioned.
00:36:41
Speaker
And I think I imagine there's some administrators or principals listening who are going, how on earth did they afford to do this?
00:36:48
Speaker
We're not a wealthy school by any stretch.
00:36:50
Speaker
We're very, very, very middle class and even low middle class in terms of our families.
00:36:56
Speaker
And we are actually running this slightly less expensively than we did the traditional curriculum.
00:37:02
Speaker
So our average class size is just over 20.
00:37:06
Speaker
And really what's happened there is it's evened out the class sizes across the school from year seven to year 12.
00:37:11
Speaker
So in the past, where you might've had some really big groups at the junior levels, like thirties, 27, 28, 30, and then much smaller groups up higher because you're offering more specialty subjects.
00:37:23
Speaker
In fact, offering these specialty subjects,
00:37:25
Speaker
across the whole curriculum has reduced our cost of staffing.
00:37:33
Speaker
The little extra cost that comes in that has obviously been a bit over the first few years is making sure we've got spaces set up for all of these different classes.
00:37:41
Speaker
But what it's really taught our teachers is, you know, you don't need, you know, you don't need the textbook.
00:37:48
Speaker
You don't need to rely on the textbook.
00:37:49
Speaker
You can build a really good, you know, rigorous curriculum around a whole range of things.
00:37:54
Speaker
specialty equipment, you know, multi cross faculty subjects work really well.
00:38:00
Speaker
And that has really been another inspiration for a lot of our staff that those cross curricular subjects where resources can be shared has been has increased to their capacity to offer a bigger range of subjects.
00:38:14
Speaker
And one of the favourite ones we've got going is paddock to plate where the agriculture and the food technology courses are running together.
00:38:21
Speaker
And, you know, kids are literally following their sheep.
00:38:23
Speaker
from little babies right through to the great meal that's had.
00:38:29
Speaker
And, you know, and the science team have done some really amazing work across all the faculties building cross-curricular courses.
00:38:36
Speaker
So, in fact, you know, in terms of sustainability long-term, I don't see any...
00:38:42
Speaker
significant issues in that space.
00:38:43
Speaker
I guess really for us it's feeling like the sky's the limit and we're really looking at now how do we build more relationships with other organisations outside of assumption so that these subjects have even more real world pathways and whether that's through to university or through to the TAFE sector or through to business or the community sector, you know, we're open for anything and actively exploring, you know, all of these options for partnerships
00:39:09
Speaker
in really new ways compared to what we did when we were under a traditional curriculum.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's great to hear because a lot of this type of stuff tends to be reserved for those
00:39:20
Speaker
who can afford it.
00:39:21
Speaker
And your school does charge it tuition, but it is relatively at least quite low.
00:39:27
Speaker
I wanted to conclude with this, because this model, I believe, is worth spreading.
Student Perspectives on MyMap Benefits
00:39:32
Speaker
There's a lot to learn from this.
00:39:34
Speaker
From the student perspective, why would you all say that schools, other schools, and other teachers should consider this model?
00:39:43
Speaker
One of the main things I've noticed with the MyMap program is the connection that I've created with teachers.
00:39:49
Speaker
I've had the same teachers since I've been in year eight all the way now through to VCE.
00:39:55
Speaker
And I've created a bond with them that helped me push myself and to, yeah, just to help me succeed in the subject.
00:40:05
Speaker
And even if it's not about the subject, we still get along as friends.
00:40:09
Speaker
However, I still do have the respect for them as a teacher.
00:40:14
Speaker
And they're helping me now through VCE to try and guide me through the very tough years of year 11 and 12, even if it's just giving me an idea of what I should do for a project or setting me on the right track to succeed all the way through.
00:40:33
Speaker
So that's my main thing about my map that I've enjoyed.
00:40:37
Speaker
But it is the most engaging school program on offer and that not only does it engage students and make them enjoy coming to school each day, but it also provides them with immense opportunities going further as you reach senior school pathways, whether that's acceleration or anything.
00:40:57
Speaker
So that, yeah, it makes kids want to come to school, but it also benefits them in like ways that are just incredible.
00:41:13
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Project's podcast.
00:41:16
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:41:21
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.