Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate off the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all First Nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom. Welcome to the Creative Cast podcast series. My name's Jackie King and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we're going to discuss the strategy of the week with Julia Harvey Trappel from Gorokan High School. Hi, Julia. How are you today?

Julia Harvey Trappel

I'm good, thank you. Jackie. Nice to see you and talk to you.

Jackie

Nice to see you too. I've asked you to come along today because you've got some fantastic videos on YouTube. I kind of think of you like music education's Eddie Woo almost with all of your fantastic videos that you've got on YouTube for teaching music, but I particularly enjoy your videos for the concepts of music for Stage 6 using the mnemonics for breaking down the concepts. I'd really love to chat to you a little bit more about that, but before I do get into your strategy, can you give us a little bit of background information on Gorokan High school and the music classes that you have there?

Julia

Okay, so I've been here at Gorokan since 2014. My previous high school was Francis Greenway High School. So I actually live in the Hunter Valley and travel down to Gorokan every day. Love the place. It has its challenges, but is certainly a great place to work. Since I've been here, we've been really lucky that we've always had elective classes. So we teach music in Year 7 and they do visual arts in Year 8 and then obviously electives from there. So for the last few years, we've been lucky enough to have two 200 hour courses, one in Year 9 and Year 10, and one 100 hour course in Stage 5. So three courses in Stage 5 and then obviously Year 11 and 12. So our kids are doing awesome. We were very lucky to do very well last year. Yes, so as I said Music at Gorokan, we're very much rock band, singers, those sorts of things, but I've never had as many string players in my life as I have here Gorokan. I think every year I've taught the HSC I've had a string player and I think we've got some coming through next year, I think we've got one in Year 7 that'll be a cellist. It's like, amazing.

Jackie

That's really interesting because I kind of liken Gorokan to where I used to teach at Kurri High School and we're very rock band, singer orientated. Is there a string teacher in the area, is that why you've got string players?

Julia

Yeah, there's an amazing string teacher in the area, Amanda. Sorry, I don't know her last name, but I know a lot of her students that comes through and she does a lot of that, obviously her soloists, but they do a lot of quartets and all sorts of other ensembles. I'm not sure about this year how much has been able to happen, but yes, she's got a lot of kids that we've got through that they're playing violin. It's just amazing. Like I said I’ve never had this many string players in my life.

Jackie

Yeah, that's fantastic. Fantastic. So I'd like to get onto your strategy now and I've used your videos with this strategy so many times with my students and my students love it. It just really resonates with them. You have broken down the concepts of music into some really easy to remember mnemonics for the students to hit all of the elements that they need to hit in the concepts. You're gonna be able to explain the concepts and the way that you've broken them down better than I will. So can you please give us a little bit of information on the strategy, the way that you've broken down the concepts and then also how you came about the particular mnemonics that you have?

Julia

Okay, so I'll start at the beginning. When you contacted me about doing this I was like, oh my goodness, how long have I been doing this? So I think it went back to 2007, I know that sounds like a long time ago, but I had a class that was really, really struggling at my previous school. And I was on the board and I remember we were doing a pitch question, and this poor girl, she just could not get it. Like she just could not get it. And we're going, like, the whole class going “well, you know, this this and this” and literally I've looked on the board and I went: Hmm, there was melody. There was ornamentation. There's range, role, register. There was phrasing and harmony. I went: hmm, that makes the word. Makes a lovely word. That makes morph. I thought right, well, if I could do this for that one concept, how else can this evolve? So that was for the Year 12 class. So, unfortunately, I didn't have it for that particular class because this was literally like the study day before the HSC exam, so you know, I wish I had done this earlier. Then I worked on it and worked on it worked on it, and then my next class, which was in 2007, I had a class of Year 11, obviously going into Year 12 in 2008, and I did it with them and it worked, so I just refined it and refined it as went. And then in 2013 again, I had another class that needed to have learned the concepts quickly because I'd taken over from a friend of mine just so we could follow our kids through. Anyway. I had been reading a lot about the flipped classroom, and that's where I came up with the videos. At the time Moodle was the big thing, I'm sure we all remember Moodle. It was just like “oh my goodness” but the problem was I couldn't load those videos onto Moodle. So that's why I ended up putting them on YouTube and I sent the kids there and go: “Okay, go and watch this” and whatever else. So the way my brain thinks in in mnemonics, it just works. Melody, ornamentation, range, register and role, phrasing and harmony. If you take the first letter from each of those words, it spells the word morph, so as a pitch, it's morph melody, ornamentation, range role register, phrasing and harmony. Sorry if I'm talking too quickly. Duration is total BP: total BP stands for time signature, ostinato, tempo, accents, length of notes, beat and phrasing. Time signature, ostinato, tempo, accent, length of notes beat and phrasing. Okay, so in tone colour, you need to be able to do these things: ICEDR so we've got I for identify, C for classify, E for explain how they played, D for describe or a description, and R for range, register and role. ICEDR. Identify, classify, explain describe range, role, register. So in texture, you've only got to look for four things. You've got to be able to describe the texture. You've got to be able to identify the instruments, you’ve got to be able to say what sort of phony it is. Please don't ever use that word phony in the actual exam, that's one of my made-up ones just to help you remember, and D for diagram. Then texture is DIPD, now this is the one I really need to fix, because it's describe the density, identify your instruments, your phony as in homophonic polyphonic, etcetera and then diagram. But the P that one gets the kids a lot, and they like, write sort of weird things in the answer they’re trying to give.

Jackie

Sometimes they try and use that word phony. I'm always like you cannot use the word phony. It's just to remind you!

Julia

Yes, that's right, because I was like, how do I group things like homophonic, polyphonic, monophonic? You know, how do we group that? But yeah, they always stuffed that one up. Then dynamics and expressive techniques. With dynamics and expressive techniques. Good little dog sitting there. And there's a reason for that. You need to do what's called identify. I for identify, T for terms, C for changes, H for how, so itch. So if you imagine a scratching dog or an itchy dog or you’ve got an itchy bite, then you’re doing well. Itch: identify terms, changes and how, and I've actually changed it recently, and I'll go with that in a minute. What've I missed? Structure? So for structure, you need to be thinking of Poti Road the way I remember it is the structure of the road has potholes basically, so P for phrasing, O for ostinato, T is for types, I for identifying, R for role and D for diagram Yes, structure. So it was, but I always came up with Poti Road and it was funny, I was Googling, you know, myself, not Googling myself, Googling things. And there was someone lovely out at Coonabarabran that went ‘tripod’, and that makes so much more sense. So Poti Rd was phrasing ostinato, type of structure, range, role, register and diagram. And I said they use tripod, now, it that makes so much sense. So it's type, range, role, register, identify, phrasing, ostinato and diagrams. Like yeah, that makes more sense because, you know, tripod, this supports the structure. You know what I mean?

Jackie

I don't know why, but when I think of Poti Rd, though, I kind of think of like Beatles and Abbey Road and that that just sticks in my head really well, Poti rd does.

Julia

Uh, it's just like random. It's one of those things, though, that it's a strategy that's just about trying to get them to recall and trying to get them to remember, which is fantastic. And over time, it's developed because, you know, I've been doing this a while. Way too long, I think sometimes. And it was like, okay, what else can I do then? Because then that that's fine for the concepts. But let's face it, we know what the aural exam that they always, that it's never just each question on duration. It's always a couple of things combined. Or it might be a comparison question or a variety interest, whatever it happens to be. And again, I was on a flight from Gladstone, my daughter was living up there at the time, and I have to come up with something for those other types of questions. So I used Mrs Hipdot. So Mrs Hipdot is for when you have those types of questions with variety, interest, and those sorts of things, I just get because remember, if you can get these, or some of these (whatever's appropriate), you'll actually be able to formulate an answer. So, it's melody, range, role, register. What’s structure? H for harmony, identify instruments, P for phrasing, D for dynamics, O for ostinatos or ornamentation, and T could be either tempo or time signature. So just again it's one of those things that it just helps the kids, because I know we were talking earlier, but I teach my kids the same thing. I get them to look at the question. What's the concept? Write down the thingy, write down the mnemonics so you remember what you’ve got to do and it doesn't matter what order you put it in, just as long as you're hitting those you should be right.

