Department of Education and Training Victoria
Purpose
Art Education Victoria’s Swarm Program aims to build teacher capacity across Victoria in the implementation of the Victorian Curriculum, leading to higher levels of student engagement and achievement in the arts and critical and creative thinking. The program will support the development of four teacher networks over three years, with a reach of 65-100 primary and secondary educators and an estimated impact on 35,000 students during the time of the program.
Swarm will identify and support network leaders in running local professional development days and follow up network meetings throughout the year. It will also include the facilitation of an online community to help continue and promote discussion, with access to video conferencing. Through Swarm, we will work with teachers to identify and plan professional learning needs (APS 6.1) and assist them in engaging in professional learning with colleagues to improve practice (APS 6.2/APS 6.3).
As a result of Swarm, participating teachers will have an increased capacity to understand the content and implement teaching strategies to support it; differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities; plan, structure, and sequence effective learning programs; and assess and provide effective feedback.
Objectives
- Teachers will be better connected with colleagues in their area and have accessible and contextualised professional development networks, programs, and resources.
- Teachers will be able to identify, describe, and discuss with peers the qualities of their teaching practices and that of other teachers that impact upon improved student engagement, participation and achievement in the arts: visual art and the creative and critical thinking capability.
- Teachers will have an applied understanding of how to plan, teach, assess, and evaluate according to the Victorian Curriculum and DET protocols and priorities.
