As Hattie (2009) explains, when teachers adopt explicit teaching practices they clearly show students what to do and how to do it. The teacher decides on the learning intentions and success criteria and makes them transparent to students, demonstrating them by modelling. The teacher checks for understanding, and at the end of each lesson revisits what was covered and ties it all together.
When teachers intentionally focus on the I do, We do, You do model of explicit instruction, teacher clarity improves and student learning gains are evident.
A year in the making, and after several years running this program in schools, we are now thrilled to officially launch NTNAU Design Thinking.
Aligned with the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum, this fully resourced semester-long course is suitable to run for students of any age. Designed for the modern student, this course takes the load off teacher preparation time and maximises student collaboration, critical thinking and communication skills.
Research shows that student engagement and motivation increases when they present their work to someone other than their teacher but what should the end product look like and how can we publish student work to the world for feedback and impact? Check out this free resource from New Tech Network, experts in student-centred learning.
Guided by a subject specialist, turn your Maths content into real-world problems that engage students and inspire collaboration, academic discussion and critical thinking.
ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE WELCOME. LEAVE WITH A PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING UNIT TO TRIAL NEXT TERM.
This April, we had the great pleasure of taking fourteen Australian educational leaders to Dallas, Texas to visit six New Tech schools that are at the forefront of educational reform. These leaders had the opportunity to network with educators, principals and experts from all over the USA, gaining insight into the most recent practices and developments in project-based learning, school leadership, and educational innovation.
We were welcomed into schools by students and teachers alike, had some incredible hands-on learning experiences and learnt so much from what we saw. It’s hard to narrow it down, but here are our key observations below. Why not join us on our next trip?
Educators hold their students to high standards, convince them of their own brilliance, and help them to reach their potential in a disciplined and structured environment.
Why is this important?
An educator who is both warm and demanding helps create an atmosphere of safety and co-design with learners, allowing their brains to engage while keeping expectations high.
Looking back on my early teaching days I could probably describe my teaching stance as “organised bouncer”: I was efficient and wholly focused on behaviour management. I felt like if my lessons were well structured and engaging, the traits I felt were most important for good classroom practice, then student behaviour would fall into place. Though I think I was pretty friendly and approachable (I don’t think students hated me!), as a young female working mostly in boys schools made me nervous about dropping my guard, heaven forbid I should become too familiar.
Get out of the box and see school transformation in action with a tour of New Tech Schools, Texas in 2023. With a series of workshops to compliment your learning, take a deep dive into the world of the New Tech model of student-centred learning and reimagine what’s possible at your school.
Every school is unique in terms of its ethos, student cohort and staff. Regardless of this, every school in the country has, at its core, a desire to see young people excel in school and life in general. At NTN we believe all students are capable of great achievements and acknowledge that schools, by design, play a critical role in supporting student success.
Teacher practices and classroom culture are a critical starting point in school change, and that’s why we have developed three levels of support for schools, from those just starting out with student-centred learning and PBL to schools ready to dive in to all the benefits of joining a deeper learning network, for ongoing support and sustainable school change.
Formative feedback was the initiative at my school in 2009. We had a full day PD session with all the staff in the school canteen and I remember enjoying the day. The concept made sense to me: What Went Well… and Even Better If… My students would better understand their strengths and have something concrete to improve. The whole school would be using the same language and students would receive written formative feedback fortnightly. Wait… fortnightly? As a high school teacher of multiple classes, that meant…400 comments in books each fortnight? I was a French teacher, and the maths behind this gave me sleepless nights. Ask me to do something to improve student learning and I’ll do it. But seriously?
What happens when teachers and school leaders from ten different schools across the Network come together to learn about Adult Learning?
One rainy Wednesday in May, a group of educators with varying levels of responsibility, from classroom teachers and Heads of Department to Pastoral Leaders and Deputy Principals, filed in to our training rooms in Sydney’s CBD. By Friday 3pm, they emerged as strong, confident leaders of adult learning, armed with a fully developed plan for adult learning to address a current issue in their school.