Jackie

Yeah, as I was saying earlier, we use this a lot, or we were using this a lot at Kurri High School, and we bought one of the student's papers at the end of last year or at the start of this year, it was one of our last year's papers, because the student had done particularly well. And one of the things that our school really suggests, like it comes from our senior executive, is to buy the papers to show they're our own students as exemplars. So if they've done really well, buy their papers to be able to show the kids that “hey, you can achieve this look, someone from our school did achieve this”. So we bought one of the papers from last year and we were so pleased to see at the top of every page the student had written the mnemonic that went with the question. So it was a pitch question. I can't remember the questions, but it was a pitch question, they had morph. And she had crossed out the letters as she had applied that part of the element of the concept for her answer. And she did really well, she got a couple of full marks and yeah, so this strategy when I know I jumped straight to outcome, but this strategy so works for our students at Kurri High School just to have them remembering and hitting all the elements. But funny story, when I first started introducing it, I did have one student who would ICEDR every single question. And I was like, please, only if its tone colour.

Julia

I've only ever taught in schools you know that are like Gorokan, pretty interesting students, I'll just say that. I mean, I'm not looking forward to my Year 7 class last period today, just never much fun. But you know the difference has been that my kids, I very rarely get anything below a band four. Now, some people go oh band four, but for my kids, that's amazing. Like some of my kids, that's amazing. Obviously, I've have been very lucky with the kids I've had. I've had lots of band sixes, but I'm just as happy for those band fours because those kids have actually, that's their best result for their HSC, so you know, I'm excited for them.

Jackie

Absolutely.

Julia

I've had a strange request from kids who find me in the name like mine. You can find me, and they, you know, I have to have a little chat to their teacher because you know, they although one friend when kids were saying, “are we doing Julia lessons?” And so that's what they call on when they're doing their aural lessons. It's Julia lesson. I just laugh. I think it's hilarious.

Jackie

You are pretty famous at Kurri High school I've got to say, and my colleague, who is still there, said when I told him that I was interviewing you, he said: “Oh, make sure you share the link. My year 12’s will be so keen to listen and so excited.” So that's when I said: “You're a bit like our Eddie Woo of music education because of those videos. They're fantastic.” Can you talk about how you implement the strategy without the videos? So just implementing the mnemonics with your classes.

Julia

It comes down to it, I said, I have what we call the rainbow cards and again, this is just developed as you go as teachers, you know, we're trying always to work out ways that it makes it easy for them and how they can actually access and be successful. I'm not saying this that works 100% for every child because there's some kids that still can't you know, as you were just saying, there's one kid that did ICEDR every time. I mean, I had one kid that slept every time we did an aural lesson. I mean, I he even fired me. I was supposed to sing with him for his HSC, saying he went: “No, I don't want you to sing anymore.” “Okay, don't worry.” But I do use what we call the kids nickname them the rainbow cards. So for each of the concepts, I know you were listening on a podcast, but I have these lovely things and I've just redeveloped again so that the kids get these rainbow cards. So I've got what they actually are and then under melody is the list of things they should be thinking about. So in year 11, this is what we start with, and we start with the cards so they've got the cards with them all the time while we're doing the aural. And then by year 12, I'm taking it back and going “nup, you don't have them today. You don't have them today”. And it's just a lot of repeating, actually. So you know things like, what instrument or voice, what's the melody, what is the contour? Is the melody conjunct or disjunct? Legato, staccato, those sorts of things and, you know, is there any call and response? But I've got those sorts of questions for every single one of the morph range, role, like everything, everything. And lots of things repeat and so they know that that's, you know, our that's the same as doing, you know phrasing everywhere is the same. So that sort of essentially how I do it. But, you know, I just developed a lot of resources they used for my own classroom. That's how we teach it and how I teach it. Lots of terms, lots of term cards, lots of games.

Jackie

I wish that I had had these the mnemonics when I was doing aural back in my HSC because it really just gives such an easy structure for the students to go: I'm hitting melody now, I'm hitting ornamentation now. Yeah, to start being able to formulate that answer. I really love it.

Julia

Because otherwise look as we know – I mean, I've had kids in the past where they hear piece of music and they might know it. So then they start talking about the history of the person and that these people are in the band and these are the instruments. And it was like, No, no, no, no. That's not what we want at all. And, you know, it's really hard to get them to, when you listen to a piece of music, what are you focusing on? You’re just listening to these things, and it was just a way to narrow it down for them and look, honestly, my really good kids go beyond those parts like that. They do. And I would expect any child that you know is doing the aural exam. That's just a good framework to start with and that they should be going beyond it. And, you know, I said, my good kids do, they just tend to it just happens.

Jackie

Yeah, it does. But it is just that really good framework, as you said for them to and to focus their listening as well, so they know what to listen for. For this particular question, it's fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing today. Do you have any sort of advice for teachers who might be wanting to start looking at using this strategy in their classroom?

Julia

Look, it comes down to what works for your kids. My lovely colleague that teaches with me here, she was using some other strategies and they were working for some of her kids, but they weren't working for all. And because they know that my class has the other things, they're like, no, we want that. And so you know, then we just say whatever works for you, we just want you to answer and use that advice is again. Just what works for your kids. Um, I have to say I'm a bit mean with my children in terms of, it was “Aural Friday”, all year, every Friday, every single Friday. It was an aural test, an aural exam, and they hated me for it, but at the same time they loved me for it in the end because I was forever: “we're doing one, I mark it, I give it back” and they just knew where they were at. So, yeah, that would be my suggestion. Just do lots of it. I know they don't like it, but it's the way to help them.

Jackie

Practice makes perfect.

Julia

Exactly, exactly.

Jackie

Thank you so much for sharing your strategy today. I have really been a little bit excited all week knowing that I was going to chat to you because I'm a little bit of a fan girl. I've been using this this strategy for a long time, and my kids love it or the students who I used to teach love it. I know that the students at Kurri High School will love to listen to this because they all really love watching the videos as well, and love this strategy. It's really helped our students and I hope that by sharing this with more teachers, who are listening that it's gonna help more students just to be able to focus their listening for that aural exam and find themselves a bit of a structure.

Julia

Thank you, Thank you. I just still think it's weird that people find it. It was only an accident.

Jackie

Well, it was it was a fantastic accident. Thank you so much for your time today.

Julia

No worries. Thank you, Jackie.

Jackie

Get involved in the conversation by recording your favorite teaching strategy. Using the strategy of the week flipgrid in the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room. You can contact us via email at CreativeArts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. Theme music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate off the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honor and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom. Welcome to the creative cast podcast series My name's Jackie King and I'm a creative Arts project officer with the NSW Department of Education. Today we're going to discuss the strategy of the weak with Alex Manton from Asquith Girls High school. Hi, Alex. How are you going today?

Alex Manton

Hi Jackie, going well, thanks.

Jackie

Thank you for joining us today for our strategy of the week. You submitted a great video on our flip grid about visual learning strategies in music and your music classroom and the thing I loved most about your video is it finished with eating smarties at the end, which has got to win every kid, right?

Alex

That's right. Yeah, it's a bit of fun that one.

Jackie

Before we get into talking about your visual learning strategies, just in case anyone hasn't listened to our music subject chat that we did a few weeks ago, I hope that you might be able to give us a little bit of background information on Asquith girls High School.

