COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

APPLIED CURRICULUM PROJECT REPORT

EMTS
Master of Teaching (Secondary)
Preservice teachers are required to complete an Applied Curriculum Project (ACP) Report (using this proforma) on
completion of their project. This form is to be completed by the preservice teacher(s). Reference should be made to
the ACP Plan developed earlier in the year. A brief comment on the professional skills demonstrated by the
preservice teacher (Section A) is required by the ACP Mentor Teacher (or nominee). This document must be word
processed.
This Report must:

Describe the project and its outcomes

Provide evidence of how the aims of the project were met or not met and why with reference to the relevant
educational theory and/or literature or policy cited in the plan
Comment on the progress according to the action plan included in the Plan and advise of any changes to this plan
and the reasons for any amendments
Evaluate the success or otherwise of the expected measurable outcomes with reference to the evaluation
methodology described in the plan.
Describe how each of the five, or more, professional skills (planning, negotiating, project management, problem
solving, team work, time management, evaluating, communicating, reporting and researching) you nominated in your
plan where used/applied during your ACP.
Submission Deadline:
Each preservice teacher is required to submit a copy of this signed report to their
Approaches to Teaching and Learning 1 lecturer in the seminar in the week beginning
12th October, 2015.

Sections 1 5 Preservice Teacher to complete

Section A
complete

ACP Mentor or School Partnership Coordinator to

Preservice Teacher Submitting this report : See list below

Title of ACP

AVID Tutoring Program

School/ Setting

Point Cook Senior Secondary

Address

Cnr Boardwalk Blvd/Bergamot Dr., Point Cook, Vic 3030

Phone

03 9395 9271 Fax __________________________________________

Partnerships Coordinator
ACP Mentor(s)

Chris Mooney

Amee Dunn
Nicole-Marie

Preservice Teachers (PST) that participated in this ACP:

PST Name

Rowena Bautista

Student ID: 3894929

Campus: Footscray Park

PST Name

Matt Carroll

Student ID: 3685033

Campus; Footscray Park

PST Name

Kate Norman

Student ID: 3590252

Campus: FootscrayPark

PST Name
Footscray Park

Hsamuhen Tun

Master of Teaching (Secondary)

Student ID: 4311494 Campus:

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PST Name

Natascha Van Cleave

Student ID: 3888968

Campus: Footscray Park

1. Brief Description of the Project and its Outcomes

Our project is to train for and participate in the AVID Elective at Point Cook Senior Secondary over the 2015 school
year including classes and tutorials. AVID targets students in the academic middleB, C, and even D studentswith
the desire to go to college and the willingness to work hard. They may be first in family to attend university or come
from underrepresented groups in the university system.
Tutors role is to support these students in the rigorous coursework by supporting students to use the AVID
organizational and study skills, develop critical thinking, ask probing questions, seek academic help from peers, and
participate in enrichment and motivational activities that will keep them on the university track.
OUTCOMES for the STUDENT
Students are able to consistently practice Costas Level of Thinking in their respective subject areas that will achieve
positive academic results. This can be measured through their scores seen in their TRFs (Tutorial Request Forms)
that encompasses pre-work inquiry and reflection that will empower them to develop skills of higher order thinking and
organisational discipline.
A strong development of academic writing and reading skills. Results can be seen in SAC results
Enhancing organisational skills through accurate Cornell note-taking and resource organisation
Students have learnt academic skills that are not targeted in other classes
Students develop a sense of hope for personal achievement gained through hard work and determination

