It’s all about
learning!
Mary Manning
School Library Association of
Victoria
The Victorian Essential
Learning Standards
A new approach to
organising curriculum
This curriculum approach
addresses
• The economic and social changes
associated with the development of
our global, knowledge-based world
and their implications for schools,
and
• The growing evidence base about
how people learn and its implications
for teaching that works
A move away from increased
content towards:-
• A student-centred approach
• Developing the learner who can
apply their knowledge beyond the
classroom to new and different
situations
• Autonomous learners
Three interwoven purposes
Students will leave school with the
capacity to:
manage themselves as individuals
and in relation to others
understand the world in which
they live
act effectively in that world.
Three strands
• Physical, Personal
and Social
Learning
• Discipline-based
Learning
• Interdisciplinary
Learning
Balance and equality
• Knowledge, skills and behaviours in
each of the three strands
• Together the three strands provide
the basis for students to develop
deep understanding
• An ability to take their learning and
apply it to new and different
circumstances
• The disciplines are related to the
other strands in a new and
integrated manner
A whole school curriculum
planning framework
Three strands, equally important,
interrelated, cannot be planned in
isolation
Schools determine how best to weave
strands of essential learning together
Use context of school priorities and
students’ needs
Novice learners to expert
learners!
The development involves:
• Noticing features and meaningful patterns
of information
• Acquiring content knowledge that is
organised in ways to reflect a deep
understanding
• Applying knowledge in ways appropriate
to context rather than exercising one’s
memory
• Approaching new situations in flexible
ways
The Humanities
Physical, personal &
social
What’s new?
Greater recognition of the personal
and social skills which students
require
Greater recognition of the cross
curriculum skills which students
require
Statewide standards in these areas
for the first time
Implications for school
libraries
• Skills that have never been explicitly
stated before are now acknowledged and
standards stated
• Interdisciplinary skills and behaviours are
of equal value to discipline skills and
knowledge
• A whole school approach is necessary for
planning
• Integration and collaboration required
• Focus on what is essential for expert or
autonomous learning
Thinking
• Our world and the world of the future demand that all
students are supported to become effective and skilful
thinkers. Thinking validates existing knowledge and
enables individuals to create new knowledge and to build
ideas and make connections between them. It entails
reasoning and inquiry together with processing and
evaluating information.
• Students develop strategies to find suitable sources of
information and learn to distinguish between fact and
opinion.
• Students increase their repertoire of thinking strategies
for gathering and processing information.
ICT
• In their learning of new material, students
experiment with some simple ICT tools
and techniques for visualising their
thinking. They organise and classify
information and ideas, and present them
in a manner that is meaningful to them.
• Students develop an understanding of the
importance of checking the accuracy of
facts that are going to be processed
Where to start?
• What element of the Victorian Essential
Learning Standards appeals to you?
• Find your entry point and then make the
links
(John Firth, VCAA 2005)
• Visit
http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au
http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprint/fs1
/