Day 9: Melbourne High School and Albert Park College

Yesterday I visited Steve Draper at Melbourne High School and Jane Coyle at Albert Park College.

The daily schedule at Melbourne High School is more similar to what my own school runs: seven 43 minute periods every day. The school is an all-boys school and is selective entry, so students take an exam to get in. Most enter in year 9, but the occasional student enters in the latter years. There seems to be a strong emphasis on marks and scores from the get-go, and Steve told me that sometimes it can be frustrating when the students are more focused on the grade they get than learning the material. I actually think that the Victorian scheme of assessing students puts a stronger emphasis on underdstanding that the NYS Regents- the year 11 course is basically a dry run for year 12 and it's relatively low stress. 

I observed a physics 12 class on electric power and transformers. Steve did some awesome demos including melting nails and solder. The students were really engaged by this. Then I observed a year 11 prac (lab), during which the students were looking at the I vs. V curve for a globe (light bulb). They were using a different experimental setup than I employ for this sort of activity: breadboards, variable resistors, and a single 9V battery. I usually do it via the Modeling-esque version of batteries and bulbs, which has the students build a simple circuit and then add additional batteries. I can't get the same fine scale for really small voltages, but in terms of setup and data collection it goes faster. It was really interesting to see the same activity I do executed a different way. Finally, I observed a year 12 maths methods course (by the way, NEVER call it math here). It was about binomial distributions, and their teacher was pushing them well past the content that they're likely to see on the state test and into confidence intervals. Neat stuff.

After my visit Steve and I went for coffee with Dan O'Keefe. We had an interesting discussion about the nature of education and how schools can best prepare students. Steve made an interesting point about how the current educational system is basically a remnant of a different time and we're headed for a vastly different future. He recently attended an edutech conference (http://www.edutech.net.au/) and mentioned that the skills employers most want out of graduates are adaptability and creative problem solving abilities. I agree wholeheartedly and think that it's high time that traditional education be re-imagined.

Speaking of which, this leads me to my visit with Jane Coyle at Albert Park College. Albert Park is a state-run school and is not selective entry. It is a very new school- the current year 11 class is the first cohort to go through. The school has such a strong reputastion that people have begun moving to the area just so that their children can attend it. This is actually a bit of a problem, as the space is not quite big enough for the extra classes that have been added. It puts a strain on the staff and the building.

The facilities are really nice: large open spaces and small tables for group work. All the students bring their own device to class every day, so there is no need to have permanent desktops around the room. The school has an excellent set of Vernier equipment which it puts to good use with lots of student-centered activities. Jane also uses a flipped style, but it's not just straight videos. Her students are also expected to do reading assignments outside of class, but Jane stressed that the reading quizzes she administerers via Google Forms are just for comprehension/completion, not to check to see if they fully understand everything. That role is saved for clas time. Periods are 60 minutes and students generally meet 4 periods a week: two singles and a double.

The Year 11 double period I observed on a Friday afternoon was remarkably focused and the students had a lot of energy. They worked Newton's second law problems in small groups and then worked on an Atwood prac. It was nice that they all had electronic access to the writeup sheet and instructions so they could start their reports right then and there (Google Sites).

There are 7 girls taking year 11 physics out of a total of 31. There were 4 in the class I observed, and I asked them if they were going to continue on next year. Two of them said they will definitely take year 12 physics. The third said maybe- she seems to struggle a bit with the content. The fourth is trying to decide between physics or a pre-university course that she can earn university credit for taking.

Jane and I had a great discussion about why so few females take physics in Australia. This was actually the focus of her Masters work, so she was very well informed! Her research, which involved surveying female students in maths methods courses, found that:

• The female students analyze prerequisites for university and know what they need to take. Then they focus on those courses. Since physics isn't a prerequisite for any university courses of stud, they generally dont take it [though this limits their options if they don't end up pursuing medicine]
• A strong indicator of whether or not female students will study physics is a connection with someone who knows science- usually a family member
• Seeing another female who has studied science or teaches science also increases the liklihood that they will study physics
• Finally, exposure to a career that employs physics- especially an altruistic career or one that involves helping people or society such as Engineers Without Borders- increases the liklihood that girls will study physics

Jane works very hard to be visible and get to know the younger students in an effort to grow the school's physics enrollment. It is already the highest of the co-educational schools I visited, but she sees a lot of room for improvement. Our research interests are very similar and we had a terrific discussion.

The day ended with an interesting lecture at Melbourne University and then a farewell dinner with Dan, Colin, Jane, Barbara, Neil, and Paul Cuthbert. It has been a fantastic trip and my mind is reeling from everything I've seen- can't wait to implement some of these great ideas next fall! I'd like to formally thank all of the teachers who invited me into their schools, answered my endless questions, and made me feel right at home. I'd also like to recognize that none of this would have been possible without the support of the Rural School and Community Trust- thank you for making this journey happen!