Individual Reflection

Ideal School- AEG5109

Michael Ghali: 3668493

Individual Reflection:
Coburg West was designed to best prepare students for their transition in to society. The
aim was to implement the AUSVELS strands by providing students with the social skills,
academic information, and problem solving abilities they require to excel in society. The
school is a Co-Ed Government funded School located in the inner suburbs of Coburg and we
as a group are very proud to have close to 1500 students who come from different ethnic
backgrounds studying in our classes which cater for Preps to year twelve students. The area
of Coburg as the Moreland City Council notes is made up of 39.7% of residents not born in
Australia, additional information provided show that 46.6% of those residents speak a
language other than English within their homes (Coburg Profile 2013). The area of Coburg
therefore provides the school with a multicultural blend of students which we are very
proud to have. The purpose of having students come from different ethnic backgrounds
allows the school to mirror Australias multicultural population to students and encourage
them to accept, respect as well as integrate with each other as would be expected of them
when they enter society. Having a multicultural school was also based on findings that
indicate that an ethnically diverse school will allow students to form strong friendships
which help create a supportive social environment so that each student is given the best
possible opportunity to express themselves and achieve their goals as noted by Demanet
(2012).
Our aim when designing our ideal school was to make our students feel valued and not feel
like they are only attending school to make up numbers or because they are forced to do so.
This is why we as a group promoted mutual respect within Coburg West. We recognise that
unless students feel emotionally and physically safe, they wont share real thoughts and
feelings as suggested by (Au, Bigelow & Karp 2007). It was therefore decided that bullying
and put downs are therefore not accepted as well as yelling in the classroom. In addition,
we took necessary steps to control our classroom numbers to give our teachers the best
possible opportunity to teach and an equal opportunity for our students to learn. This we
hoped would allow teachers to give extra attention to students and have the time to
regularly follow students progress. This has been found to help engage students
academically as well as foster students social and emotional development as mentioned by
Kennedy (2011) which is what we wanted to achieve with our students before they
transition in to society.
The general teaching approach that Coburg West takes is based on constructivism. We as a
group felt that the constructivist teaching approach was the best way for our college for we
all had researched it prior to us coming together and felt that it fit perfectly with what we
wanted to achieve in our school. It was agreed that this method would allow our teachers
not to preach but facilitate learning and student outcomes. The approach paralleled what
we wanted to achieve as a school. It was student centred, emphasized active participation
among students as confirmed by Doyle (1983). It engages any previous knowledge students

Individual Reflection

Ideal School- AEG5109

Michael Ghali: 3668493

may have about the subject matter and strongly encourages the use of critical thinking as
supported by Webb (1995).
This is what we as a group attempted to implement in our ideal school and demonstrate in
our presentation. Kieran was presented to the audience as a Coburg West teacher
facilitating a process of learning in his civics class where students are lead through questions
and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate and verbalise new knowledge. We further
implemented the constructivist teaching approach by providing students with real
social/political issues that are relevant to the world they live in, and tasks that promote
thinking, reasoning and meaning-making in the classroom as McGregor (2008) suggests. We
strongly believe in students working together on research topics, presentations and coming
together to discuss and reflect on ideas or findings. This helps as Webb (1995) contends
students in the classroom to develop their critical thinking skills as well as the ability to solve
given problems. It also gives them the opportunity to understand what it means to be a
team player, but also the importance of sharing their constructive views while respecting
those made by others. Those are valuable skills sought after by the workforce and are
important in preparing students for life after school.
The aim here was to give our students the best possible start that we could provide to them.
This is also why we have decided to offer numerous subjects that they can choose from as
well as hire dedicated teachers. This approach is undertaken so that our students are well
supported and have a realistic chance of doing what they are passionate about and are able
to achieve their dreams. Teachers take students for example on field trips to apply
classroom ideas in a real world context to allow students to better conceptualise how
classroom concepts are relevant and applicable to the world they live in. We also encourage
our students to get out in the community and try and give back, but we also allow them the
opportunity to share in the school planning of activities, extra-curricular/educational
programs as well as contribute to the life of the school as was reinforced by Gainor (1973).
There is always an opportunity for students to be engaged and get involved, this exists
within the walls of the classroom as well as outside of that as has been explained. Our
constructive engaging approach at Coburg West means that students regularly attend,
participate in class, and avoid disruptions to the class and their own learning as Finn (1989)
research suggests. By doing that, students are able to develop those skills and abilities
mentioned throughout this article and which are quite desirable by the workforce and
society as noted earlier.
I believe the success we have had with our ideal school comes down to a number of things.
We are all friends in the group and we all share the same teaching approach, constructivism.
This helped us quickly set clear and concise objectives for our ideal school. Members of the
group all practice at Carranballac College (Point Cook), so it made it easier for us to meet
regularly and work on improving our ideal school. We all could see that the constructivist
teaching approach was working well within our classrooms and this is also another reason

Individual Reflection

Ideal School- AEG5109

Michael Ghali: 3668493

we felt so strongly about taking this approach with our ideal school. Having everyone in the
group organised and focused on the given task allocated to them really made our job that
much easier and I believe we each enjoyed the experience rather than resenting the fact
that we had to put together an ideal school. Discussions that we had in class with our peers,
Sarah our lecturer and mentors at school gave us I believe the added confidence we needed
to apply the constructive teaching approach for it was clear that its benefits are many as has
been noted in this article.

Individual Reflection

Ideal School- AEG5109

Michael Ghali: 3668493

References:

Au, Bigelow & Karp 2007, Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, Accessed: 7th April 2013,
Source from: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/roc1/roc1_intro.shtml
AusVELS 2013, Strands, Domains and Dimensions, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and
Reporting Authority (ACARA), Accessed: 31st May 2013, Source from:
http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Overview/Strands-Domains-and-Dimensions
'Coburg Profile', Moreland City Council, 2013, Accessed: 2nd June 2013, Source from:
http://moreland.vic.gov.au/about-moreland/demographics-statistics/suburbprofiles/coburg-moreland.html
Demanet, J & Agirdag, O ,2012, The impact of School diversity on the quantity and quality
of friendships, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol 53, Issue 4, 654-475.
Finn, J. D. 1989, Withdrawing from school. Review of Educational Research, 59, 117-142.
Gainor, L 1973, Effective Student Government In The Elementary School, Education, Vol 94,
2, 129-131.

McGregor, D ,2008, The influence of task structure on students learning process;

observations from case studies in secondary school science, Curriculum Studies, Vol 40, No
4, 509-540.

Kennedy B, 2011, The Importance of student and teacher Interactions for Disaffected
Middle School Students: A Grounded Theory Study of Community Day School, Urban
Education, Vol 46, 4.

Webb, Noreen M; Troper, Jonathan D; Fall Randy, 1995, Constructive activity and learning
in collaborative small groups, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 87(3), Sep 1995, 406423