Professional Learning Program

Our Professional Learning Program utilising an interactive tool www.pdtrack.com.au, comprises PLTeams of small groups of teachers who shared a common pedagogical goal in order to improve student outcomes. The PLTeams use the action-research model of defining an improvement classroom goal which is linked to the thinking curriculum and the latest research on improving student engagement, connectedness, integrating ICT and empowering students to explicitly learn about learning and thinking.

Our school has embraced the PLP. Teams formed over the past few years have explored and continue to explore, integrated cooperative learning, the thinking curriculum, Art Costa’s Habits of Mind, the Three Storey Intellect, problem-based learning, metacognition and fertile-rich tasks, just to name a few. It is within PLTeams that the guiding principles of Xplore are action-researched by examining current practice, researching, trialling, evaluating, and redefining the desired powerful, personalised learning.

The second major component of our PLP is our on-site PD program. In 2006, there were 170 sessions and the numbers continue to rise. Some PD which has impacted significantly on the Xplore program, teachers and students has been Intel: Teaching to the Future where many staff have been intensively trained to integrate technology into instruction to develop students’ higher-order thinking skills and enhance learning. Teachers experience new approaches to create assessment tools and align lessons with educational learning goals and standards. Approximately thirty-three per cent of our current on-site PD is ICT-related.

The school has adopted the Yoram Harpaz Community of Thinking model where teachers and students are committed to collaborative and cooperative learning in order to promote a powerful learning community of life-long learners. Our community is not confined to the boundaries of these walls. It extends to our cluster primary schools and tertiary institutions such as Swinburne University and Melbourne University and the wider world. The University of Melbourne works closely with our Xplore students using ICT to examine how the students apply thinking skills to solve problems.

Our ongoing commitment to the Professional Learning of our Leadership Teams and staff has also seen us host and work with several International education thinkers such as Yoram Harpaz and Adam Lefstein, Professors David Perkins and Stone Wiske (Harvard University), Dr Loretta Giorcelli and Professor Con Stough (Brain Research Institute, Swinburne University) as well as providing opportunities for participation in local, interstate and international Conferences and Workshops.