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Kate Rayner

Welcome and thank you for accessing and engaging in the Assessing collaboration in Health and Movement Science professional learning. My name is Kate Rayner, and I'm joined today by Renee West. We are both part of the department's PDHPE curriculum team. We begin by acknowledging the custodians of the land and waterways where we work and live. We are filming this professional learning on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging, and we extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accessing the professional learning. Through this professional learning, you will define collaboration, identify opportunities for teaching collaboration in the Health and Movement Science 11 and 12 Syllabus, understand how to use the framework for valid assessment of the collaboration outcome HM-11-05, access support available for syllabus implementation, specifically the tools and samples for collaboration. By undertaking the tasks of the professional learning, you'll meet the standard 6.2.2 and 7.4.2.

Renee West

The health and movement science course provides opportunities to explore areas of interest in greater depth, and apply health and movement concepts to various contexts and groups. To equip students to navigate the dynamic nature of health and movement science, emphasis is given to developing the identified skills. Collaboration, analysis, communication, creative thinking, problem solving and research. Today, we'll focus on collaboration.

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Collaboration is not just group work. It can occur online or offline. According to the New South Wales Education Standards Authority, or NESA, definition, collaboration involves active contribution by each member of the group to work towards a common purpose or goal. In the Health and Movement Science Syllabus, our definition of collaboration can be focused on the Year 11 skill outcome, HM-11-05, where students are expected to demonstrate strategies to both interact positively with others and to build a shared understanding of health and movement concepts. The Australian Council for Educational Research, in 2020, through their collaboration skill development framework, defines collaboration as the capacity of an individual to contribute effectively in a group. This involves perseverance, contributing to team knowledge, valuing the contributions of others, and resolving differences. Meaningful or authentic collaboration promotes the building of peer relationships, it fosters peer interactions, and by involving students in different discussions, it enables them to understand different perspectives, and to build a shared understanding through giving and receiving feedback. Through collaboration, students not only become more skilled at working with their peers, but also working with other adults.

Research shows a clear link between successful collaboration and other interpersonal and self-management skills. These skills are embedded in the 2018 PDHPE K–10 Syllabus. Skills such as personal identity, communication, self-awareness, collaboration, inclusion and relationship building, emotion and stress management, empathy building, decision-making and problem-solving, leadership and advocacy, help-seeking and social awareness. By explicitly teaching the skills in the K–10 PDHPE Syllabus, teachers have started to prepare their students for health and movement science.

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A key thing to remember is that collaboration is not automatic. It requires explicit teaching. Putting students into groups is not collaboration. The key is to structure the activities so that learners are mutually dependent on each other, yet they're held individually accountable. So, let's just consider why collaboration is a key feature of our syllabus. Working well with others is a key feature of future employment and education. Increasingly, it's expected that students graduate with strong interpersonal skills, knowledge of group dynamics, the flexibility to work in teams, the ability to lead, to solve problems, and to communicate effectively. Collaboration is among the skills which underpin the Health and Movement Science Syllabus content. In the Health and Movement Science 11–12 Syllabus, there are several opportunities to develop and teach collaboration authentically and meaningfully. And this allows for the variety of situations and learning contexts. There's a strong focus on applying the skill of collaboration to health and movement science concepts. Content should provide opportunities for students to engage in practical experiences, and to develop the skill of collaboration in each core, or focus area. Depth studies are embedded in Years 11 and 12, and they provide a great opportunity for collaboration. The collaborative investigation accounts for 20 hours in Year 11. And there's 2 sections of content, one in each core, or focus area, which models the collaborative investigation, and allows for the explicit teaching and development of collaboration. Through the collaborative investigation, outcome HM-11-05 must be assessed.

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A range of strategies can be applied to support students to develop, apply and to evidence their collaboration through learning. Many of these will promote accountability and shared responsibility or ownership within the group, which will result in more authentic collaboration. So, let's look at 5 specific support examples which you could incorporate into your classroom. Firstly, establishing group norms and processes. Group norms are the spoken or the unspoken rules that guide how class members or group members interact and work efficiently. And usually group norms are implicitly agreed upon rules and standards of behaviour, and they're guided by the classroom or the school rules.

Teaching and/or co-constructing norms is an important process. Creating a group contract is the most effective way to establish these expectations. This clarifies what's expected of each member, and it ensures that group members are clear on how to express respect for the contributions of others, to listen actively, to respect difference in diversity, how to be resilient, and how to give specific, kind and helpful feedback. Contracts allow for a guideline by which groups can troubleshoot if any issues arise. Our second support is negotiating clear group and task objectives and goals. It's important to clearly articulate learning objectives, expectations and assessment requirements. Plan, define and scaffold tasks and activities to ensure that students can achieve the objectives and access the resources, and identify the specific skills to be developed and applied through the tasks. Our third support is allocating and performing roles and responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities should be discussed and negotiated as a group. Allocation of roles and responsibilities should reflect individual strengths and group goals. You can use timelines, project plans, and student checklists to teach the skills to establish common goals, determine and assign responsibility, to negotiate and compromise, and to take responsibility for producing high-quality work. It's important to allow time for students to unpack the requirements of the task in their group so that they can clarify and plan with each other, and with the teacher where needed. Encourage students to take on and share the roles. Our fourth support is the pooling of knowledge and resources to build a shared understanding. Discussion and sharing should enable individuals within the group to build their understanding, to ask questions, to offer perspectives and feedback, to challenge the opinions of others, and to progress towards a common level of understanding. This sharing is for the greater good of the group and for the outcome of the task. Our final support is to use check-ins, self and peer assessment, and to log, track and to monitor progress. These strategies make sure everyone is on the right track and contributing to the work and to the group. Use plans, contracts and group norms to facilitate reflection of self and the team in working towards the goals of the group.

