AADES Connecting is Learning
 
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Workshop Descriptions

1. Lee Crockett Masterclass: Future-focussed Learning Workshop

This intensive and dynamic session is about moving past the rhetoric, to make meaningful change at the classroom level. Designed to engage lateral thinking, to foster creativity, and optimised to expedite the shift to a modern learning environment, we begin with Solution Fluency. While some participants may have been introduced to it before passively in our keynote presentations, having the opportunity to revisit it experientially takes comprehension to a whole new level. This is not a lecture—we are putting ideas in your hands, and we will be there to help you get to work.

Working in small teams from a mix of grade levels and subject areas, we move on to scenario development, connecting curriculum to relevant real-world situations to solve problems that matter. We keep the process shifting and spiralling up until each group has created a solid, completely written scenario, outlined rubrics for authentic assessment, connecting all the potential curricular opportunities.



2. Literacy: Literacy Feud- Janice Akes, Trent Perry QLD

Target audience: Primary school teachers and curriculum leaders
This workshop will focus on presenting the Brisbane School of Distance Education Primary School English/Literacy process for students. This will include: class differentiation; data usage; goal setting and the Literacy Continuum; literacy coaching and data conversations; unpacking the Australian Curriculum and lesson planning; the use of Literacy Block and Literacy Block resources; data walls; and tracking.
The workshop will be based on a TV game/quiz show, like Family Feud, with timers, buzzers, instant polling and team prizes. Each round will focus on a topic or part of the English process.

 

3. Senior Secondary: Empowering distance learning through interaction and collaboration- John Bennett, Bobbie Thomson, Selina Blyton & Deanna Ther NT

Target audience: Teachers and leaders in Senior Secondary schooling (maximum 25 participants)
This workshop is about designing online learning experiences that enable greater student confidence, improved learning engagement, quality peer connections and the enhancement of teacher-student leaning relationships. As NT School of Distance Education transforms teaching practice through the uptake of innovative technologies the school also emphasises the need to improve learning coherence, provide learning activities in which students can engage with the content, collaborate and empower their learning experience.
As a Visible Learning DE school NTSDE recognises the sobering low learning effect size of Computer Assisted Instruction (0.45) without employing learning methodologies of high effect size, such as Teacher Clarity (0.75), Classroom Discussion (0.82), Feedback (0.73) and Self Questioning (0.64) (www.visiblelearningplus.com 2017). As technology becomes more powerful NTSDE believes that the teaching and learning relationship must deepen to ensure learning connections are facilitated.
Empowering distance learning through interaction and collaboration is a practical workshop that steps teachers through an online Senior Secondary School course where workshop participants will role play in an open-ended learning game and reflect on their learning achievement.

 

4. Leadership: How to escape education’s death valley- Marie-Anne Petelo NSW


Target audience: DE teachers and leaders
This workshop will revolve around a TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson who outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish- and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational “death valley” we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.

Currently around the world, PISA test scores are increasingly driving the direction of education policy makers with Finland held as the benchmark for test success. Nationally, our governments are reacting to the declining rankings of Australian students and are spearheading reform. Locally, teachers are being faced with immense changes to work practices, national curriculums, NAPLAN, HSC testing and much more….all of this leaving teachers and school leaders at times grappling to manage the pace of change and wondering how to escape “death valley”.
Participants will use this TED Talk and other media such as, looking at the Finnish School system, to stimulate group work and discussion around examining personal teaching and learning practices in the current climate. In the light of the ideas presented, teachers will work in a stimulating and interactive manner to also brainstorm ideas for future possibilities in DE teaching and learning settings.

 

5. Languages: What makes a good online learner of languages?- Dr Adele Scott NZ

Target audience: appropriate across sectors- context is beginner and intermediate language learners in the school sector.
What makes a good online learner of languages?
How can online language learners be encouraged to interact and collaborate online?
How can online learners of languages be supported?
In this presentation, participants will be invited to discuss these questions (and others as they arise) as together we explore the changes that the languages courses have been going through at Te Kura- moving form print based to online interactive courses. You will have the opportunity to view some of the new online activities that are underpinned by sound language acquisition methodology and incorporate principles of universal design for learning. These developments require some challenging pedagogical shifts- new ways of thinking about language learning and new task design.
Background: Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura, the Correspondence School) is the largest school in NZ with up to 25,500 students studying per year through various education pathways. In any given year over 3,000 students study one of the languages on offer. From 2015 learners have been engaging with online courses as they developed across all year levels and subjects.