Alex

Yeah, sure Asquith Girls High school is obviously an all girls high school up near Hornsby. And we have approximately 800 students there from sort of middle class background mainly. They're beautiful girls. That's a great school to work at. The students really do want to learn on the most part, which is fantastic, the types of students that we have there range from students that have had a lot of formal music training and some that have had none so. It's very diverse terms of their ability and knowledge in relation to music.

Jackie

Fantastic. So the visual learning strategies that you talked about was mostly targeted at Stage five, I think, in the video that you made for us on our flip grid. But can you tell us about what the visual learning strategies are that you have used with your students at Asquith?

Alex

Yeah, sure, there's look. There's so many visual learning strategies that you can implement in the classroom, whether it's in a music classroom or any classroom and a bit of a Google suggests that 65% of people are visual learners, and I think that's really important information to take that to the classroom. It is part of what's called the vark model. So VARK stands for visual auditory reading and kinesthetic, which is sort of the four main types of off learning. And I think that often we teach or can teach with an emphasis on reading or more. Or, you know, auditory kind of learning where we're talking to them all the time. And sometimes we can neglect the visual kind of learners in the classroom. So one way, I guess, from a general teaching point of view, and maybe some people might feel differently about this. But I think that power points are actually really important, and I don't mean just putting information up on the board, but implementing graphics or pictures or memes or something to engage the kids with as you're talking through the material, they're more likely to remember it in that way. I know that I really appreciate a power point. If I'm listening to a lecture, it just kind of helps my brain kind of consolidate the information.

Jackie

It's really important to use visuals to engage those students who who find it difficult just to listen to being talked to or or reading it. A lot of our students find it difficult to read and obviously, in music, it's important to have visuals up too of visuals of the notation or visuals of a keyboard or an instrument. And how to, where to put your fingers and all of that sort of thing. So obviously it's really important in music. How did you use visuals in music in particular?

Alex

So well, I've whole list of things, actually, obviously you saw my smarties sort of idea with essentially using Smarties as as counters the diagram in helping to build chords. But the other way that I I'd like to do it is using your hand to be like a prompt I guess, for students. So, for example, what I mean is, if you're teaching them about a scale or you're singing up a scale in class, that you're going to use your hand in like a solfege kind of way, I guess, to to show that the pitch is going up or down and then getting the kids to do that as well. Now that's kinesthetic as well as visual, but it kind of prompts them to know Well, okay, the pitch is going in this direction. So I need to sing it this way. And I guess that's where conducting stems from in many ways as well in that were sort of embody the music as we're conducting the whole. The imagery associated with conducting is telling the story and getting the students to play in a certain way. So, yeah, they're using our hands to show students a musical Concepts is another way that I use, you know, visual sort of strategies. I also have a really fun game called tone colour Bingo, which is where the kids, this is sort of for your yr 789 where I give. Um, I've made, like tone color bingo where they've got identify instruments by hearing, but then they've got to use counters, and there's the visual of the instruments on the page as well. And that's a fantastic way to teach tone color and really engaging, and they always want to play it.

Jackie

I love that.

Alex

Yeah, that's a good one. And I mean, obviously you mentioned learning like fingering on guitar or keyboard. To have a diagram, but even putting stickers, you know, for kids, that are really having trouble, putting stickers on the fretboard so they know where to put their fingers. That might be colour coded according to chords. You know what? I use this from Stage four right up to HSC is using texture graphs to describe texture, so you might ask the kids to analyse the texture the first eight bars of that music. And so they'll put the instruments down the side and draw up like a table and have to colour in where they hear that instrument in enter. And I find that to be incredibly effective, those junior using understanding the concept of texture because they could see how thin or thick it is, or if it's using staggered entries. But even year 12 like to incorporate that into their music one aural papers.

Jackie

I'm a big fan of the texture graph, texture graph and you know what? I think it's really important because to get in those higher bands for the aural exam, you do have to have a visual or something or notation or something other than words on a page to explain what you are doing. So a texture graph is really important, I think, when whenever they've got to answer a question about texture.

Alex

Absolutely. And it's just really accessible. Like I think that every kid gets it and they find it fun. You know, they like to get the textas out on that kind of leads into, I guess, the whole idea of notation and composition and using graphic notation to represent the music that they're making. And also even using a similar table model like, I guess you could call it a composition grid where you could write ideas in boxes. According to each bar for each Instrument, I use a lot of composition grids in my class, particularly in Stage five. as they're really learning how to consolidate their ideas, creating music. So yeah, composition grids are fantastic visual learning tool, and they can also implement traditional notation into that as well if they like to. So that's another way.

Jackie

Fantastic. Can I bring you back now to the specific example that you gave us in the flip grid. And can you talk through how you implemented that in your classroom? At Asquith Girls' High school?

Alex

Sure. So we had just been learning about pitch in general. So we were doing a lot of sort of theory based content in terms of learning about major and minor scales, learning about key signatures and then learning about intervals. So I used that technique to teach scales and intervals mainly. So if I was teaching them about scales and I said, I want you to make a D major scale. They then have to identify well what sharps or flats are in that d major scale and lineup their smarties or skittles on the notes on that scale.

Jackie

Sure, so you give them, like a a print out of a keyboard. Is that right? A print out of the keyboard and then they have to put their Smarties where the notes are.

Alex

And then we'll sing that together and often I'll use my hand as the visual to show the scale, going up and down, and I'll get them to do that as well with me. the same with the intervals also. Okay, everyone makes perfect fourth starting on D, and then they have to make that perfect fourth. So it's It's visual with kinesthetic, with the singing and the listening, and it's all sort of combines. And some of that content can be quite heavy for some students, and it's just a way to lighten it and try to make it fun and engaging, and particularly with those lower level kids. It did it did engage them into what could be considered boring.

Jackie

Yeah, that's fantastic. And obviously they know that they're going to get those Smarties at the end because they've touched them.

Alex

So it's a disciplinary tool as well, they can't eat Smarties if they're naughty.

Jackie

Love it. How did your students engage with using the the visual tool, the print out of a keyboard or whatever, and then putting the Smarties on them? What was the outcome for your students for you for doing that?

Alex

I think it it really helped them to store that information into their long term memory. In that they're doing, they're making that scale and they can visually see it on that keyboard so they could then play that scale on the keyboard. So it's definitely helped with their memory. I also think that it ultimately, visual tools in general and that one. It's a faster form of communication and embedding that knowledge rather than doing worksheet after worksheet or yeah, that that kind of thing is, well, like it kind of just go deeper because they have to really think about the patterns of those scales. So and again, it's that engagement. It promotes engagement and motivation and interest and I definitely saw that in the classroom when I was doing that this year.

Jackie

That is awesome and anything that's going to motivate them to understand that deeper music theory about how scale comes together or how a chord is built up etcetera, not just knowing the notes, but knowing that how is really fantastic and finding another way into that rather than just using aural skills or or worksheets, finding another way around that is fantastic. Is there any other sort of suggestions that you wanted to talk about today for your visual learning strategies that you wanted to share with teachers?

Alex

I think that generally one thing that I'm in habit of doing is as soon as I walk into the classroom I write up on the board what we're gonna be doing that lesson just in dot point and they might have catchy names or and it acts as like a visual organizational tool for myself and the students. But the students really like predictability, and they like to see where the next thing is going. And so having it visually on the border is really helpful. And I guess the only other thing is I know that you know, we like to colour code things right when we're teaching reading skills in English. You know, we've talked about get your highlight lighters out and highlight the most important aspects. And I like to take that one step further with Stage six that I use a who what, where, why model when doing aural skills, which is similar to the peel model that English might use. But once they've done their writing, I get them to get four highlighters and they have to highlight the parts of the text that are the what? Another colour for the why. Another colour for the where. And they can visually see then that they've integrated all of those things into their writing or not. And I found that particularly this year to be incredibly powerful. All the kids would swap their own text what they've written with each other, and they do it to their peers. And they got so much out of that activity and they could see where they were going to lose marks in the marking process, just from that visual representation through colour. So highlighting, but in a different way is super helpful.

