(upbeat music)
- How do we find out how all students are engaged
and improving in their learning?
And in particular,
how do we find out in a way
that can inform planning for next steps?
In this first part of a series about data-informed practise,
connected to the data literacy framework,
we see how the leaders and teachers
at Indooroopilly State High School
engage with the school community,
students and teachers to generate a range of data
that is used to inform decisions about school improvement.
What's been their process,
and how do they know what is working?
- Indooroopilly State High School's vision
is a community of forward thinkers.
And for us, it's vital to make sure
that our students are well-prepared for the future,
regardless of their own personal pathway.
We make decisions about learning for the future
when we seek out and listen to the voices
of our community and our students.
In 2019,
we enacted a community perception survey
to gauge feedback and attitudes from our students,
parents, and teachers.
As we interpret this data,
it was really clear from the feedback
that we needed to review the implementation
of our curriculum in order to strengthen the engagement
of our Year 9 students.
This led the school to engage in a cycle inquiry
about our implementation of the curriculum.
Our analysis of student levels of achievement
in combination with subject choices
and the advice from our community perception survey,
as well as the overall school strategic vision,
inform the decision making
about our digital citizenship priority.
- With one-to-one devices in the school,
parents in particular wanted to make sure
that students had the skills to be digitally connected.
Parents wanted our teachers to explicitly teach
the digital skills necessary for learning.
For us it's all about digital citizenship.
- Our students are digital citizens,
so they need the skills
to be discerning users of technology.
They need to be able to build and manage safe
and healthy online relationships,
and demonstrate empathy and respect
towards people with diverse opinions from all walks of life.
Students need to balance screen time
with their real-life relationships
and manage their digital identity.
This focus on digital citizenship is ultimately intended
to empower students while they're at school
and prepare them for their life beyond school.
- [Timothy] As students are the end users
of the enacted curriculum,
it is important that we seek their feedback.
- Student feedback has helped us
to make data-informed decisions about which skills
and capabilities to emphasise
as we enact digital citizenship in the curriculum.
Staff are invited to use student learner surveys
to monitor feedback direct from their learners
about both content and pedagogy.
This information gives us insight
into how the learning is being received,
and it's used to inform our next pedagogical choices.
Students are honest.
They give us information about what they want more
and what they want less of in the classroom.
- The data from the student feedback
about digital learning revealed three key findings.
Some parts of digital capability were low
for both students and teachers.
Students tended to be seen as users of digital technology,
rather than as creators.
And that the students valued having the agency
to inform the decision making about what they learn
and how they learn.
This feedback has already had an impact
on our teaching and learning.
As teachers adjust their teaching,
the students are responding.
We are already seeing changes
in the way students approach the safe use of their devices.
This improvement in digital literacy was one of our goals.
- Digital citizenship is a key priority for our school,
and as such, we need to make sure
that we're providing the capability and capacity
for our teachers to have the technology,
the skills, and the general capabilities
to deliver on that curriculum.
Once student learning needs
of digital citizenship are identified,
teachers can identify what professional learning
that they need to in order to teach those skills
to students as part of that enacted curriculum.
A staff survey is used along with ongoing conversations
to help us inform decisions about the steps
that we need to take in the process in the future.
- Part of our success
and building teacher expertise has come from working
with external partners.
They give us benefit of their current industry worldview.
This real-world information has clarified our thinking
and increased our confidence in the choices
that we make about incorporating digital citizenship
into multiple areas.
As part of our digital citizenship strategy,
we've incorporated the use of micro bits in the curriculum
in areas such as Science, Maths, Art, and English.
The micro bits are proving to be both a tactile way
to learn coding and a useful tool in teaching logic
and problem solving.
The A to E data doesn't give us a full story
of the impact that we make with the micro bits.
There's other data that tells a better story.
The feedback from the students indicates
that they prefer to learn coding using micro bits
over other methods that involve using abstract symbols
on a screen.
Teacher observation and analysis of student work samples
is identifying an improvement in the students' ability
to generate ideas,
to develop plans and processes,
and to devise solutions to challenges.
The use of micro bits have taken some teachers
out of their comfort zone.
Maintaining an open dialogue between teachers
and school leaders has proven to be crucial
in maintaining this work.
Another way that we're developing our global
and digital citizenship is through our Connect lessons,
which happen once a week,
and enhance students' 21st century skills,
wellbeing, and academic agility.
We monitor the effectiveness of the Connect lessons
by tracking student skill development
and looking for changes in student attitudes
towards the program.
We gather this information from a range of sources,
including the school opinion survey,
the student learner survey,
and student focus group discussions.
The student feedback indicated
that they wanted more involvement
in creating these pastoral lessons.
In response,
teachers and students are now collaborating to revise
and co-construct lesson content and delivery.
- We know that our focus is on preparing students
for the future.
As a school community,
we're working together to make sure
that we're looking at digital citizenship
as a priority for our students
and making sure they're well prepared for the future.
- We don't just collect data.
We make careful choices about what we're collecting.
This allows us to understand our impact
by evaluating and interpreting the data.
What we find out together helps us to decide our next steps.
It helps us to adjust our decisions and our actions.
- I love being in a school that values feedback
because it enables teachers, school administration,
and students to work together
to create a cohesive program
to ensure students' needs are met.
In the classroom and outside of the classroom.
- It's really great
we have the opportunity to give feedback
and that we can work with teachers to apply that feedback,
such as in Student Summit.
- It's really comforting to know
that students and teachers are working together
to improve our education.
- I think it's excellent that I get to have a say,
and we all get to have a say about how the school is run.
- The staff and students
from Indooroopilly State High School have shared
how they use the school's strategic vision
and community feedback to inform their planning
and focus on digital citizenship.
We heard about how purposeful combinations of data
have been used to plan learning for students and teachers.
If you're interested in learning more
about using data-informed practise
to inform teaching and learning,
consider accessing the Data literacy framework.