 

6. Pedagogy: Designing for Success in the Online Environment - Digital Learning Leaders VIC, John Bartley and Martin Jorgensen

Target audience: Teachers and course writers
This workshop will focus on 2 main topics:
1. Ways to encourage a greater understanding of activity sequencing and the framing of writing templates to guide course development.
2. Ways to create more engaging courses and greater opportunities for student collaboration.
The presenters will introduce the Distance Education Centre Victoria’s writing templates and the tools they employ with it to guide pedagogy and to ensure engagement and strong student outcomes. In particular, they will explore: the employment of Professor Gilly Salmon’s work and the DECV Pedagogical Model in structuring collaborative activities; Dr Ron Oliver’s work and how it has influenced their efforts in developing behavioural icons; their work with Dr Greg Wadley; and the user experience testing they have done to guide the template development.
In conclusion, the participants will be involved in a group activity using sequencing workshop tools developed for the work with DECV course writers.

 

7. Secondary: Active Learning online for upper primary and secondary - Jo Backen and Teresa Anderson QLD

Target audience: All educators
This workshop will take participants on a journey through interactive online lessons that use practical teaching tools to promote active learning. Participants will be placed into groups and provided with the technology to connect to a real online lesson. Workshop presenters will run through the online lesson, using real-time activities within the digital classroom. The purpose of this is to truly demonstrate how learning outcomes can be achieved in the online environment and to provide participants with the opportunity to “have a go” from the perspective of our students. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their experience and discuss the potential for active learning in online lessons, and how this could be applied to their personal educator journey.

Topics:

  • Unpacking active learning (based on Hattie research)
  • Creating positive classroom culture in the online environment
  • Innovative use of technology
  • Strategies to engaging our disengaged youth
  • How active learning looks in online lessons- exemplars of:
    • Warm-ups, brain breaks, group activities, individual activities, checking for learning. 


8. Early Childhood: Building an Early years classroom in the cloud - Tegan Kime and Renai McLean QLD

Target audience: Early Childhood and Primary teachers.
This workshop will focus on tools used to build a classroom in the cloud to support Early Childhood DE students and Home Tutors.
Workshop topics include:
• Highlighting ways to support active learning online and in the home classroom
• Activating student knowledge and building connections to learning before they step into the online classroom
• Sharing innovative methods for students to communicate their understandings using developmentally appropriate technology
• Providing quick, sustainable, quality, verbal feedback on sent in tasks directly to students of all ability levels.
The workshop will include: discussions and demonstrations of the cloud based classroom; showcasing high quality literacy lessons for students to engage in “off line”; sharing parts of explicitly modelled lesson examples aimed at developing the skills of the Home Tutor; and group activities and personal reflection on the use of the cloud based classroom as a platform.

 

9. Wellbeing & Student Leadership: A toolkit for student wellbeing and student led leadership- Leah Greenway QLD

Target audience: P-12 Teachers interested in student wellbeing and student-led leadership
Participants will create a toolkit for student wellbeing and goal setting and examine key strategies for student led leadership in a Prep- Year 12 school.
The workshop will explore:
• Explicit teaching of the You Can Do It! Program
• The benefits of goal setting to improve student engagement and ownership of learning
• The sharing of practical ways to implement goal setting in a DE class
• Language principles of Dweck & Bloom to adapt assessment criteria to make it relevant to students
• Cairns School of DE’s journey into student led leadership

 

10. Languages: Flip your language classroom - Christina Challinger SA

Target audience: All teachers
How has flipped learning become the norm in the presenter’s classroom? In Japanese, students watch a video and complete Language Perfect/Quizlet tasks to learn how to read and write single Hiragana Characters and apply this knowledge in lesson time to read and write words in Hiragana. This structure maximises student learning and the time students have with their teacher.
This workshop will model the flipped learning structure. Participants will access resources provided before the workshop to explore the structure of flipped learning. They will apply their knowledge if the flipped learning structure with a game of Kahoot. In groups, participants will discuss how they can “flip” their language class. They will also learn how to use Screencast-o-Matic, Edpuzzle, Quizlet and Kahoot and will leave the workshop with at least one flipped learning resource that can be used in their next lesson.