Jackie

Such a simple idea, but obviously very effective because they can see immediately what they haven't covered. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I love some of those ideas that you've shared with us today. I particularly enjoy the Smarties idea because who doesn't love to have Smarties at the end of the lesson? You must go through a lot of Smarties, though.

Alex

Yeah, I get the individual wrapped ones, you know, You get them in the little boxes. So it's all covid safe smarties.

Jackie

Yeah, thanks. so much for sharing those ideas on visual learning today, Alex there's so much more that you shared than just what was in your flip grid video, which I thought was amazing as well. I think it's a really great way to engage learners in some of that heavier stuff that they probably don't really enjoy. And so finding a way to make them enjoy that and motivated, whether that be through their stomachs or or being able to see something visually I think is really fantastic. So thank you for sharing this strategy of the week this week.

Alex

No problems. Thanks, Jackie.

Jackie

Get involved in the conversation by recording your favourite teaching strategy using the strategy of the weak flip grid in the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Creative Arts Curriculum 7 to 12 or contact us via email. Creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au . Theme music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honor and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom. Welcome to the creative cast podcast series. I'm Jackie King, and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we're going to discuss the strategy of the week with Jessica McCarthy from Mosman High School. Hi, Jessica. How are you today?

Jessica McCarthy

I'm good. Thanks. How are you going?

Jackie

Yeah, I'm great. Thank you. You submitted a really cool video about sketch noting that you use with your visual arts students at Mosman High School through our flip grid, which looks really cool, and I can't wait to talk to you about that. But I was hoping first you might be able to give us a bit of context of Mosman High School and the visual arts classes there. And what you do at Mossman Hight?

Jessica

Yeah. So I'm actually also Head Teacher Teaching and Learning, and I coordinate and lead a lot of stem as well as cross curricular units of work. So I have quite a diverse role, and I have a bit of a hand in everything. And so in doing that, I have looked at large variety of pedagogies and strategies that allow students to access literacy and engage in content. We're very lucky here we have a very well known and strong visual arts faculty. Also we have special art program where students interview and come to the school to get extra classes in year seven and eight for visual arts. So we have fantastic students here and a strong cohort that continues throughout from their electives from year 9 to 12. So I teach a variety of those classes as well as the stem classes.

Jackie

That's really cool. And you're really lucky, I guess in that you've got that strand of visual arts students who are there specifically for visual arts. It would get really great results.

Jessica

Well, it's really good because they can. Also, we get to do projects with them that slightly off the curriculum. So we run it alongside the existing curriculum. But we give them opportunities that also allow for authentic audiences, such as entering exhibitions,displaying the works in galleries and responding to outside briefs. So it's really good.

Jackie

Fantastic. So sketch noting, Can you give us a bit of a run down of what sketch Noting is?

Jessica

So as I said, I do, because I'm doing teaching and learning, I look at alot of different ways that students can come at information essentially, and it comes up frequently in a lot of those really cool. Like Ted Ed Videos, actually one of my favorite videos on creativity was it was all sketch noted, and it takes the journey from traditional schooling to today by Ken Robinson. He did it as a normal talk and then it was translated into this sketch noting where the viewer gets to travel along a journey of this illustrator as they're creating the iconography images that connects the ideas, that made me start to research and look at this concept of sketch noting. And it's this idea that students are very visual and students are very reluctant to read large chunks of text because they live in a social media world. Snapchat is this instantaneous tik tok, you know, it's all instantaneous gratification and really quick. Where as sitting down to read large chunks of text requires a lot of thought process and being able to understand and engage with content that a lot of students don't have that capacity to do. I wanted to find a way that students could engage with it and summarize notes more clearly. I've looked at a few other strategies that I could talk about as well, but I'm we sort of target. We call them the novice developing and expert. So the novice students or those that often struggle we need to support them and scaffold them. The developing is what Hattie and the Gerric gifted and talented program would call the core students and expert students, the gifted and talented students who needs an extension. So the beauty of of sketch noting is that it provides that scaffolding for differentiation. It's sort of fun and exciting. It's a way to translate what they're reading into these visual icons. So instead of going back to the text when they need to be assessed on that content, they can go back to their icons. And it creates this like comic narrative that links ideas together.

Jackie

I love that. One of the reasons I really like this strategy is years and years ago, back when national partnerships was a thing, my school did focus on reading and obviously visualizing was one of the Super Six in Focus on Reading, and I found my students really engaged with being able to draw pictures to visualize what was happening in the text. Because good readers, people who are able to read, do get that sort of mental movie going in their head as they're reading.

But people like your beginning or your novice students who are perhaps not strong readers don't naturally get that those images happening and, yeah, and so being able to teach them about getting those images happening in their brain is really important. But the thing I really like about your strategy is it's kind of bringing that into the 21st century, so to speak, by having that visual like it's a visual map. So I think the way you explained it in the flip grid video, there was kind of, like pictures and arrows, and they could put a little bit of text on it if they liked. Is that right? Do you want to explain what it looks like a little bit?

Jessica

So the concept of it or the pedagogy behind it, is that you translate a concept into the visual iconography, which definitely links into visual arts anyway. But you could do this for any block of text that you read. And this is the thing that I really liked because I noticed in the literacy progressions, there's the idea about linking concepts together from different areas. So how do students how students are able to do that? It's something that they get tested on I noticed in the check-in assessment and naplan on understanding that content can come from a variety of sources. And how do you pull that back together? The concept of sketch noting allows them to draw these icons, and when they start to see these icons, you're meant to use arrows to connect ideas together. I also really liked it because, I mean, maybe I'm a bit old school. I'm like an eighties nineties child who used to love doing the bubble writing.

So one of the theories of sketch noting is writing keywords in bubble writing so that they become really clear, and particularly in visual arts, we have, you know, strong meta language or words that we want to stand out when we're trying to communicate ideas about different artists. So if you could get students to write it in that really wonderful fancy bubble writing, when they go back to their notes, they'll be able to see it really clearly. And as I said, for those novice students that just don't like to read large chunks of text, they're not going to go back to their highlighted page of text and remember what they wrote? But if you've got that big text in big writing, then they're more likely to respond to it. And remember, it might jolt that memory and link ideas together. And then, as I said, drawing little icons and images, kids are often doodling in their books anyway. You think about the Surrealists and automated drawing. Kids don't realize what they're doing often when they're doing those little doodles in their books. Anyway, When you're trying to get them to read text, they're often not focused on that. So it's translating that into this concept of, Well, why not just draw it anyway?

Jackie

I love that, and you cracked me up with the bubblewriting. I also love a good old bubble bubble letters and, of course, that would make those those keywords really stand out. And they will remember them because they've that takes a little bit of time to do bubble writing so, like it gets it into the brain a little bit more. So how did you first approach this with your students at Mosman High School?

