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Part C: Student Action Teams: In Practice…

Part C: Student Action Teams: In Practice…. Local initiatives Choosing a topic Curriculum placement Common steps and elements. Local implementation 1: 2003-6. Darebin: northern Melbourne suburbs - Preston to Reservoir Working class, cultural diversity - concern about ‘low aspirations’

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Part C: Student Action Teams: In Practice…

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  1. Part C:Student Action Teams:In Practice… • Local initiatives • Choosing a topic • Curriculum placement • Common steps and elements Student Action Teams C: Practice

  2. Local implementation 1: 2003-6 • Darebin: northern Melbourne suburbs - Preston to Reservoir • Working class, cultural diversity - concern about ‘low aspirations’ • Cluster of primary and secondary schools around SRC/JSC issues since about 1989 (10-15 schools) • Traffic Safety (2003); Environment (2005-6) Student Action Teams C: Practice

  3. Local implementation 2: 2005-6 • Manningham: outer NE Melbourne suburbs - Bulleen-Doncaster-Templestowe-Donvale • Relatively well-off area; fairly mono-cultural • Cluster of six Catholic primary schools with some recent history of working together around SRC support • Values Education grant from Australian Government (2005-6) Student Action Teams C: Practice

  4. Value of a cluster … • Increases shared resources • Provides external events that are exciting and ‘special’ • Enables students to summarise and present to other students • Persuades community groups: extends impact • Forums can ‘drive’ in-school work both in terms of ideas and in deadlines • Professional development of staff Student Action Teams C: Practice

  5. Problems of a cluster … • Cluster priority - an extra layer of work • Commitment needed to cluster self-management • Extra funding required for student travel • Need for trust and shared vision • Competition, ownership, egos … Student Action Teams C: Practice

  6. Choosing a topic • Traffic Safety: approach from TSE consultants to schools • Environment: initiative of schools • Values: cluster application to Australian Government program • Possibilities for initiatives: • From community: approach schools with issue; • From schools: identify issue and set up team; • From students: concern (eg SRC) or ‘search’ process within broad program constraints Student Action Teams C: Practice

  7. One teacher’s view … “If there’s a community issue to be tackled, our normal approach is now to set up a Student Action Team to deal with it.” Secondary school teacher, Melbourne, 2001 Student Action Teams C: Practice

  8. Location within school • Increasingly within a class versus cross-school, ad hoc or SRC • Identification of interested teacher/s and appropriate subjects • Reasons: • Time: provides students and teachers with timetabled space; • Recognition: as curriculum - a way of meeting curriculum objectives; • Sustainability. Student Action Teams C: Practice

  9. Overall Structure • Engagement Event (Forum 1) • Research Phase: what is the issue? what do we know about it? • Research Reporting Event (Forum 2) • Action Phase:what will we change? what will we do? • Action Reporting Event (Forum 3) Student Action Teams C: Practice

  10. Engagement Event RESEARCH PHASE Research Reporting Event ACTION PHASE Action Reporting Event SAT Flow Chart… Student Action Teams C: Practice

  11. Role of community or external body • Challenging: commissioning real work • Resourcing: providing ideas, material, people • Partnership: working on common issues together • Audience: receiving student reports Student Action Teams C: Practice

  12. Step 1: Teacher Preparation • Development of a shared commitment to the approach, definition of a broad topic, constraints, funding, management structures, partnerships • What issue? • What are the external expectations? • What are our views of students’ roles? • Who will be involved? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  13. Step 2: Engagement • First investigation of the issue by students • Students acknowledge that the topic is important to them and to others • What is this issue all about? • Is it important? Why? To whom? • Do we want to do this? Why? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  14. One Student’s Response… “When I saw these figures, I was first of all surprised, then angry, then determined to do something about them!” Primary school student, Preston, 2003 Student Action Teams C: Practice

  15. Step 3: Research Questions • Usually two areas for research: • What is the important issue in our community? • What do we know about it and want to know about it? • What do we know already about this? • What do we need to find out? • How will we do this? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  16. Step 4: Research Planning • Setting up a structure for data collection and defining methods such as interviews, surveys, observations, measurements etc • What sort of research? • Who? How? How many? When? • What instruments? What questions? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  17. Step 5: Conducting Research • Carrying out the research; reflecting on its progress • How is it going? • Are we keeping to the timeline? • What gaps in our research? • What changes are needed in our approach? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  18. Step 6: Analysing Research • Looking at the research results and asking what they mean; analysing by population groups, location etc • What is it like now? (describe) • What are we finding? • What differences/diversity exists within our results? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  19. Step 7: Presenting Research Results • Reporting on findings - often to an external audience, including commissioning body • What did we do (summary)? • What did we find out? • Who do we need to tell? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  20. Step 8: Need for Action • Reflection on research and a comparison of ‘what is’ with ‘what should be’; possibilities for ‘dreaming’ or ‘visioning’ • What surprises us? • What concerns us? (makes us angry, annoyed, worried?) • Why? • Do we all agree on this? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  21. Step 9: Setting Goals • From the vision, specifying some outcomes or objectives: • What should it look like? • What do we want to see happening? • What needs to change to make it like that? • What are the barriers to change? • What is needed to overcome these? To bring about change? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  22. Step 10: Defining Action Needed • With the objectives in mind, designing the forms of action that will be appropriate, achievable and effective • What can we do to bring about these changes? • What forms of action can we take? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  23. Forms of Action: • Education: providing information, telling or training people • Encouragement: rewarding positive behaviour, praising, good examples • Enforcement: punishing negative behaviour • Engineering: building things, structural changes Student Action Teams C: Practice

  24. Ways in which students take action: • Taking action themselves:things that student can do directly • Asking others to act:demands or requests • Sharing in decisions about action:collaboration and partnerships in decisions and implementation Student Action Teams C: Practice

  25. Step 11: Planning Action • Details of the action: developing an action plan with timelines and commitments • What to do? • When? • Who will do it? • How? • What is needed? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  26. Step 12: Taking Action • Carrying out the action plan, but also monitoring it and adapting it where necessary • How is it going? • What do we learn as we do this? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  27. Step 13: Assessing Action • Comparing the situation before and after the action; this might involve more data collection • What has changed? Why? • How do we know we’ve made any difference? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  28. Step 14: Presenting Outcomes • Reporting on the action taken, including accountability to the body commissioning this work; effective means of presentation • Who do we need to tell? • How? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  29. Step 15: Celebrating & Reviewing • Reflection on the journey and celebration of achievements; evaluation; also setting new tasks • What have we achieved? • Where to now? Why? How? • What did we learn? • How could we improve next time? Student Action Teams C: Practice

  30. Resources • Connect magazine - several issues reporting on these Student Action Teams • Student Action Teams: Implementing Productive Practices in Primary and Secondary School Classrooms - forthcoming, 2006 - available from Connect (approx. $30) Student Action Teams C: Practice

  31. Changing teachers too… “I have always held as sacrosanct the need to put students at the centre of all I do: that I must ensure I don’t teach them just knowledge, but teach them the skills to understand the knowledge; that good curriculum allows for this to happen while superficial curriculum allows students to regurgitate facts… I know [involvement in the Student Action Team project] has made me a better teacher. It has made the students believe they have a valid and important voice.” Leesa Duncan, St Clement of Rome School, Bundoora Student Action Teams C: Practice

  32. Changing teachers too… “Children who were not achieving started to really shine… The children now really believe that they have a voice and can make a difference. I now believe that too.” Geraldine Butler, St Charles Borromeo School, Templestowe Student Action Teams C: Practice

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