Australia Kaleidoscope PLP

Introduction

The professional leaning program focuses primarily on the resource Australia Kaleidoscope. Session 1 of the program explores the ways in which Australia has been influenced by the peoples and cultures of Asia and is therefore suitable as a stimulus for discussion by a whole staff group about committin to a greater focus on the region.

The professional learning workshop is intended to:

• introduce teachers to the Australia Kaleidoscope curriculum resource
• provide support to teachers in using the case study texts and the strategies and activities designed to support these.

The expected audience of this workshop is teachers of Years 4–6 in the primary school and years 7–8 in the secondary school.

Workshop rationale

The workshop provides teachers with insights into a resource that has multiple applications in the classroom. Primarily, Australia Kaleidoscope is a literacy/English curriculum resource that has been designed to support engagement with Asia in the middle years of schooling. It presents a series of case studies, written in varying genres and text forms, which students can read and use for different purposes such as information gathering, as models for their own writing and so on. Australia Kaleidoscope also provides challenging and stimulating content material for SOSE/HSIE curriculum and raises important issues related to civics and citizenship and values education. Finally, Australia Kaleidoscope offers teachers excellent examples of learning strategies and tasks that stimulate students’ skills in thinking and critique, and facilitate inquiry learning, problem solving and ethical judgements.