Jessica

It worked the best just recently, because I have a challenging year eight class. So I have quite a few naughty students as well as students are learning plans. We've built these amazing visual resources, and there's a lot of wonderful videos, so we're doing what we're doing, a unit of work about food, food art, and we particularly referenced pop art and Andy Warhol and linked it back to traditional Dutch still life paintings on the Golden Age. So all of that content is quite, this is this idea about linking ideas together, and I thought that all the videos would be quite engaging. Choose really punchy videos. There's some great ones out there, but I thought I need to be more multimodal and provide access to content in a variety of different ways. So I didn't want to just focus on video content and me delivering information. I wanted them to also be able to read and respond because part of our NAPLAN results in our school is focused on reading and vocabulary. And if you don't read, you don't build your vocabulary. So I thought, I need to go back to what we used to always do. We just giving them text to read. But this class is so disruptive that I just knew they weren't going to sit there and read the text that I needed them to read. So instead I thought, What if I gave him the text, asked them to highlight the text as I read it aloud, and then get them to put their highlighters down and do like a sketch noting brainstorm. So the strategy would be ideally good for students to do by themselves. But I actually did it as a class, so I drew it on my smart board, which is a new interactive board that allows me to also save it as a PdF. So once I'd finished with it as a class. Anyway, I saved it as a PdF, and I could upload my one that I've done to our Google classroom. So we had the class one, but in their own art diaries, they also had their own. So I drove the iconography and the arrows and where to join it together. But every single kid did it and every single kid were able to engage in the lesson because it was accessible. So the students that enjoyed reading or were able to comprehend the text were actively highlighting the text and reading along with me. Whereas the other students? While they may not have been paying as much attention to the written word, were all doing the images in their art diary. So I felt like with the diverse range of learners in that class, they all had an opportunity to access the content that I wanted them to get.

Jackie

And, of course, using a text like reading. They're all engaging in some way, shape or form with reading a text, which is really important. And I know when you've got a really tough class, sometimes it is much easier just to go to a video because they do get that instant gratification from that quicker, like they can get it quicker. It's not as hard to digest a video, but it is really important that they do do some reading as well.

So that is fantastic.

Jessica

I was just going to say that by reading is well, we're modeling the writing, I want them to be able to write better sentences. That's also part of it as well is that if they're not reading the text and they're just watching the video, they don't actually know how to write those comprehensive sentences after the fact anyway. So I need them to have a look at and see what a sentence structure looks like, and that is all important.

Jackie

So what would you say the outcome is for your students by using this strategy sketch noting?

Jessica

Well, I did this lesson and I I'm very big on the idea of repetition as well. But the next lesson. When I walked in, I said, Does everybody remember what you learned? Less last lesson? And there's usually a gap between the lessons, like I only see them four lessons a fortnight.

So it's not like I'm seeing them on a freq... high frequency. And most of them could repeat some aspect of what they had learned. And they remembered it because I could say, Do you remember what we've sketched, particularly with Andy Warhol? So one of those statements was about a factory in mass production, so obviously I drew that and they could remember that icon more clearly, and it's sort of it enabled the continued dialogue after the learning experience. So I knew that some of that information had definitely sunk in, and they were able to apply it to their assessment time. I mean, there's obviously levels of depth in that the attainment of knowledge. But it meant that pretty much every student could remember at least something about his practice, which was really important.

Jackie

And that's a huge win, right? That at least they've remembered something from the last lesson. Yeah, have you continued to use this strategy beyond the naughty year 8 class?

Jessica

I've used it in year 10 classes well, and they just enjoyed it because it was a little bit more and more freedom as well. And I definitely like, I just sort of I've read a lot about it, but I hadn't used it meticulously, but I think it's something that I'm going to embed further because it's also really fun and enjoyable, and it doesn't feel like you're doing art theory. And as I mean, I'm I love art theory, but it's about tricking kids into engaging in something that they may not think is as enjoyable.

Jackie

I know I'm a music teacher and that you have to trick them into doing that theory because the prac is just so much more fun.

Jessica

Yes, exactly you need. You need a theory to make the prac better. They don't just don't realize that all the time. So in getting sketching into it makes it great.

Jackie

Yeah, and I think that's really good in helping turn on the brain to remember parts of what they've done because they are creating that visual. And so it's easy to remember it. Thank you so much for sharing your strategy with us today. Do you have any sort of advice for any teachers who might want to implement this in in their classrooms for the first time?

Jessica

For the first time, if you were doing it, I would do it similar to how I did it in that you scaffold it with the class and do it yourself with them on the board so that they also have that confidence and know that expectation. And then it could be that you get them to do it as a homework task or something later, or even in a group so that they're learning and building the field of how to do it. So that's how I would step. Step it up. So you do it first as a class and then maybe group work and then get into individually. And I like kids to hand in like drafts and their research work as well, when they're handing in submission, so it could be a part of that.

Jackie

That's a great idea. And I love because you see their thought process.

Jessica

Yeah, and where they're coming from with it? Yeah, exactly. I love that.

Jackie

Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Jessica and sharing your strategy of the weak, which is sketch noting, I think it's a fantastic strategy for engaging students with a large chunk of text to get them visualizing what is in the text. And obviously then being able to remember the important parts of the text as well. I can tell you are only just starting to develop this strategy, and I know that you're going to go much further with that with your students. And I'm really glad that you were able to share that with our creative arts teachers today. Get involved in the conversation by recording your favourite teaching strategy. Using the strategy of the weak flip grid in the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Creative Arts Curriculum 7 to 12 or contact us via email. Creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au . Theme music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honor and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom. Welcome to the creative cast podcast series I'm Jackie King and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we're going to discuss the strategy of the week with Lily Ferris from Wilcannia and Menindee central schools. Hi, Lily. How are you?

Lily Ferris

I'm going Great thanks, Jackie.

Jackie

Thank you so much for joining us today. You submitted a really cool video on our flip grid about your entrepreneurial education in Wilannia and Menindee central schools, which sounds really exciting and so I'm really keen to get to talking about that kind of education. But before we do, I would really like to learn more about what Wilcannia and Menindee central schools are like, because I feel like they're going to be quite different from what most of us are used to in our comprehensive high schools along the Eastern Seaboard in Sydney or in the Hunter Valley where I am. So could you give us a little bit of a context of Wilcannia and Menindee central schools?

Lily

So, Menindee and Wilcannia, based on Barkinji country. So that's in far west New South Wales. Along the Darling River.

They are two towns separated by 150 kilometers of dirt Road and their major cities, both Broken Hill and Mildura and Cobar. So these are very remote towns, and they are also towns with high populations of Indigenous people. The students aged from preschool to year 12 in these schools because they're central schools and they're very, very small schools. So this might mean, for example, in Wilcannia only having one student in Stage six, so it's really amazing that these two schools can actually work together through the Wilvandee access program that links up those two schools with Ivanhoe Central School, which is another few 100 kilometers away from Menindee.

Jackie

Wow. So it kind of blows my mind a little bit that they're 150 kilometers away from each other, but you are able to work together. I hope that you have fantastic Internet access out there. So you're able to to talk and correspond, I guess, like we all have through Covid, using things like Zoom or teams or that sort of thing. Is that how you you work out there?

Lily

So we're very familiar with contacting each other over video conference. In fact, that Wilvandee access program has allowed me to teach visual design to both students in Menindee, and Wilcannia Central School without leaving Wilcannia Central School. Sometimes it does also connect students to other schools, like the Dubbo Distant School of Education. So it's the way remote schools have been operating for a very long time. And when Covid came about, I was able to spend three hours a day on video conferences with one of my senior students, which was incredible. And I'm not sure if many other students in the state were as lucky to have so much one on one time during Covid.

Jackie

Of course. How lucky were they? That sounds great. So your strategy that you shared with us is entrepreneurial education. So what is entrepreneurial education and how did you get involved with that?

Lily

So entrepreneurial education has a business mindset for students. It describes to them that they don't need to wait till they finish school to be able to start making a living out of the things that they're learning about in, Wilcannia, and Menindee, there is a large issue with disengagement in senior years, especially and this is because sometimes the things we're learning in the syllabus don't seem relevant. To tackle these and also to address the lack of employment opportunities for young people in these two towns, we have started a design business so that students can create products in their classes and sell them through the local art gallery in Broken Hill. But also we're looking at starting an online business, and this means that our students can see that they can get a living out of being an artist and a designer and that they could do that right now and not wait till school's over.

Jackie

That sounds fantastic, and I really love how it links what you're doing in the classroom to the real world, to give that relevance to students, to say, Well, I can actually do this and I can make money from it and that is a real reason to do it. So when you first implemented this entrepreneurial education, how did you go about doing that?

