What's new - November 2005
Welcome to the fourth What's new online newsletter. There are many values education activities occurring in the States and Territories.
In Victoria over 80 schools have applied for funding for their school values forums and Gary Shaw has been busy conducting regional briefings. The Association of Independent Schools in Victoria (AISV) has also begun its professional development in values education.
Queensland has just had its first State Values Education Conference with over 420 teachers. The conference has generated enormous interest in values education and values education forums.
The Northern Territory has published Valuing the EsseNTials – the Northern Territory project implementing the National Framework in the Territory’s schools.
In New South Wales a meeting of over 80 Department of Education and Training consultants from across the State was held in September.
Reviews
Three new reviews appear in this newsletter: two books and one kit with values education activities.
The Really Big Beliefs Project
Steve Waugh presents Chase Your Dream (Kit with DVD/Video)
Gathering data and research
Case Writing is a method teachers can use to determine whether values education is having an impact on the learning outcomes of students. Case Writing is research-focused and evidence-based, as it invites the teacher to observe changes in particular ways. Professor Ron Toomey explains the methodology of Case Writing (pdf) with examples to illustrate how Case Writing can be used to yield rich results in values education.
The Manningham Catholic Primary Schools cluster in Victoria is part of the Values Education Good Practice Schools Project. The cluster has begun to survey students' responses to the nine values in the National Framework and is yielding interesting and rich results.
Case studies
Two case studies with two different approaches to values education are highlighted in the resources section of the site:
Links
There is a new link to materials on values education and sport.