Department for Education, South Australia’s Post

Transcript

Morning, everyone. Good morning. So today you need to think about where you're already at. What level do you have? Where do you want to go? So, the levels of understanding is something we've been implementing right across our whole school at Mount Barker South. It doesn't work for all subjects and it doesn't work for all lessons, But those that we can, we definitely see the benefits of students being able to choose their level of learning from surface, deep or transfer and really make that change in their thinking and what strategies they can use. Not all students learn at the same pace or learn the same way, so by having an opportunity to choose their level of learning, they can then choose their path and ultimately have more success. One of the issues we have had in the past is that students choose surface, thinking, ���well, that's the easiest level.��� We've really worked hard that it's not about easy, medium and hard. It is about what level of understanding and knowledge you bring to each and every problem and topic that we show you. So that students might be surface one activity, they might be deep on a different activity on a different day. They might be at transfer depending on what the topic is. For example, in P.E. I have some students that would be transfer for almost every lesson, but they might choose deep for maths, and that's where the beauty of the levels of understanding comes in. I choose my level of understanding by looking at the information that is on the task. I like how we can work at the levels that we are at and work with what we know, instead of being too hard or too easy. It depends on my level of learning. Like for-say I don't know much about it, I'd go to surface. If I know a lot about the topic, I'd go to transfer, and if I don't, I know a little bit, but not a lot, I'd go to deep. To encourage our students to be effective learners, we really value peer collaboration and we value feedback. So we're looking for our students to be able to seek feedback from their peers and their teachers as they're required throughout their levels of understanding. We want our students to be empowered and effective learners, and when they take ownership over their learning we see their engagement levels rise. The Deep. You have got an idea already. So you're going to start doing some calculating. And then you're going to find a partner and compare, ���right., this is what I've done, what have you done?��� And have those conversations. Transfer. You're going to work out the quantities that you think go in there. So this is that step up of thinking. If I'm not really sure about the question or I haven't really worked around the question before, I'm obviously going to choose surface, so then I can get help from my teachers and my peers, and they just help us guide through the learning and they teach us really well so we can understand more clearly. Honestly, every day I am proud of the students at this school, whether it's in the yard and I'm out there and they've organised a game and they've organised the rules and they're problem solving throughout that. Sometimes I see them out there and they're practicing the skills they learned in PE and showing their peers how to do that in class. When we have visitors to the school, they speak so proudly about their school and they can articulate their learning really well. So every day I'm proud of the students here. This year., this is a class that has really loved learning and making sure that they believe that they're learners has been my goal and I believe they���re there.