Lily

So the idea came from the fact that the students all said that they wanted to be artists when they grow up, and there are many young people that dream of being artists. But I know that being an artist is really difficult and that you need for all intensive purposes bread and butter money to survive as an artist.

And I also noticed there was a huge investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and design products in Australia at the moment, and people were actually listening and noticing young Indigenous clothing labels, art products, homewares, and this is something that our students could tap into because it built upon the skills that they already had. We developed teaching and learning program that actually focused on building a brand and that fit within the visual design syllabus. So one thing we did was actually change our students from being in the visual arts course to being in the visual design course, and that was one of the best decisions for our schools. And we've seen that they've been able to not only meet the outcomes of the visual design course but actually excel in them. We've had to apply for quite a few grants to help us get this going. We wanted to expose our students to the visual arts and design world within Aboriginal culture, not just by showing them pictures of other brands. We wanted to take them places, so we actually took them to Sydney. We took them to the Northern Territory to the Darwin Aboriginal arts fair, and they were able to see all of the amazing ways they could turn their designs, often drawings into products that people would want to buy.

Jackie

What an experience for those students who are obviously from very small and remote communities, to go to, say, the Northern Territory or to go to Sydney to see those artworks and what can become of an artwork once you've you've done a drawing that's really cool. The reason why I love this strategy is because it links student learning to the real world, which is something that I'm I'm super passionate about.

A couple of years ago, I ran a course called The Art of Busking in Year nine music, and we had to focus on the United Nations Global Goals for sustainable development in our school in Stage Five. So the students wanted to look at, in that course the goal of zero Hunger, and they wanted to busk for a charity that looked after the homeless. So we had to look at the regulations for busking in our area. So fortunately for our students, we didn't need to have a busking license but our council regulations were that they we're not allowed to be offensive and they weren't allowed to block a walkway. So in order to be able to busk, they had to arrange the songs that they'd normally play to smaller outfits so that they didn't have a drum kit. They couldn't use electricity and they had to think about how to do it acoustically and so it would still sound good for the public and that the public would still like it. Fortunately for us, when when they got up into the Main Street and started to do there busking the community really got behind them and, they raised just over $350 for a local charity. The beauty of the course was that we were able to meet syllabus outcomes. We were able to, meet the composition outcomes, arranging and they could see a real purpose for needing to meet those arranging outcomes. They could see why they had to arrange their songs in the way that they did because they had to meet those council regulations. They couldn't take up a drum kit. They couldn't take up an electric keyboard or electric guitars because they had no access to electricity up there. So they had to rethink the way that they performed their songs. And then it also hit their performance outcomes because they were performing in small groups. They were performing and demonstrating solo awareness, etcetera.

So it gave a really purpose for what the syllabus calls for. And that's what I love about what you're doing with this entrepreneurial education is that you are giving the students a real reason to complete those syllabus outcomes.

Lily

And I, a lot of those students might not have had an opportunity to perform just like a lot of the students in Wilcannia and Menindee wouldn't have necessarily exhibited their artwork to a large group of people. And that sense of pride can really help maintain the momentum in the senior years, because most teenagers are exhausted by the time it gets to year 10 than 11 and 12, and it can be hard to see the finish line. So if you already brought the finish line a bit closer by showing them what they can do with these skills in the real world, they will definitely be more engaged in those senior years.

Jackie

So once you implemented this and you said you, they sold their works at a gallery in Broken Hill. Is that right?

Lily

Yes, there was the Maari Ma Indigenous Art Awards, a the beginning of the year at Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery. These are really popular awards and because of the types of things the students had been doing and other young artists in these remote communities. The art gallery actually held a market for the opening of the exhibition, and so our students were able to set up the store themselves for their products. They had their own logo that they designed. They had a neon light with their logo, so it was very professional, and they sold out of many of the T shirt designs. And there are a few items still for sale in the gallery now with their own, um, wall dedicated to their products.

Jackie

Oh, that is so fantastic. And just out of curiosity, what what happened with the money that they raised?

Did that go back into the school, or did you look at giving that to a charity or some sort of thing?

Lily

So at this point, logistically, we're still trying to work out how to set this up as a separate non for profit business so that artists can be paid for their individual contributions. A lot of the money from selling the products at this stage has gone into providing more opportunities. An example of one of these opportunities was sending four students to Sydney to work with publisher textiles in Annandale, and they printed their own T shirts and lengths of fabric for a whole week. Which is an incredible opportunity to be in a real screen printing warehouse and not just sending off your designs to get printed by someone else but actually being responsible for printing them in bulk. And that opportunity wouldn't have been possible unless we'd been able to fundraise from selling some of the other products.

Jackie

That's fantastic, and I'm sure they really see the value then because they're getting incredible work experience that they probably wouldn't get otherwise.

So what would you say the outcome for implementing entrepreneurial education? What was the outcome for your students at Wilcannia and Menindee?

Lily

By far the most obvious outcome has been an increased engagement and an increased willingness to participate in all of these activities. Students have always loved, always loved art, and this has given them a chance to dedicate even more of their studies towards that. We have a student who is also studying information and digital technologies, and he's now building a website for himself as a designer.

As part of that course, he's looking into finance and business management with some of his other courses and even the stage five students have started exploring more entrepreneurial education at Menindee Central School, and they're looking to set up their own opportunities to promote their work and also the work of the senior students.

Jackie

That's fantastic, and I really love how you must be changing the mindset almost in terms of giving them job opportunities or creating their own job opportunities for the future.

Lily

And some of the students that have graduated since we started the style of teaching have actually maintained involvement within the school and are still excited to participate in these design experiences. And I think it's great that we can really extend the graduation age from school and not just say, oh, students have reached 12. You don't need to be here anymore, but actually attract them to come back to school to be even more involved.

Jackie

I love that whole idea of the research that's around the year 13 and them still being able to be attached to the school in some way and obviously coming in at that other level, like now we're finished school and we are going to lead a workshop or or something like that, That's fantastic.

Lily

One of my students actually has just had the opportunity to do that. He has helped lead workshops with Water New South Wales for all of the primary aged students in Wilcannia, which across two schools in Wilcannia, and he taught them how to draw for a project to put their artwork onto the new weir being well built in Wilcannia. And so that was an incredible experience for him.

Jackie

That is so exciting. Thank you for sharing that with us today, Lily. I hope it gives people just another way of thinking about approaching a subject or a topic as a way to connect to the real world and sort of future proof those students as well give them ideas on how they can create a living from their art because, as as you've already said that bread and butter money as an artist can be quite difficult. So, how you can start a business and make money from your art is really fantastic. And, obviously, they're learning more skills than just drawing or in my case, than just playing an instrument. They're they're learning much bigger skills that are going to help them further in life. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your strategy of the week with us and I look forward to hearing more about what's happening in Wilcannia and Menindee Central schools in the future

Lily

Thanks so much, Jackie.

Jackie

Get involved in the conversation by recording your favorite teaching strategy. Using the strategy of the weak flip grid in the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Creative Arts Curriculum 7 to 12 or contact us via email. Creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. Theme music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge, with honor and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom. Welcome to the creative cast podcast series I'm Jackie King and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we're going to discuss the strategy of the weak with Eugenia Lewis from Kurri Kurri High School. Hi, Eugenia. How are you?

Eugenia Lewis

Hi, Jackie. Good, Thanks. How are you?

Jackie

I'm well, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. You submitted a fantastic video on our flip grid about using jam boards in dance, which sounded very interesting. But before we get started on talking about the use of Jamboards in dance. Could you give us a little bit of information or background context on your school at Kurri Kurri High School?

