Professional Learning Institute

This professional learning supports the Single Gender Classes Project which is a trial of single-sex classes in five Western Australian public secondary schools.

The program consists of four Modules with the Introductory and Final Modules comprising the mandatory 'bookends', scheduled at the commencement of, and late in the school year.

Teachers involved in the project identify and pursue action learning around their own issues in meeting the needs of boys and girls.

Modules 2 and 3 will take the form of facilitated, structured conversations around issues and successes, to promote the sharing of practice and the development of networks.

An additional suite of optional, one day workshops will be customized to respond to the needs of schools, where required.

Plans include online support to allow teachers to access information and advice at point of need. They will be able to join online discussion with their colleagues, in facilitated forums, as well as form networks with others with common interests, and access resources and research on single gender education.

Samples of feedback from participants:

• "I feel a lot more comfortable with what I do everyday in the classroom, and I have new ideas about how to implement the Single Gender Project."

• "Relevant, innovative, helpful - through experience. I already do a lot of what was suggested, but it made me reassess my teaching."

• "I enjoyed the professionalism of the presentation."
• "Will make me think more about my content/delivery/assessment - more reflective practice."
  

May 2006