Friday, 13 Dec 2019
As 2019 draws to a close, the PAT Team takes a look back at some of the year’s highlights.
It’s been a busy year in the world of PAT. Somewhere in your hectic teaching schedule, you made time to administer assessments, run reports and connect your student data with teaching practice. Meanwhile, we launched two new assessments, trialled an online adaptive testing program, started a national series of workshops for schools and launched PAT Insights, and a monthly e-newsletter, PAT News. Bring on the holidays!
PAT Assessments
In mid-2019, we launched two exciting new products which, like all PAT assessments, were designed to test skills beyond simple fact retention. PAT Inquiry and Problem Solving in STEM Contexts (‘PAT STEM Contexts’) assesses a student’s ability to use the kind of inquiry skills necessary for real-life problem solving, while PAT Vocabulary Skills measures vocabulary breadth (words known) and depth (how well they’re understood), as well as the processes used in applying that knowledge. If you haven’t already tried them, free 30-day trials are still on offer. Log in to your school’s online account (or create a new one) and select the free trial option.
Elliot Boutin, project officer in the online assessment and reporting system (OARS) customer support team:
"I joined ACER in September and have enjoyed the challenge of getting to know the ins and outs of PAT and the OARS platform. As a former teacher, I can really appreciate how PAT's design helps schools get the information they need to give students the individualised support they require. So when teachers call us with questions about PAT, I am always keen to assist and also to hear how PAT is making an impact on their own practice. There have been many highlights to 2019, but perhaps the brightest has been getting to work alongside the other members of the OARS Support team and absorbing their enthusiasm for all things PAT."
PAT Teaching Resources Centre
The publishing team behind the PAT Teaching Resources Centre make sure its resources are accessible, easy to use and bring real value to your teaching practice. After all, assessment data are most powerful when used to inform pedagogy, so our resources need to provide a clear and direct link between your students’ results and simple, practical ways you can help them learn.
In 2019, subscribers from every state and territory used its resources more than 177 000 times, while over 800 new resources were uploaded – including a series of annotated questions to support our newest assessments – and links to the NSW Curriculum were added to existing Australian and Victorian Curriculum codes. In this recent article, we shared the most popular resources in 2019.
Jana Gabriel, digital project officer for the PAT Teaching Resources Centre:
"When I first joined the ACER team in August 2019, I was really impressed with the breadth and depth of the materials the Teaching Resources Centre contained. Since then, I’ve enjoyed meeting with a number of teachers and school leaders to get their insights on how they use these resources and the Press team are using that feedback to inform future planning and updates to the resources. We have exciting plans for the Centre in 2020, including adding new content and new domains, significant updates to the existing content, and the creation of a new, user-friendly website to house our suite of resources."
PAT Professional Learning
PAT offers assessments, teaching resources and professional learning – a holistic approach to improving learning in schools. This year saw some exciting developments in the professional learning area, with refreshed courses for teachers new to PAT, and for those wanting to take next steps or delve deeper into data. School visits and workshops are in full swing – ask us about designing a bespoke workshop tailored to your school’s needs – and a free webinar series covers some of the most frequently asked questions and tackles some commonly experienced problems.
Daniel O’Loughlin, Project Director of ACER’s School Engagement program:
"This was the year we got our workshops series off the ground and it’s been so great to get out there, meeting teachers and guiding them through the PAT process, from start to end. Hearing some of the participants’ questions has really helped us better understand some of the common problems teachers encounter, while helping them really get to grips with the powerful data PAT produces.
We have workshops in Hobart, Sydney and Darwin in 2020 and will be announcing more dates soon."
PAT Insights
We also launched our PAT Insights news channel this year, a place to share articles and stories to help you keep abreast of issues in Australian education and to get the most from the PAT approach.
We looked at the findings of an ongoing review of the NSW curriculum, discussed the value of a growth mindset in maths teaching and in producing strong PISA results, and shared the PAT Teaching Resource Centre’s most popular resources of 2019, a quick video guide to PAT reporting and a TED Talk on telling stories with data.
Elsewhere, these educators talked about how they have used PAT to guide the way they teach and bring value to their students beyond the classroom.
And, to help you get to know the team behind the PAT approach, we asked them to share some of their favourite PAT hacks – and reveal their off-duty passions and pop culture obsessions, including The Wire, Clarke and Dawe, Antony Kiedis and Christmas bestsellers with very rude names, proving that our workplace is probably just as weird and whacky as yours.
Best of all, our latest PAT Insights – along with free resources, links and other information we think you’ll find interesting, entertaining or useful in your teaching – are delivered direct to your inbox once a month in PAT News. Not subscribed? Sign up here.