2. Provide evidence of how project aims were met or not met and why with reference to relevant
educational theory/or literature or policy cited in the plan.
The aims of AVID are as follows:
A. Create a non-traditional classroom setting wherein the academic and emotional needs of every student are
achieved.
This aim was achieved by having an AVID tutorial in an open cafeteria environment. Each tutorial session consisted of
three smaller tutorial groups with a tutor (the PSTs). The Department of Education and Training has six Principles of
Learning and Teaching, one principle is the learning environment is supportive and productive (2015), in every AVID
tutorial lesson, students are encouraged by their tutor to participate, to have various teaching strategies when
students have little motivation, and to give students a mini break when the presenter is feeling stuck.
B. Empower students by making them the centre of decision-making regarding their educational goals.
Students lead one another with collaborative group discussions and questioning to determine the answers to the
presenter's question. Tutors and the AVID teacher are merely guides in this student-centered activity.
*NOTE: Collaborative discussions and the inquiry process are the keys to tutorials, not necessarily coming up with
the exact answers. There will be times students might leave tutorials with their questions unanswered and this is
okay. If a student comes to the conclusion that they cannot answer their question, it leads them to realize they must
seek further help from their teachers, parents, etc.
C. Allowing students to take the initiative and outline their willingness to learn and set long-term goals for their
overall success and improvement.
D. Provide student supports to the students from teachers and trained tutors.
E. Developing a curriculum focusing in academic reading and writing.
F. The highly reliance of Socratic (highly order thinking) process in all subject or topic discussions.

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3. Comment on progress according to your Action Plan and advise of any changes to this plan and these
reasons for any changes.
As part of being reflective practitioners we have added a section on how the project impacted on our teaching or what
we have taken away from it that we can apply to our practice.
With student outcomes, we were not able to assess final SAC results because our placement ended before the end of
term. Our outcomes, in relation to students, are based on improvement of ongoing work and feedback from our ACP
mentors and our observation of improved questioning, organisation of notebooks, and TRFs.
4. Evaluation
Evaluate the success or otherwise of the outcomes with reference to the evaluation methodology described in the
plan.
As mentioned, the long term goals of the AVID program are to increase tertiary education participation and, in doing
so, better equip students with the tools they need to be successful in their studies. Evaluation of these long term goals
are obviously hard to quantify, however, there are many ways in which we were able to determine successes and
failures, for both the students and ourselves.
EVALUATION OF STUDENT OUTCOMES
As tutors we had the unique ability as educators to take a step back and observe the group without having to take the
lead ourselves. This afforded us the opportunity to evaluate student performance and participation through
observation.
We were able to observe:

Active student participation

Initially student participation was sub-par, with students not asking any questions at all. Through discussions with the
tutor group and mentor teacher, we devised a strategy that would allow us to quantify the involvement of students in
the tutorial process. This strategy was for the students to hold question sticks and hand one over for each question
asked. We found that this strategy worked tremendously well with students actively participating in each tutorial group.

Explicit use of Costas levels of questioning

In the beginning students often needed to be reminded to use proper questioning techniques (Costas Levels of
Questioning). As the year went on, however, the students became very good at not only using the right questioning
techniques but also policing that aspect of the tutorials themselves.

A-ha moments
The most obvious chance to evaluate the success of a tutorial is when the student has an A-ha moment. The A-ha
moment is achieved when, through the questioning of their peers, the student manages to clarify their point of
confusion for that session.

Tutorial Request Forms

Tutorial Request Forms (TRFs) are the students pre-work forms for the tutorial sessions. After each session the tutors
would have the TRFs handed to them and assessed. The tutor would assess the TRF for clarity of ideas, use of
proper questioning, extensive pre-work and how, overall, comprehensive the TRF was. The individuality of the TRF
forms makes it hard to comment on in terms of success or failure but we can say that the students responded
extremely well to our constructive feedback and the quality of TRFs improved based on that feedback.

EVALUATION OF TUTOR OUTCOMES

Build relationships with the AVID students
The AVID students organised a thank you party and recognised each tutor for specific contributions to their learning
with awards. The mentor also made mention of the relationships built over the year.
Confidently use the AVID model of tutoring including Socrative questioning, Cornell notes, Costas higher level of
thinking, organization of materials
Each tutor became independent in leading their tutoring groups by the end of the year without referring to the mentor
or references to keep sessions going or encourage AVID expectations.
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 Identify what elements from AVID we can implement into our practice
Tutors have integrated a variety of AVID skills and practices into their classrooms. Socrative questioning has become
a favourite in the English classrooms. Cornell notetaking skills have been implemented in the History classrooms and
in all of our classrooms Costas Level of Thinking Questions are explicitly taught and used. Our classroom teachers
have made note of our expanded tool sets.
Professional learning development that builds explicit skills
Through AVID training and continual mentor and colleague feedback sessions we have built a variety of skills listed
below.
5. Professional Skills Utilised