 

11. Kristin Vonny Masterclass: Developing student cognition in Distance Education

A partnership between Flinders University and staff at Open Access College (OAC) has been co-developing ways to improve student cognition through the development of executive function skills. These skills have been shown to improve student outcomes.

Executive function skills are the attention-regulation skills that make it possible to sustain attention, keep goals and information in mind, refrain from responding immediately, resist distraction, tolerate frustration, consider the consequences of different behaviours, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future. They underpin a student’s ability to organise their thoughts and to plan, prioritise and sequence their thinking. 

The presentation will show case the lessons, methodologies and activities that were used to help develop student cognition. There will be an emphasis on the types of questions that can be used either prior to or during a lesson to help slow down and deepen student thinking. 




12. Pedagogy/ Teachers and Leaders: Understanding Pedagogy of on-line teaching and learning - Paul Hennessy SA

Target audience: Teachers and leaders
This workshop will focus on the pedagogical elements of teaching learning- teacher work, teacher and students working together, and students working independently. There will be demonstrations of how each element of pedagogy can be implemented in the teaching and learning process, including flipped learning methodologies. Teachers will explore how the different pedagogical elements can be developed and discuss how independent student work is supported in an online environment.

 

13. Student Wellbeing: BSDE’s Student Wellbeing program: Student Connectedness = student success- Tina Riveros QLD

Target audience: All teachers
This workshop will include information on what a whole school approach to wellbeing looks like. It will have a focus on how proactive leadership at Brisbane School of Distance Education and the incorporation of wellbeing as a priority in the AIP has led to the successful implementation of the school’s wellbeing program with the objective of improving student connectedness and building success. The workshop will also demonstrate how BSDE has based its wellbeing program on the developmental assets, how BSDE is collecting data about student wellbeing and how this data will inform the shape of the program into the future.
Participants will be involved in demonstrations, discussions and group activities.

 

14. Student Leadership: Distant Voices (increasing student leadership & voice via distance) - Melissa Stansfield, Zachary Healey VIC

Target audience: Leaders
This workshop will focus on 2 main topics:
1. To be able to collaborate and discuss student voice and student leadership at your school and identify solutions to overcome barriers
2. To be able to develop a plan to enhance student voice and leadership within DE.
The participants will be involved in a lollypop leadership activity that will prompt the group to think about what they constitute as leadership and the best leadership styles to promote Student Voice within DE schools. The presenters will demonstrate the progression and development of Student Voice at DECV and will focus on mobilising young people online and in physical spaces to develop their confidence to display leadership and have their voices heard. They will also look at developing leadership structures within DE schools and empowering young people to have a positive impact on student achievement, wellbeing and engagement.
Group Jigsaw activity will focus on critical questions such as: Why is Student Voice and Leadership an important quality to develop within DE?; What are the barriers and challenges of promoting Student Voice within DE?; How can online and real world spaces work together to promote student voices in DE?; What can DE teach mainstream schools about student voice and leadership?; and How can student’s strengths, engagement and positive wellbeing be promoted in DE?

 

15. Coding: Using technology to teach technology: innovation in Coding skills- Chris Knowlman & Tristan Baskerville QLD

Target audience: Teachers and leaders.
Teaching coding skills remotely is challenging. Students are required to work though complex concepts and solve problems that they sometimes have no context for. Compounding this is the nature of online learning, where the teacher is not able to peer over the shoulder of a student to help through their thinking process or to debug their code.
This workshop will take participants through the innovative ways that a coding/technology course can be structured to engage students, include all learners and give students a platform to succeed.
The workshop will consist of two 40min segments separated by a 10min break. Each 40 min segment will cover a separate theme.
Segment 1 – It’s not about the code
This segment will provide strategies for teaching coding to students. The focus will be the need to teach students how to think like a computer alongside with teaching the actual syntax of a programming language.
Segment 2 – Course structure
This segment outlines tips and techniques for providing quality learning experiences and support for student in a coding/technology class.

 

16. Michael McQueen Masterclass - De-coding the Next Generation  

The next generation are already here - are you ready?

If you have you ever found yourself confused, frustrated or even offended by the attitudes and expectations of today’s younger generation, you are not alone.

Employers, leaders and educators often describe this group as being technology addicted, impatient, unfocussed and disrespectful.

