From the Director of Pymble Institute

I was honoured recently to contribute to the Association of Independent Schools (NSW) annual research symposium through delivering an online workshop and participating in the panel discussion. The focus of the event, Leading Evidence Informed Practice, allowed me to share how the Pymble Institute is enabling research-rich thinking and practice with a particular focus on student-guided, lead and co-developed research through my presentation on embedding student voice in research. Like many other schools and research projects intentionally encouraging and using children and young people as designers and evaluators, the Pymble Institute is committed to exploring more authentic and impactful ways to place students at the centre of research which affects them.

Interested readers can source a large body of literature on student voice as it is a topic of much discussion amongst education academics. The themes of power and participation, along with respect and rights, are core to engagement between children and adults, students and teachers, and schools and universities. At Pymble, we are exploring ways of furthering student voice in research in activities including:

• The College Ethics Committee – involving students, staff and external members who review, evaluate and approve internal and external research projects.
• The student research conference – run for the first time this year, planning for the 2023 conference is now underway. Save the date for 17 May 2023.
• The student research journal, Perspective, currently in production with a team of student editors and designers working with over 30 submissions.
• The Year 12 Anti-Racism and Allyship initiative which researched and developed curriculum through a partnership with Professor Fiona White, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Sydney. The team also conducted research and analysed survey data to understand the impact of the curriculum on their peers.

In my conference workshop, I invited participants to reflect on the activities they are using, or could use, to include students in research at their school and to consider how these activities contribute to school culture. We also discussed the opportunities and risks of engaging students in research, and how these elements aligned with more transgressive and transformative forms of student voice in research.

An educational researcher I find inspiring in this regard is Professor Peter Renshaw from the University of Queensland who is co-researching and co-writing with teachers, Environmental Education Centre leaders, community environmentalists and school students in research supporting nature-based education and student involvement in this important area. I highly recommend Peter’s work and that co-written with Ron Tooth and co-presented with teacher Harriet Mortlock and students, Lucie and Reshma, including the paper, Feeling for the Anthropocene: Placestories of living justice, The Australian Education Researcher (2021, 48, 1-21).

Next time you find yourself or a colleague saying you’ll need to ‘capture, obtain or listen to student voice’, consider the following:

• What’s the purpose of seeking student voice?
• What will you do with what you hear?
• How prepared are you to really listen?
• How will the process assist students to take action themselves?

My thanks go to colleagues from the AISNSW Evidence Institute for an excellent conference and to participants from schools within and beyond the independent schools network for their collegiality and input.

Best wishes for Term 4 and the end of the year,

Dr Sarah Loch

How can students and staff connect with the Pymble Institute?

Pymble Institute (PI) helps curious staff answer questions ~ through research

With the establishment of the Pymble Institute in 2021, staff of the College are more aware of the services available to support research and the possibilities that can come from our services. Using our experience as teachers and researchers, we can help teachers with action research to improve their teaching practices, or connect them to research or researchers in their field of inquiry. The PI also works closely with the library and professional learning teams to offer support to staff undertaking postgraduate qualifications.

Pymble Institute links academics to teachers and students

The College receives many requests to join national and city-wide research projects involving children and teachers. The PI acts as a gateway to filter research projects which will be relevant and valuable to our community through the lens of our Strategic Pillars: Social Intelligence, Digital Intelligence, Academic Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence. How is this achieved? It is important to weigh up the benefits of participation against undesirable ‘participation fatigue’, and our student and teacher Ethics Committee plays an important role. Some of the recent projects assessed by the Ethics Committee include research into children’s screen time; social media use by girls; learning dance moves and patterns in primary Maths and eye-tracking of online learning tasks. Professors Kun Yun and Nick Hopwood from the University of Technology Sydney recently visited the committee to be interviewed on their proposed research project which was a different way of ‘going through ethics’.

