Dear members of the Mount Lilydale Mercy College community,
As we move forward in times unprecedented, it is important that we remain focused on the principles that underline and genuinely make us a community: Spirituality, Community and Learning. I believe we have done this well, yet each day continues to provide new challenges.
Our main focus during remote learning has been to provide explicit teaching and opportunity for deep learning. Over these last weeks this has been highlighted to me in a number of ways.
Firstly, last Tuesday, the College held our first ever totally online Student Progress Interviews (SPIs) over a marathon day between 10.00am and 8.00pm. Although a long day for teaching staff, breaks were built in with a stretch break at the end of every interview. I asked you to respect the process and I am grateful that you did. Leading into the interviews there was some trepidation about the process:
- Some staff had never used Zoom before, as we use Google products with our students, so they were fearful of getting it wrong
- Some feared for the strength of their internet at home, so much so that some staff spent the day in offices on campus
- Some were fearful of losing families in the process and not being able to reconnect with them.
In short, a prolonged consultative process allowed the many obstacles to be overcome, to the point that many have communicated how successful and enjoyable they were.
The SPIs were a success and the process to implement them highlights that new things can be achieved with careful planning. Perhaps this provides a roadmap for future SPIs.
Also, over the last few weeks I have been interviewing prospective students who seek to join our College across Years 7 to 12 for 2021, while panels of teachers have been interviewing for Year 7 in 2022, again using Zoom. In so doing, we have discussed reading and number facts like the times tables. Some families asked questions like: what is the best way to help my child remember such facts?
The answers to questions like this will vary.
Some would say rote learning, but I ways remember the teacher who walked up to the Grade student 1 who was humming the rhythm while the rest of the class chanted the times table. When asked why by the teacher, the student replied “I know the music Miss, but I just don’t remember the words”. Yet many did learn their times table by rote.
Another thing that I tell many students who want to study Maths is that “repetition is the best friend of the mathematician”. I still believe this to be true, but not repetition by rote, but rather repetition at doing and solving. Repetition at application. Repetition at doing what is hard. Repetition that drives a deeper learning.
Recently I came across a summary of an article published in a Principal newsletter attributed to: Flow Is the Opiate of the Mediocre: Advice on Getting Better from an Accomplished Piano Player by Cal Newport in Study Hacks (December 23, 2011).
Mastery by working smart
This year, how can you make progress with your schoolwork and find success even in subjects where you have struggled?
A talented piano player figured out how to make practice more efficient and effective so that every performance was just as good as the audience expected.
Do what doesn’t come easily.
In music, it’s a huge mistake to play the piece from beginning to end. The best musicians drill the most difficult parts. You know where your weaknesses are. Concentrate on those areas and work on them until you have mastered them.
To master a skill, master something harder.
Strong musicians find clever ways to complicate the difficult parts of their music, playing a passage with alternative accent patterns, speed, or rhythm. Try new approaches to the work you find difficult. Ask someone else to explain it to you. Present it to yourself in different ways, like word maps. Move up a level and see if that helps you understand.
Systematically eliminate weakness.
Work out where you are weakest and drill yourself in every way you can think of until it sticks. Ask your teachers what you can do to sharpen up. What works in the subjects you are good at?
Imagine perfection.
Good musicians begin with an image of how a perfect performance will sound, feel, and look and play with a perfect mental image in mind. Less-accomplished musicians play while trying to fix problems as they crop up. Always aim for the best. Good enough isn’t good enough for you. Aim for the best. Ask other students how they have mastered the work and follow their methods.
You may be an excellent musician or sportsperson or gamer. What do you do to improve your game? The same approaches will work in the classroom too. Accept the challenge and make this year one of your finest performances.
There is some great advice here:
- Concentrate on weak areas. Do what is difficult
- Approach weak areas from different aspects and imagine what success will look like
- Everyone can improve
- A good way to ensure you understand something is to try to explain or teach it to someone else, with deep applications.
Like you, I look forward to this Sunday’s announcement of a roadmap moving forward.
God bless
Philip A Morison
Principal