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Our PDHPE curriculum team have reviewed and adapted various frameworks for collaboration to develop guidance for teachers in how to assess outcome HM-11-05 collaboration as part of health and movement science. These frameworks included the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework for Collaboration, and the Australian Council for Educational Research, or ACER, Competencies Framework for Collaboration. Both are excellent guides for how to make judgements and teach collaboration. What we found was that what is explicit in our syllabus for collaboration and the process of collaborative investigation is the need for students to demonstrate strategies. So, what we need to identify is what these strategies are. Specifically, the strategies must be applied, or demonstrated by students to positively interact with others and to develop student understanding of health and movement science concepts. So, it's not just collaborating for an outcome, but rather, authentically working together, and applying a range of strategies to build shared understanding to learn from others, and to assist others to learn from you, whilst interacting positively. This is different to the expectations of the ACER, Cambridge, or other frameworks that we looked at. So, as a team, the department's PDHPE curriculum team created a framework to support teachers and students of health and movement science.

Through the department's framework, collaboration has been split into 3 elements, which are interrelated and linked closely to the components of outcome HM-11-05. Element 1 is based around group dynamic. Element 2 is based around mutual regulation. Element 3 is based around shared understanding. A range of strategies, which can be applied as part of collaboration have been identified for each element. To use the framework to teach or assess collaboration as part of outcome HM-11-05, teachers are advised to select a minimum of one strategy from each element. This strategy could be assessed 3 or 4 times across a task through checkpoints to give observable measures and valid evidence of achievement or progress. For each element, strategies are listed in order of complexity, with accompanying evidence of learning. These are a guide. Teachers can also determine their own strategies or evidence of learning for assessment. Modifications and adjustments should be made based on evidence of students' strengths and areas for growth. The group dynamic element of the framework focuses on the effective interactions within the group. Group members become oriented with each other by recognising personal motivations, strengths, weaknesses, boundaries and communication needs. Working together in group cohesion can support individual members to feel respected and valued, leading to efficient and effective performance throughout the task or investigation. Strategies in this element include communicating needs, identifying strengths, assessing ability to participate in, or contribute to the group. Assessing the ability, needs, and strengths of others for group success. Tailoring communication to the audience or the task, such as active listening to understand, offering constructive feedback that's relevant to the task, establishing clear boundaries and expectations, discussing difference of opinion and perspective to come to an agreement, or to negotiate a way forward for the task completion, or the greater good of the group. The mutual regulation element of the framework encompasses self and social management. It recognises that for collaboration to be effective, all individuals in a group need to contribute to team knowledge, value the contributions of others, perform tasks assigned to roles, and work within the group boundaries and meet expectations. Accountability to self and others is a key feature of this element. Strategies within this element include evaluating own strengths and weaknesses in relation to the group, and matching responsibilities with expertise. Sharing responsibilities for tasks to reach a common goal through making quality and relevant contributions, persisting with tasks when challenged, performing responsibilities, and taking personal responsibility for roles. Discussing individual and group responsibilities at different steps, and monitoring own and others' contribution to the group and overall progress. And adapting roles and accessing assistance or feedback where required. The shared understanding element focuses on the active engagement of all members to contribute to the collective knowledge and understanding of the group, and the progress towards a common goal. Specifically, the actions of group members to develop an understanding of health and movement science concepts applicable to the goals of the task or the collaborative investigation. Strategies in this element include pooling or sharing resources and information, including knowledge, skills and tangible resources. Enhancing one's own understanding as a result of acknowledging or comprehending the perspectives, understanding, or contributions of others. Identifying and evaluating different pathways and options towards the common goal. And supporting others to understand and perform their role. There's a strong relationship between each element in the framework. They interrelate. Use that when selecting strategies to assess, to draw relationships.

Teachers are advised when assessing outcome HM-11-05, they should select a minimum of one strategy, and maximum of 3 strategies from each element. Not all strategies within each element are required to be assessed or identified. Use your discretion based on student prior experience, evidence required and time available, to determine the most suitable strategies. Assess, collect evidence and make judgements at different points of a task, the collaborative investigation, or across the term or year, such as the start, the middle or the end. Selecting one to 3 strategies from each element across the different points in the investigation or task should provide the right type and amount of evidence of learning to assess students against the syllabus outcome. A combination of assessment strategies can be used, including peer assessment, self-assessment, teacher observation and log books or journals to reflect on and make judgments on student collaboration.

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Kate Rayner

There are a number of resources to support the teaching and assessment of collaboration through health and movement science. These are in addition to the other support for health and movement science, including sample scope and sequences, learning programs, summative assessments, information for leaders, tools and samples for depth studies and collaborative investigation. Access our specific collaboration support through the PDHPE 11–12 webpages. Support includes the Collaboration in our classroom document, which is a collation of evidence to guide teachers on what collaboration is, how it can be explicitly taught and assessed, why it is important, and where to go to access more information or resources. The Collaboration framework, which we've already unpacked. It provides the structure of three elements with strategies and evidence of learning to guide the assessment of collaboration as a part of health and movement science. Our logbook guides for teachers and students offer a tool to record and monitor collaboration in a group work context. These guide teachers and students on how to use the logbook as a tool for reflection. They contain a number of questions, sentence starters and statements mapped to the strategies to promote reflection for all students at different points across the collaborative investigation task, term or year, as identified by the classroom teacher.

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Thank you for your time today. You can access other Health and Movement Science professional learning through MyPL. You can also access support from our PDHPE curriculum team, through our PDHPE statewide staff room, or by emailing PDHPECurriculum@det.nsw.edu.au.

Thanks for joining.

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