Having been on hold during the pandemic, New Tech Network’s Train the Trainer program was back, and it’s participants more inspiring and motivated than ever.
We’re so excited to announce the newest addition to our team, Queensland School Development Coach, Rachel Blatch!
Rachel has implemented and developed Project-Based Learning in both UK and Australian schools. She has extensive experience in adapting both Primary and Secondary curriculum for delivery in a student-centred way.
We’re not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, but with rising vaccination levels and talk of opening up towards the end of the year, here at New Tech Network Australia, we’ve been considering this: as the pandemic starts to recede from the cortex of our minds, how do we make lemonade out of almost two years worth of lemons?
What is, and how do we build, post-pandemic growth in our students?
In the course of my work, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to consistently think with and learn from some inspiring educators in schools and districts that are tackling innovative work. And that work is hard too. Increasingly, I wonder if one thing that makes that work hard is that we are thinking about and/or acting on different understandings of “learning”?
This online, one day course is for anyone that needs a refresher in Project Design or to hit the ground running with Project-Based Learning, this workshop provides a step-by-step guide to 'speed-creating' a project in just one day. Improve an existing project or come with nothing more than curriculum dot points. You'll be guided through the process by experienced practitioners, receive feedback through Critical Friends and leave feeling inspired and confident to roll out your project.
Would you like a more collaborative classroom where students are engaged in authentic, real world learning using critical thinking and taking the reins over their own learning?
With over 25 years experience in helping schools become more student-centred, improve student outcomes and develop as learning communities, we’re excited to be opening our doors to teachers across Australia to share the New Tech model: a student-centred approach to Project-Based Learning.
As a teacher, when you receive your class list and see the many varied learning needs of the students in your care for the year, it can be pretty daunting. Especially when project-based learning is the primary mode of instruction. In addition to the usual requirements for differentiation for often vastly varied literacy levels and academic abilities, PBL throws up some distinct challenges for teachers (and the students themselves!). The requirement to work as a team can typically be daunting to many students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, the noise levels of an active classroom can also be distracting. Meanwhile, students with anxiety may struggle with standing up and presenting to the class or other experts.
Join us to understand how students with diverse learning needs can be supported by teachers to thrive in the PBL classroom and become confident, active members of their team.
At New Tech Network Australia, we are committed to revolutionising teacher professional development. Starting in 2021, we’re excited to announce our brand new Graduate Certificate in Project and Problem-Based Learning. Project and Problem-Based Learning teachers across Australia will finally be able to get the recognition they deserve for their unique skills in curriculum design and student-centred learning from Term 3 2021 onwards. The twelve month course will be online and self-paced , designed with busy teachers in mind.
Project-Based Learning is a student-centred approach to learning that provides students with a real-world context for their learning and enables teachers to think more creatively about the syllabus and how it might be learned.
In the traditional unit, teachers will often lead a series of lectures, activities and quizzes before some form of assessment or end of unit test, followed by a fun project at the end. Project-Based Learning makes the project front and centre and is what drives the learning throughout the unit of work. The schools in our Network report that their students are more engaged, active participants in their work, they report improved academic results in Year 12, and ex-students report being snapped up by top universities and enterprises due to their experience in Project-Based Learning.
With people around the world taking to the streets to protest racial inequality, the Black Lives Matter movement is a hot topic amongst many of the young people we teach. A light has been shone once again on Aboriginal deaths in custody and our students watched with horror, as we did, the brutal restraint of George Floyd and far too many other African Americans in the US.
In divided and uncertain times, it’s the classroom teacher that will so often be at the coal face of these discussions: fielding questions, privy to our students inner thoughts and acting as a key contributor as they shape their opinions and view of the world. It’s an important time for self-reflection and some fantastic tools exist for helping us check for subconscious-bias in our relationships with students. Following a summer of self-reflection with our partners at NTAC in the US, we’ve