Professional Skill #1 Evaluating

Evaluate student production to determine needs for future sessions using tutorial worksheets, notes,
consistency of use of higher level question, success of student led tutorial and discussions to compare
against the AVID expectations. This evaluation is done independently and then honed in tutor team meetings
and discussion.
Professional Skill #2

Planning

Analysing data gathered from our team meetings and tutoring sessions to plan sessions that target areas of
need. A frequent issue was the type of questioning students were asking were not high enough and they
didnt follow the AVID model of engaging and leading the session without tutor interference. They couldnt see
the value in running it correctly. So our tutoring team modeled what a good student led session and a poor
student led session looked like and had the students evaluate us, giving constructive feedback. It is one
example of how we planned according to student need based on evidence.

Professional Skill #3

Communicating

During meetings we communicated honestly regarding student progress and areas of concern in addition to
our own areas of weakness and need for advice. For example, changing groups to mix up skill levels and
also to create groups that propelled each other was necessary. Our team expressed concern, agreed on a
unified approach and implemented the approaches. We then evaluated them again at the end of the session
to see if our ideas were working.

Professional Skill #4

Team work

Team work is an integral part of the AVID program. Encouraging the students to work in teams, give
constructive advice, hold back explanations but lead through questioning and lean on each other to ultimately
solve problems honed our own skills as team players. In our team meetings the AVID style seeped in and we
could see the types of questions and our communication in team work was improving along with our ideas.

Professional Skill #5

Problem Solving

This skill is strongly aligned with team work for this particular project. In improving the way we participated in
a team we also improved the way we problem solved as a group. On a more individual note, we noticed more
resilience as we reminded our students and ourselves to use Costas higher level of questioning. Problem
solving became less daunting and the level of possible solutions were improved.

Professional Skill #6

Reflection on practice

After each session we met as a group to reflect on what we had done, how effective it been and what to do
better, differently or the same in following sessions. We also discussed outside of the sessions what
principles or practices we could use in our own teaching practice outside of the AVID classroom. Reflection
was cemented in our minds as critical skill and practice.

Professional Skill #7

Interpersonal Skills

With every AVAD tutorial, adaptability and self management skills was required. Each tutors need the ability
and willingness to cope with uncertain and changing conditions while facilitating the session such as
responding to students who are misbehaving and not participating in the tutorial. Tutors also had to adapt to
handling the various roles, such as being a preservice teacher, completing university assignments and equally
putting in time to be available for an AVID tutorial. Tutors had to adapt to the different personalities,
communication styles, and cultures. Tutors also needed the ability to work in virtual teams; to work
autonomously; and to be self-motivating and self-monitoring
Master of Teaching (Secondary)

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Section A

Professional skills displayed by the preservice teacher in the completion of the project
(ACP Mentor Teacher (or nominee) to complete)
e.g., problem solving, negotiating, project management, planning, team work, time
management, evaluating, communicating, reporting, researching. Also, whether expected
outcomes, as identified in ACP Plan, were met.

Please note Additional pages may be added if space provided is insufficient.

Signatures

Date

Applied Curriculum Project Mentor Teacher:

School Partnership Coordinator:
Preservice Teachers:

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Please Tick

Victoria University may use this information to advertise and report on the work of Project Partnerships

Note
Preservice teachers must ensure that all signatories (above) receive a copy of this ACP report. Each preservice
teacher in the ACP team will submit a copy of this signed report to their Approaches to Teaching and Learning 1
lecturer in the seminar in the week beginning 12th October, 2015.
This report is downloaded from the PP Website at http://education.vu.edu.au/partnerships/

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