From the Learning Team

Online learning 

Term 3 has begun under difficult conditions. With a return to lockdown and online learning, our staff and students have had to negotiate uncertainty around the length of the lockdown and remind themselves of the online learning guidelines that were used in 2020. Despite these challenges, our community has had a great start to the term. Our staff have been working very hard to create their online lessons, collecting evidence of learning and giving feedback to their students. Our students have also engaged strongly and are attending online meetings and completing their work in a timely manner. 

The following summary of the guidelines are here to remind you of the processes in place here at St Dominic’s to support our students. 

1. All lessons will be sent as a course announcement by 8:30am on the day of the lesson. 
2. Students will be required to read the lesson instructions and complete the set work during their scheduled lesson time for that day. 
3. Work is to be submitted at the conclusion of the lesson, and classroom teachers will follow up with students who have not completed their work. 
4. For some of the lessons this will require your son to be in attendance for an online meeting that will be run on MS Teams. The link for this meeting will be in the announcement, and the meeting will take place during their scheduled lesson time for that day. 
5. As a minimum requirement:  
   • Year 11 and 12 2 Unit ATAR courses will have an online meeting twice in a week 
   • Year 11 and 12 1 Unit ATAR courses will have an online meeting once in a week 
   • Year 11 and 12 NON-ATAR courses will meet at the discretion of the teacher 
   • Year 7-10 courses will have an online meeting once in a week 
6. If there are issues with your son being able to complete the work, please contact the classroom teacher. 

Please also note that staff are being asked to consider setting an appropriate amount of work for their lessons. The College is using 50 minutes per lesson as a guide. This allows students a 10 minute screen break between each class. The 50 minutes in the lesson will be made up of: 

1. A possible introductory Teams meeting or instructional video 
2. Time to read the lesson instructions 
3. Time to read any stimulus provided 
4. Time to complete their assigned work 
5. Time to submit this work 

As always happens, our students are able to work through these lessons at different rates. Please be mindful that teachers are taking the range of students’ abilities when assigning this work. If you do feel however, that the work assigned is consistently too much or too little, please contact the classroom teacher involved to discuss this concern.   

Best of luck in the days and weeks ahead. We hope your families have been travelling safe and well in these difficult times.