Eugenia

Yeah, sure. So I'm at Kurri Kurri we're sort of in the Upper Hunter Maitland area Cessnock area, But we have about 150 students that identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and we're low socioeconomic area. But we have great we have great programs running at the school. Stage four is all integrated Hub Learning got a studio school, big picture section of the school, and then we've got our mainstream and our Kuta Kaya, special education guys. So we have, a range of different students, different learners and lots of exciting things happening all the time at school.

Jackie

Fantastic. So I've chosen your video today or your strategy this week because it's like a techie strategy. And given that Edutech was on this week, I thought it was appropriate to have a discussion about a tech strategy. Before we really get into what jam boards are how do you go with access to technology and B Y O D at Kurri High School?

Eugenia

Yes. So we're really lucky, actually we're fairly advanced Technology school. We do you have a B Y O D policy, and we have also have a program for students who don't have access to their own device in terms of the loan program. So before Covid, this was a day loan program. So the students would come every day to the library, pick up their laptop, have the same laptop each day, and then they would just return it to the library. But since COVID we have now got, like, a long term loan, so the students will have the loan for the whole term if they need to bring it back at the end of term for the tech guys to, you know, do some testing or fixing up, they will. Otherwise they just keep their device. And then at the end of the year, they return that. So in terms of technology, pretty much every student in my class has access to a laptop to work in class. They don't have a laptop device or they don't have them on them that particular day, they have access to Canvas on their phone. So, yeah, we use Canvas as our main LMS and yes, so really, really lucky. And it's sort of one of the main focuses of the school. So yeah, that's pretty, pretty good with our kids.

Jackie

That's fantastic. And considering that you said it was a low socioeconomic area, having those programs where students are able to borrow laptops must be a really fantastic thing for the both the students and obviously the teachers. So we can have a bit of a level playing field as well.

Eugenia

Yeah, so Jamboard is sort of like an interactive whiteboard. It's jam board is a Google developed app. They can use it through your Google Suite, your G suite. There's also an app on them on your phone so students can download it themselves and yeah, it's basically an interactive whiteboard where you can add topics for discussion, or you can add images for discussion. And then the students can then add their sticky notes and their points in that. Everyone's all on the one jam board. But sometimes in terms of kids, you know, wanting to for the first time if they're experimenting, it can be a little bit difficult because they're, you know, they're wanting to ad and explore and experiment. But at the same time, that's also an awesome opportunity for them to explore with a new app and a new bit of technology. And they have sort of lots of fun. But yeah, basically, it's an interactive whiteboard app developed through G Suite.

Jackie

Fantastic. So how have you used the jam Board app? And why did you choose to use the jam board app?

Eugenia

So I've used it in a number of different ways. I've used it as a way to deliver content through sort of class discussion but online interactive discussion, you know, for students that may not necessarily feel comfortable verbally participating in a class discussion. So in terms of dance, Year 9 Dance Class, I first used it to introduce the idea of safe dance practice to them. So the first time that come across this content and instead of just, you know, writing notes or being quite monotonous with the content, we did it through a, discussion, question based thing. So, for example, as you went through the board or the slides but asking questions, So what do you think Safe Dance Practice involves, and then we'll have a look. And then, you know, there are seven main elements. What are the main elements and think, you know, things like that. We're just going through a question and then in between, each slide, I would have the content for for for them to check whether their answers were right So, yes. So the first term with my year 12 I used as an assessment for learning. So I went through the syllabus went through the different points and just again different question based things to see what they felt most comfortable with, what they were least comfortable with. Sort of help me with my planning, and I've also used it in terms of for reflection. So as a, for example, as a K W L chat, where the students can reflect on what they know already about a certain topic, what they want to know what they have learned. So, yeah, there's lots of different ways that you can use it. I think I'm really looking forward to exploring it with composition with my Year 12s and my stage five dance classes next year in terms of, just getting them brainstorming and thinking because you can have a different topic and a different idea on on a page. So yeah, lots of different reasons. I first came across it through a professional learning meeting an online zoom meeting that I have had done, and I found it as a really engaging way for me to engage in the professional learning. So I thought, Sure, why not try it with my students and yeah.

Jackie

And in terms of your students, how did they react to using the jam board or what do you feel like the outcome for the students was by using this piece of technology?

Eugenia

Yes, So I think it's really positive outcome. Like I said before the first time, each class that I've had have used it, you know, they've been a bit not silly with it, but they wanted to experiment and explore with that. You know, they can get a bit off track with it, but at the same time it sort of developing their sort of their curiosity and their tech skills in a new app. But the engagement levels have been really, really good, and especially in the dance classroom where we're not necessarily sitting at the desk or, you know, they don't have their devices, they might not have the devices out. I can just pop it on. And if they've got the jamboard app on their phone, they can. We can just jump in and do some content that way, and then you've got all of the answers there to for them to refer back to later. So yeah, overall, really positive. You know, you can add images, you can add gifs you can add different things. So also too they're not. They don't necessarily have to give their answers or interact with through language and through text they can export. You know they can express their ideas through images or gifs or different. You know, things like that. So yeah, overall, really positive and really high levels of engagement, which has been great.

Jackie

I love that idea of being able to communicate without necessarily using language that they can use pictures and they can use images and and that sort of thing. I suppose when it comes to brainstorming ideas as a stimulus for dance composition, that sort of way of communicating would be really great for the students. Are they able to do to put in videos or anything like that as well?

Eugenia

I'm not 100% sure about videos, I think I think it's just images you can upload from your Google drive or from your computer. But I think it's just I haven't tried in the video, but I think it's just restricted to images, although you can do gifs, so they're sort of like, you know, really small video GIF files. Yeah, I haven't actually explored that, but yeah, in terms of composition and dance and stimulus and stuff, it's it's awesome and even you. There's also like a drawing function with it, too. If they're wanting to sort of because, you know, as part of dance, we often and as part of composition process were often doing diagrams or, you know, photos or images off our shapes the body is making, or if you're looking at a full pattern, where they're going to go in the dance or formations. If it's sort of, you know, if it's a group task, they you know you've got that drawing option to to plan out all of those sort of aspect off their compositions. So, yeah, there's lots of awesome opportunities in awesome ways that you can engage in it. It's still new for me, So I'm still exploring eso. I'm not 100% sure about the videos, but I think it's just images.

Jackie

Last question. What would be your advice for teachers wanting To explore jam board or different ways in which you think teachers, particularly dance teachers, would be able to engage with Jamboard to? Activate their students in in dance or in the creative arts in general?

Eugenia

One thing one sort of bit of a advice, I would say is Make sure you have it, like, have a talk to the students beforehand about appropriate use of it. Because sometimes you know they wanted experiment. They wanna be silly. They found it hilarious that they're all adding, you know, they're all in the same document and there are all adding, so that's that's one thing that I found that's really helped. You know that as teachers, we have or as owners of the document. You can see the history of what's happened, but in terms of the dance class, just have no fears. Don't don't let it's a, It's a new bit of technology for me I was, you know, I'm still learning with it, but I'm exploring with my students, so use it for in any way that you need or in that way that you want. But like I said, so many different uses, delivering of content, reflection, you know, assessment for learning, planning for compositions. Just run with it and just yeah, experiment and have fun.

Jackie

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your strategy of the weak with us. Eugenia. I'm sure a lot of teachers would get find some use out of using the jam boards and obviously being a Google app, it's very accessible and easy to use for teachers. to put into their classrooms.

Eugenia

No worries, thanks for having me, Jackie. And can't wait to hear future strategies of the week. Come out.

Jackie

Thank you. Get involved in the conversation by recording your favorite teaching strategy using the strategy of the weak flip grid in the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Creative Arts Curriculum 7 to 12 or contact us via email. Creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au The music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

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Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners, Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all First Nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the Creative Cast podcast series. I'm Jackie King and I'm Creative Arts Project Officer with the Department of Education. Today we are discussing the strategy of the week with Caroline Jarvis, who is a music teacher at Willoughby Girls High School.