Pymble Institute gives teachers a channel to present and publish their work

With the publication of Illuminate: Research and Innovation, staff have a medium through which to reflect on their work and initiatives. By giving them an outlet and framing their work in research, it helps staff reflect on the “why” of their practice, further deepening their own thinking and understanding. 

Anna To and Hamsa Venkataraman are two English as a Second Language/Dialect Teachers supporting students across Years K-12 at the College. They were invited to prepare a staff workshop on “Working with Multi-Lingual Learners K-12” as part of the Professional Learning Staff Day: Social Intelligence Pillar held at the commencement of Term 4. Although both teachers had more than 40 years of teaching experience between them, explaining the theories behind second language acquisition and trans-languaging strategies for the classroom saw both practitioners bring research to staff in an accessible way. Their intense collaboration of ideas and research culminated in a fascinating workshop for teachers who went away with greater knowledge of their multi-lingual students and ways to include children’s first language in the classroom. Preparing to turn their workshop notes into an article for the publication, Illuminate: Research and Innovation, further consolidates educators’ understanding of the research underpinning their teaching and also speaks to a broader audience of the College and beyond.

Researching AI in the Data Science classroom

The Pymble Data Science team (which teaches classes from Year 9 to 10) has been working on pilot research which has been co-designed with the University of Technology Sydney and Pymble Ladies’ College. The goal of the research is to help teachers design even more effective online tasks in future. This joint project brings together academics from UTS Education and International Studies (Professor Nick Hopwood, Dr Tracey-Ann Palmer, Dr Mun Yee Lai) and UTS Data Science Institute (Dr Kun Yu, Dr Yifei Dong) with Data Science teachers (Cedric Le Bescont, Anthony England, Kim Maksimovic and Dr Glen McCarthy). Victoria Adamovich, the Pymble Institute’s Research Assistant, is coordinating the project along with Dr Gloria Koh from UTS.

The project is investigating how we can use new technology (specifically Artificial Intelligence) to better understand what it is like for students working on online tasks. Technology developed by Dr Yu, Dr Dong and colleagues from the Data Science Institute can track where students look on the screen, for how long, where they move the cursor, how intensely they focus, and facial expressions including eye and head movement which suggest concentration and distraction. The data collected is not in video nor photo-form, but has been transferred into code. The code helps the researchers understand student engagement – what students pay attention to when they are working on a task, how long they remain focused on the screen, what might be more or less challenging in the task and what happens to eyes and the body in different parts of the task.

The UTS team are working with students from our Data Science classes as they work on an online task relating to their curriculum. Focus groups are helping to unpack how students experienced the task. The researchers will then put both types of data together to understand the features of tasks that work most effectively to engage students. 

We are looking forward to opportunities for Pymble’s Data Science students to then go ‘behind the scenes’ with the UTS team as they learn more about the technology and how research is utilised. The current pilot will pave the path for larger studies in other schools in the near future.

For more information, contact the Pymble Institute, pymbleinstitute@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au

Year 12 Science Extension students at Macquarie University’s [EX]plore Conference

It was pure joy for Dr Kristie Spence, Head of Learning Area: Science at Pymble Ladies College, as she watched six of our Year 12 students present at the Science Extension [EX]plore Conference at #Macquarie University. Congratulations to Pymble students Olivia Harvey, Sophie Coughlan, Lauren Solness, Elisa Yang and Joy Wang for their presentations, as well as to the other students from a range of schools who presented and contributed posters. The Pymble Institute was proud to sponsor this inaugural event.

Images: Audience listening to presentations and the gallery of poster presentations. Courtesy Dr Kristie Spence

What a fabulous job the Faculty of Science and Engineering from Macquarie University did in bringing this opportunity to life! The team created an event where school student research was celebrated and where students were able to complete their research journey by communicating their findings to their peers. What is more authentic in science research than that? The students rose to the challenge and then some, with their talks and posters being both informative and entertaining. 

