6 Pillars of Learning – A time for ‘Review’ (Part 2)

Recently, I published 6 Pillars of Learning – A time for ‘Review’ (Part 1.) I made the point that Review – the future of assessment can open up possibilities to assess our 6 Pillars of Learning, an adaptation of  Australian General Capabilities, without compromising our rigorous tracking of learning outcomes as required by NESA – and that is very exciting!

A few weeks back, a team of 5 teachers gathered and:

• Reflected positively about the potential of Review to assist students and teachers with the assessment of the 6 Pillars;
• Confirmed there are far too many ‘sub categories’;
• Asked, “Do the pillars represent what we want?”
• Proposed to ‘split’ “Think Creatively and Critically” to “Think Critically” and then
• replace “Be Digitally Literate” with “Make and Create”.

We also tabled the following considerations:

• Relate doesn’t really indicate how we work with each other.
• Manage doesn’t necessarily talk about how we manage ourselves?
• Descriptors limit what is given to students. “Explain” or identify rather than actions. Actions are what should be given.
• We need a clearer indication of the strengths basis throughout.

With this in mind, we then bounced around more relevant titles of the 6 Pillars

• Witness, Manage, Relate, Communicate and Collaborate, Think Critically, Work Creatively.
• Witness, Manage, Relate and Collaborate, Communicate, Think Critically, Work Creatively.

We then asked what does “Work Creatively” mean? Well, it means working in the practice of your subject (eg. practice of working as a mathematician, scientist etc. I stress, these were initial reflections.

A few more iterations and the team came up with an update on the 6 Pillars. Namely:

• Witness
• Manage
• Relate and Collaborate
• Inquire and Communicate
• Think Critically
• Work Creatively

Knowing that currently there are far too many sub-elements, we then looked at what we perceived to be current duplication of sub-elements and drafted the following…

WITNESS

• Appreciate diverse perspectives
• Explore ethical concepts in context
• Change stereotypes and prejudices
• Recognise ethical concepts
• Identify the impacts on society
• Explore rights and responsibilities

MANAGE

• Making Positive Choices of Making Good Decisions (Instead of ‘Make Decisions’)
• Regulating Emotions (instead of Recognising Emotions)
• Utilising Strengths (new)
• Being organised (new)

RELATE AND COLLABORATE

• Understand relationships
• Work Collaboratively

INQUIRE AND COMMUNICATE

• Communicate Effectively
• (Access, Collect) Organise and Process Information
• Transfer knowledge into new contexts.

THINK CRITICALLY

• (New) Solve Problems
• Seek Solutions and put ideas into action
• Thinking about Thinking – Metacognition.

WORK CREATIVELY

• Generate solutions to challenges and learning areas tasks.
• Generate ideas, plans and processes
• (New) Practice working as (a scientist, mathematician, musician etc.),
• (New) Make

The working party of 5 know this is far from complete. All teachers will need to be involved quite a few times as part of the next phase in this ‘Review’ process.

Looking at the above, and remembering this is a round 1 Draft suggestions… 

• I like that there is a reduction in the sub-elements from 56 to 22;
• I wonder about the place or addition of dispositions such as empathy, perseverance and tenacity;
• I am unsure about the wording and titles; and,
• I look forward to the ongoing discussion with teachers before we work closely with the people from UTS and engage with Review.

Comments are welcome.

Greg.