“This is my 30th year in education, and as a former teacher, I’m incredibly fortunate to be in this position where I can influence the evolution of a study design and the curriculum.
One of the challenging aspects of a study design is predicting the future - what will students and teachers need years down the track?
Being a curriculum designer is an amazing role where I feel rewarded throughout the design and implementation process. Below are my reflections on what goes into developing a study design for VCE.
When we look at a study design we work within a cycle which lasts several years. For the Applied Computing Study Design, we have four years to complete this cycle, this is particularly fast paced considering the evolution of AI and other emerging technologies.
Within every study design cycle, we break the review process up into tasks to be performed each year
- First year: support teachers to understand the new content, audit a large number of schools to understand how they are managing the assessment tasks and the study.
- Second year: monitor and collect data from schools, via questionnaires, to determine what works and what doesn’t. Interview key stakeholders.
In Algorithmics (HESS) for example, we share questionnaires with students and teachers. This ensures the student perspective is captured. Based on the data collected, we consider how we will review the study. - Third year: panel review to write the study design, including rural and metropolitan teachers, government, independent and Catholic schools, academics and specialists in education. Comparison and bench marking to other Australian and global jurisdictions.
- Fourth year: implementation of the new study design, develop support materials and professional learning for teachers.
While each study design is unique and works to a different timeline, they all have one thing in common, to support our teachers to deliver high quality curriculum and assessment as a result of review and evaluation, benchmarking and making data driven change.