Having conducted arguably the world’s most extensive research into the defining attitudes and values of Gen Y, Michael McQueen is ideally placed to help audiences de-code this group. 


17. The Arts: The Arts end of Education – Sally Anderson NT


Target audience: All teachers
In this workshop, through demonstrations and practical activities, participants will explore the “A” in STEAM and come out with a heightened sense of how The Arts can bring to life STEM subjects in an artistic format. There will be 2 parts to this presentation:
Part 1 will be an interactive discussion and collaboration session on:
• Global Competencies
• What do the Arts mean to you
• The fear of being wrong syndrome and how The Arts can help alleviate this
• A look at left and right brain activity
• Supporting Home Tutors to include The Arts in their daily teaching strategies
• Scaffolding and supporting our future innovators by creating the space and time in children’s lives to allow opportunity to be creative and imaginative
• Accessing and working through STEAM examples from the NRICH website
Part 2 will be a collaborative session where groups will prepare a STEAM lesson that could be taught online. At the conclusion, participating groups may share their lesson- demonstrating how The Arts can enhance engagement and connections, and activate innovation in learning.

 

18. Early Years: Power to the small people- empowering distance early childhood through digital tools - Helen McConnell and Ros West NZ

Target audience: Early Childhood and Junior Primary teachers
With Early Childhood in a face to face context the majority of experiences and curriculum planning is conducted using observations of the children eg., conversations had over the building of volcanoes in the sandpit and the sharing of common interests within the early childhood environment. In contrast, DE in early childhood means it’s not easy to have those direct opportunities with the child and we have traditionally relied on partnerships with supervisors, parents and caregivers to ensure learning experiences support children’s learning and developmental needs.
With the advances in technology we now have the digital tools to capture children’s voice. Assessments of learning no longer need to rely on the second hand anecdotal observations from parents- we now have the opportunity to capture a true representation from the child. Using digital ePortfolio tools such as Storypark, teachers at Te Kura are able to observe short moments of children’s learning within their home and community environment, record children’s language and communication skills. They can also build relationships between teacher, child and whānau (family) through direct ongoing feedback.
This workshop will be a practical hands on demonstration of digital tools that Te Kura have used to support student learning and to recognise and respond to children’s interests while applying the principles of the Te Whāriki (the Early Childhood Curriculum) in a contextually meaningful program of learning. The workshop will demystify the use of Apps such as Book Creator, Stop Motion and Puppet Pals and show you how to use these and others to support children’s literacy and share their thoughts and ideas with their teachers at Te Kura. Participants will have the opportunity to create their own stop motion video, book or puppet show using these digital tools. The presenters will also have the opportunity to showcase their first Matariki (Māori New Year) collaboration – created using online tools to foster a community and enhance whānau and child’s sense of belonging with Te Kura.

 

19. STEM: The BBC micro:bit STEM initiative - Sam Nelson, Matthew Cartwright and Stephen Clayton NSW

Target audience: STEM teachers
The BBC micro: bit is an affordable coding device that can be used to increase the participation of students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and to improve Digital Literacy. Workshop participants will learn how to use the micro:bit and engage in a range of resources that teachers can use to incorporate coding into their teaching programs. The workshop will provide expertise and support to teachers who would like to use micro:bit in their schools to students in 21st century learning fluencies, developing critical thinking skills and be innovative learners in an authentic context. Micro:bits can be used with primary and high school students, starting with basic coding and moving to far more complex coding as teachers and students develop their skills.
During the workshop participants will be: introduced to the BBC micro:bit and its worldwide uptake; able to download code specific to the micro:bit; and experiment before analysing and using resources that can be integrated into STEM curricula. 

30 people will use micro:bits. Others can look on if interested.

They need to bring their own device with USB capability, have internet access as everything is online, and have the Chrome browser installed.

A minimum of half an hour experience using Scratch is essential preparation.

 

20. Pedagogy: Flipping the learning through Google Forms - Robyn Sleeman, Shannon Fisher & Ben Richardson SA

Target audience: Distance education teachers
In the distance education setting, students need to complete work before the lesson. Google forms enables teachers to:
• Provide a diverse range of learning
• Check individual student learning and understanding of the content before the lesson
• Monitor student completion of the set work
• Use during the lesson time for collaborative discussion and for exploration of much deeper learning
During the workshop participants will be guided to develop their own Google form for students and develop an understanding of how to interpret the results.