Hi, Caroline. Thanks for joining us today to share your strategy of the week.

Caroline Jarvis

Hi Jackie, thanks for having me.

Jackie

You submitted a great video about ‘do it now’ activities, which is a strategy that I really love and particularly for Stage 4. But before we get into that, are you able to tell me a little bit about your context at Willoughby Girls High School and the music classes that you have there?

Caroline

Sure, Willoughby is in Sydney's North Shore, so we are mainly dealing with higher socioeconomic kids, although there is a small portion, there's some housing commission in the area, so we do get a mix, but generally from the highest economic area. We’re also quite near Chatswood which is quite the centre for new Australians or coming out from other countries and want to get their education in Australia. So I think we have just a 50% of our students have another language. A lot of them are in the more sort of developing EALD phase rather than emerging, and that adds some extra challenges in the classroom. We're really lucky that in our local area, the primary schools have really big and amazing band programmes.

Jackie

That’s fantastic.

Caroline

Yeah, a lot of the kids, even some of the schools, have music specialists, but having said that, we get a really wide range of experience of music education in primary school. Some of them are obviously coming in really capable on a variety of instruments, and some of them had never had any musical education whatsoever.

Jackie

Wow, so that's like a big differentiation sort of gap that you need to fill there.

So, your ‘do it now’ activities – what are they?

Caroline

Sure, it came from two places. First of all, we were noticing in our context that Year 7s were coming into high school less equipped than ever to meet the challenges of high school, of changing routines and organising themselves and the Year 7 transition team asked teachers to establish routines in their classroom that were predictable so that when year 7s came into the room, then you exactly what to expect. And so, the ‘do it now’ activities sort of started, firstly as a classroom management routine where we're establishing a consistent routine where Year 7s would come into the room and know exactly what they were meant to do and to create predictability, but also to engage them and learning the second they get in the classroom. The second place it came from, as we had created all these resources in our faculty for Year 7 to sort of revise content at the beginning of a lesson, but we were finding we’d would often skip over them you know, we only have 3 50-minute periods a cycle in Year 8. It's not a lot of time, so we would have best intentions of doing these activities to recap previous content and would actually never get to them because we need to get them on the keyboard, or we need to get them into the listening activity. So my thought was we could utilise that time better when they're coming into the classroom and finding their seat and handing out the books and doing the rolls by actually engaging them in learning straight away. What it has evolved into is something a little bit different, but essentially, we set up these ‘do it now’ activities through Google Classroom. We create a Google form. There's one for every lesson, and they come in straight away, they sit down, they get the device out. It takes five minutes maximum is the idea, and once they're finished, they put their device away and they're ready for learning. And in that time, I mark the roll I, hand out the books and make sure they're all settled and ready to go.

Jackie

Fantastic. I love ‘do it now’ activities, and similarly, when I was at school when I was teaching at Kurri High School, I used to it now activities all the time. Particularly for Stage 4, it’s really important to get them in, get them doing something straight away. So you could do all that business like the marking of the roll, et cetera. So you kind of do it a little bit differently to me in that that you've always just got a Google form. Is that right? So it's always like a quiz?

Caroline

Yes, and it has a lot of positives. What it has evolved into is, we found it this really amazing way to collect lots of quick snapshots or data from student learning, because from the Google form itself, there's a little button that you can export into Google sheets, and you can see all the students’ responses there in a table in front of you. I feel like using data to inform practice has got a bit of a bad rap, but when you're actually setting up the data yourself, then it becomes meaningful if this is the thing I want to measure. So that's been really amazing as far as this differentiation that you mentioned before because we've all had the experience in music where a student comes in and says “I am 6th grade piano” and you assume they have that theoretical knowledge that a 6th grade pianist has, and it turns out they really don't. Or someone who says, I've never done music before and then you get into it and you find that actually they have some musical skills and they go “oh, well, I kind of did it with my primary school teacher”, but obviously did it a lot more. So it's actually really effective in measuring as a pre-test. If you’re starting notes of the treble clef in Year 7, we sometimes say to them look at this ‘do it now’ that you're going to do today, if you don't know it, just put your name and submit it. That's fine. That's your way of telling me that you've never done this before. If you want to give it a go and you're not quite sure, great, but otherwise fill it in. And we’re able to actually use that data to then adjust how we teach and differentiate to particular students. So, if you have seven students that are highly proficient with the treble clef, you give them an activity that sort of gets them to delve into that deeper, maybe performing something off notation. Then you can focus on the group's students that are left that have never done it before without the distraction of the know-it-alls without those students feeling silly because don't know it.

Jackie

Sure, so how have you found that students respond to the ‘do it now’ activities? What's been the outcome of implementing this strategy?

Caroline

I really have found them coming in with that predictability of settling down and knowing that this is what they do as soon as they come into the classroom has helped so much, even with kids that are – in a Willoughby Girls context – a little bit more extreme in their behaviour, because they know what they're meant to do. And particularly learning support kids who sometimes find it challenging to understand an instruction, they don't need to know what they're doing, because straightaway they come in and they do it. But also to just get them focusing on learning straightaway has been really helpful. It's a little bit meta, but I got them to do a ‘do it now’ activity reflecting on the ‘do it now’ activities and one of the things that came out the strongest in a bunch of questions that I asked is they really felt like the teachers knew them better and knew their strengths, and were able to then set them appropriately challenging learning goals as a result, which I just thought was really wonderful.

Jackie

I love that.

Caroline

I think particularly from a well-being perspective as well – look, we've got to be honest, I teach four Year 7 classes. I see them three times for 52 minutes. That’s 110 kids. I don't have a lot of opportunity to get to know them really well, and I do feel like this year I know my students and their strengths and weaknesses so much better that I ever had before. And it's just so easy to just check Sheets, have a scroll through, highlight certain results, but also giving them opportunities to comment to get some more qualitative data if we're going to use this data. To ask them how they feel about things, for them to set learning goals, has just been so revealing about them, not just his learners, but as people.

Jackie

I think this strategy, I actually write down, I've been looking a lot at CESE's ‘what works best’, their 2020 update, and I'm like this strategy hits high expectations, explicit teaching because you're setting that goal straightaway, they're coming in, it's on the board or they know where they've got to go, they know what they're going to do. Assessment, formative assessment, we’re formative assessment every day. Using data to inform practice, classroom management. And you've just touched on well-being one of the reasons I use the ‘do it now’ activity as well is I like to use a ‘ready to learn’ scale for the children to tell me where they're at as they come into the room. So it helps me to check in with students who need to be checked in with. It gives you that time to do all of that sort of stuff while the students are just getting in and getting on with an activity at the start of the lesson.

Caroline

I love that! I might write that one down and take that and incorporate it myself!

Jackie

Yeah, it's lovely. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today and sharing this wonderful strategy. I think it's a really fantastic strategy, particularly for Stage 4 to get them in and to get them settled and engaged in learning straightaway in a classroom situation. Is there anything else you want to add before we finish up today?

Caroline

Yeah, look, we've only implemented this for the first time this year and already I've learned so much and will be changing certain things this year, and I just feel like the opportunities are endless. The more we do it, the more I think, if I can sort of embed a video into this, I could get them – give them a sample of an assessment and get them to evaluate it against the criteria. Like I just, as I said, it started as a classroom management, but it's just evolved into something so much better.

Jackie

That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today, Caroline, and I hope that you might be able to share more strategies on our strategy of the week as we continue to roll out this series further down the line. Good luck with continuing to develop your strategy of the week with the ‘do it now’ activity, and we look forward to talking to you again.

Caroline

Thank you so much for having me, Jackie.

Jackie

Get involved in the conversation by sharing your favourite teaching strategy in the Creative Arts Statewide Staffroom, General channel. You can email us at Creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners, Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Podcast music was composed by Alex Manton and audio production by Jason King.

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