Joy said: “It was interesting to see the different approaches other people took in their Science Extension projects.”

Sophie added: “The tours of the facilities inspired me and gave me much more of an insight into what my journey at Uni could look like.”

NSW Chief Scientist Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte did a wonderful job in his keynote speech painting a picture of what a future in science in Australia might look like. Kerry Sheehan (NESA) and Professor Sham Nair (Department of Education) were like proud dads, watching their Science Extension “baby” step beyond the school gates and showcase the exceptional worth of this amazing HSC subject. During the conference, students also went on tours of science laboratories around the University, giving them deeper insights to life as a research scientist.

We look forward to seeing next year’s Year 12 Science Extension students present at the [EX]plore Conference. Pymble Science teachers are already forward-planning with many student research projects in the pipeline from aspiring Year 10 and 11 students – so watch this space!

For more information, contact the Pymble Institute at pymbleinstitute@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au.

Celebrating with Dr Kathy French, author of Shakespeare and Happiness

The Pymble Institute is a proud supporter of scholarly endeavours and was delighted to host the book launch of Shakespeare and Happiness, written by former member of the Pymble English Department, Dr Kathleen French. Kathy taught at Pymble for over 30 years and she inspired hundreds of students to higher levels of understanding of literature. Kathy stepped out of secondary teaching last year after completing her PhD and is welcomed back for guest lectures as often as possible.

Drawing from her dissertation, Kathy’s book examines attitudes to happiness in Shakespeare’s plays and has been described by publisher, Routledge, as ‘the first book to focus specifically on the representation of happiness in Shakespeare’s plays’. The book utilises a feminist lens to explore the role of women by focusing on how they live and achieve happiness. Kathy points out the relevance of this in the context of the #metoo movement and research in the area of positive psychology. The College’s Conde Library holds a copy of the book for interested readers.

The launch included a beautiful performance of Hermia and Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Drama Captain, Isla Harris (Year 12) and Ava Thomas (Year 10). Supported by Mr Michael Griffiths, Director of Co-Curricular Performing Arts, Mrs Tessa Zwar, Head of K-12 Libraries, and Mrs Mandy Reynolds, Head of Learning Area – English, the launch brought together current and former colleagues and allowed everyone to experience a powerful glimpse into Kathy’s work. She is currently working on her second book which we look forward to reading in due course.

Research spotlight: Mariel Lombard

Ms Mariel Lombard, Head of Year (Middle School) and French teacher at Pymble, is currently completing a PhD at Western Sydney University, on the subject of compassion fatigue for wellbeing leaders. In September 2021, nearing the end of the COVID-19 lockdown, she decided to embark upon this project, having been interested in the topic for some time. 

When posed the obvious question, why she chose that particular topic, Ms Lombard stated that she was interested in the topic and believed there was a need for research in the area. She noticed that there was very little research that existed on the topic in Australia. 

She also expressed that completing a PhD in addition to teaching is stressful at times and requires consciously factoring in downtime, along with good time management skills. Through the ongoing process, she has found that critical thinking is the most valuable academic skill she has learnt. Receiving feedback, a crucial aspect of PhDs, involves giving drafts every month to a panel of supervisors, who provide feedback and suggest revisions on the work. It is often difficult, as a lot of effort has gone into each draft, but the good advice given often outweighs the negativity. A PhD is a long, complex process, but Ms Lombard states that it is worth the effort and her favourite part is knowing that she is able to provide new knowledge on a topic that will impact on future generations of educators, and ultimately students.

Through completing her PhD, Ms Lombard hopes to shed more light on an underrepresented topic. Ms Lombard hopes to provide new learning which can assist wellbeing leaders and educators around the world. She hopes that her research will raise awareness of an important topic and provide schools with recommendations for the future.

Pymble Ladies’ College celebrates Ms Lombard’s win of the New South Wales Teachers Guild Research Award, 2022, and wishes her well for her research.

By Kathie Ong
Year 9 student