Kariong Mountains High School

Unity Knowledge Respect

Telephone02 4340 0246

Emailkariongmtn-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Quality teaching

Teachers at Kariong Mountains High School are continually engaged in professional development activities designed to improve their classroom practice. The NSW Quality Teaching Framework provides direction for teachers in their quest to implement exemplary units of work and challenge the unique needs of all students.

An overview of the QT Framework is provided below:

The NSW model of pedagogy

The model of pedagogy presented in the Quality teaching in New South Wales public schools: Discussion paper (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2003) has three dimensions that represent classroom practices that have been linked to improved student outcomes. These three dimensions are:

1. Pedagogy that promotes high levels of intellectual quality.

Intellectual quality refers to pedagogy focused on producing deep understanding of important, substantive concepts, skills and ideas. Such pedagogy treats knowledge as something that requires active construction and requires students to engage in higher-order thinking and to communicate substantively about what they are learning.

2. Pedagogy that establishes a high quality learning environment.

Quality learning environment refers to pedagogy that creates classrooms where students and teachers work productively in an environment clearly focused on learning. Such pedagogy sets high and explicit expectations and develops positive relationships between teachers and students and among students.

3. Pedagogy that generates significance by connecting students with the intellectual demands of their work.

Significance refers to pedagogy that helps make learning more meaningful and important to students. Such pedagogy draws clear connections with students’ prior knowledge and identities, with contexts outside of the classroom, and with multiple ways of knowing or cultural perspectives.