Page 24 - 2018 CA Workshop Booklet

Workshop Booklet

A LS Community contact in each state has been set up:

• Jon Arnold (WA)
• Steve Craig (SA)

• Myles Christian (TAS)

• Bill Hales (NSW)
• Phil Thomas (VIC)

• Mark Muller (QLD)

There really shouldn’t be a student with LS needs who copes worse via VC. If the pedagogy is right and the
teaching is right it should address these concerns. There are facilities in zoom that actually make it easier for
teachers to address this. Along with canvas, if the courses are differentiated well, it should make it easier.
Teachers are variable. If you do have a teacher that doesn’t have knowledge of these things, the student
may struggle. We are trying to get consistency across the country. Julie Murray from Woodthorpe is getting
the above team together in order for the teachers that are working with those students to get the support
they need. There are some things that we can teach the teachers that they need to be mindful of, but it
really is about pedagogy. We are in the process of collecting information from teachers across the country.
Based on this information we can work out what support the teachers need.

Q: What is the percentage of difference in VC exposure between a large campus and a small campus?
A: There is definitely a difference. This gap is narrowing. Just because you can run a face to face class well,
it doesn’t mean you always should. If we’re trying to increase student participation, we really need to focus
on that area. There is a lot of anxiety from parents with regard to VC because they have been so used to face
to face teaching. However, the notion that VC is a second-best option to F2F is not correct. Patrick McGing,
NSW RP, absolutely rejects that VC is an inferior platform. Most of our highest achievers are from small
campuses. The Dux of NSW in 2017 who scored an ATAR of 99.75% did most of the courses by VC . This is a
very powerful fact which should be distributed to parents. A statistical exercise last year of F2F vs VC classes
in NSW showed no difference in results. Largely all the IT issues have been overcome. A key focus will be
upskilling our teachers.

Q: How to provide help for students who are struggling and whose parents choose to ignore the fact?

A: This is always a challenge and must be treated sensitively. Parents often ignore their child’s learning
difficulty as they feel they maybe cannot assist or that it will simply reinforce the child’s feelings of inade-
quacy. MAP growth will make this more visible and also present both the students and the parent with data
to show improvement. This will be positive. There is a greater need for communication with parents to
reassure them that the intention is improvement not reinforcing the negative feelings the child and parents
may have.

CA Bootcamp 2018