Created by Trinity Grammar School staff and designed to engage students in areas of inquiry that interest them, Trinity’s 25-hour courses are sparking new passions and taking their place in the Stage 5 learning experience.
How does building a siege engine sound? What about trying your hand at shoe design or building a Tiny House? Investigating the world of YouTube influencers? Digging into the world of philosophers? Dabbling in data crunching?
These are all short, 25-hour courses available to students looking to solidify their choices for Year 9 and 10.
Ms Deborah Williams, Deputy Headmaster – Academic, says research literature consistently shows that Stage 5 is a ‘fallow spot’ where academic engagement can ebb. Rather than be defeated by this trend, Trinity saw an opportunity to innovate the curriculum to meet students where they were at, nurturing their engagement and continuing to build skills for academic success.
Enter Trinity’s 25-hour courses. Taking place over a term each, students choose three courses that interest them. The courses are designed by Trinity staff and will not be listed on students’ Record of Student Achievement, however they have been created intentionally to provide choice, challenge, breadth, depth, and inquiry, meeting criteria for high quality learning design, academic rigour, and meaningful preparation for Stage 6.
They are rigorous learning opportunities that enable students to showcase deep skills and understanding both in the short courses and in their overall semester grades and outcomes across all subject areas.
“Studying an English or Maths syllabus is much more prescribed and it can be harder for students to grasp that sense of agency,” Ms Williams says, noting that this agency is exactly what Stage 5 students are looking for as they face some big decisions about their own learning journey.
The courses are deliberately interdisciplinary, providing students with opportunities to explore the kinds of connections between disciplines that allow them to engage with complex problems, contemporary issues, or questions or personal relevance.
They are intended to increase capacity for independent inquiry by engaging for a single term within an area of strong interest. Through these courses, students learn to pose questions, research to explore these questions, synthesise findings, and communicate outcomes in a variety of mediums.
Ms Williams says that the short bursts of engagement keep things moving along so that students stay engaged and, if the course isn’t for them, they aren’t left feeling like they made the wrong decision.
“It’s low stakes for the boys, but high value in terms of those academic dispositions and academic behaviours we’re looking to nurture,” she says. “Through these short courses, they’re learning to shape an area of inquiry for themselves, which is really key to both the IB program and the HSC in Years 11 and 12.”
For some students, it can also be a pathway to zero in on their choices for Stage 6. Ms Williams says that it’s not uncommon for her to hear from students that the 25-hour courses have sparked a new interest in an area they hadn’t considered before and that they’d like to change their Year 10 electives to continue learning along a certain pathway.
Choice and agency are at the heart of these courses, where students are supported to step into the kinds of self-directed learning essential to future academic success.
Feedback surveys have shown that the students appreciated this approach and, even when they felt they had chosen their electives incorrectly, they could still understand how the skills they learnt would be of benefit to them.
One student remarked that the 25-hour courses had been a good reminder “[not to] choose something that your parents want you to choose, choose something you want to do.”
Ninety-three per cent of students agreed that the elective options – including the 25-hour courses – gave them a sense of challenge in their learning and 91 per cent agreed that the electives had allowed them to deepen their understanding of themselves as learners.
“We want the boys to be self aware learners, able to reflect on their own learning skills and learning behaviours. This is a landscape where they can really do that. It’s easier for them to reflect on how they went about learning. What we notice is that the boys are able to talk about iteration and learning from failure and inquiry – talking about what they decided to do; that language of agency really comes through.”
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