June 2022

Making Learning Visible Can Become (the) New ‘Normal’ Ms Amy Penberthy and Mrs Kayley Williamson, Health and Physical Education (HPE) Teachers

The title of this article is one of the headlines our Making Learning Visible (MLV) group created to summarise our thoughts on the content we learned through participating in Harvard University’s Project Zero Online course— Making Learning Visible . Working together with other faculty members, Ms Jane Martel and Mr Elliot McGarry, we explored the MLV framework and discovered the benefits of incorporating documentation and group learning practices into our lessons. Furthermore, completing this course as a collegial group added depth to our professional conversations, and provided an opportunity to give each other feedback and strengthen our learning activities. Through classroom observation, evidence collection (artefacts), interpretation, and information sharing, our group explored the following questions: • How do we know what and how our students are learning? • What evidence do we point to? • Does it reflect the cognitive, social, and emotional experiences of our learners? • How can this evidence inform us (and students) in ways that deepen and sustain our learning? Creating a culture of thinking has become integral to the pedagogical practices within our classrooms at Brisbane Girls

Grammar School. We often reflect on our teaching practice, whether that be through self reflection, discussions with other teachers, or sharing our lessons with family members. Constantly, and through reflection, we ask ourselves, ‘was learning visible in my classroom today?’ Making learning visible is imperative within any classroom—however, often the only representation of learning that is evident is through exam results, grades, and rankings. Such numbers are not always the best indicators of depth, variety, and complexity of learning. Throughout the Project Zero Online course, we were prompted to think about how we could utilise documentation to make learning visible. This resulted in many new concepts and ideas that could be used within classrooms. In particular, the Five Principles of Learning that we explored across the course helped to identify ways we could make learning more visible in our classrooms. ‘Learning is purposeful’ and ‘Learning is empowering’ were two of the five principles that connected the most with our faculty group. Classrooms that make learning visible, like many other effective classrooms, are organised around understanding, knowledge, and skills that are purposeful—relevant to the learner, the discipline, and often the larger community. Purposeful learning is also shaped by the passions and interests of the teacher, and entails making learning relevant to the world beyond the classroom.

Student work sample of visible thinking and learning

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Brisbane Girls Grammar School