Catalyst in practice
Merici College has been participating in Catalyst in 2021 as part of the System’s 56 Schools.
Renee Taylor, Deputy Principal Teaching and Learning says the College was excited by Catalyst’s “Strong focus on teacher pedagogy to improve literacy and numeracy in our students, particularly around the bold goals,” and its system-wide approach which opens the door to increased collaboration between schools as well as primary and secondary teachers.
“After our first system day in January the staff were just buzzing…this focuses on what good quality teaching looks like and the heart of what we do with kids. We had a large group of teachers participate in the High Impact Teaching Practice Professional Learning– across all departments of the school, this served to engage our teachers positively knowing they were participating with colleagues from across the system. When we did the Science of Learning Online Unit in MS Teams which focused on cognitive load theory, there were so many light bulbs that went off for teachers – such as ‘I really need to be careful of how I am constructing my test papers, how I am constructing my activity work sheets – the manner I am designing’, as that can have a significant effect on student’s ability to engage with material and learn,” she says.
Assessment data, progressive achievement test (PAT) data on spelling, reading, maths, as well as student surveys at Merici reveal that Catalyst has had a significant impact. “Regardless of age level, when you look at the bottom tier of learners, this has really brought up the bottom, has shifted the middle, and has extended a little bit the top – but not as far as we would like yet,” says Taylor.
Merici has used Catalyst learning programs to train teachers in reading intervention and will train staff in 2022 in The Writing Revolution.
