Cornerstones.
Cornerstone Studies are designed for Year 9 students to continue to develop a range of important skills and capabilities for success in their learning as they move toward Senior School. These include strong planning and time management skills, the ability to communicate and collaborate, critical thinking skills, and the ability to reflect on their own progress.
These subjects are designed to allow students to engage with fundamental or ‘cornerstone’ ideas and concepts that will provide an important foundation and support for many areas of study that they will encounter in Senior School. Having an understanding of major movements in Art, History, Science, Technology, and Culture will allow students to create a context for subjects they will encounter in later years. Cornerstone subjects are not limited to a particular discipline or learning area but instead make connections between and across learning areas.
Cornerstone subjects are designed to be an engaging, challenging, and provocative element of Year 9 students’ courses allowing them to explore an area of individual interest in an authentic way. A major component of all Cornerstone subjects will be an extended, individual project, task, investigation, or inquiry. This project will enable students to respond to the significant ideas they encounter in the course as well as providing the context for the skills for learning that are an important component of the subject.
All Year 9 students need to undertake a Cornerstone Study as part of their course. Current Cornerstone Studies include:
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Internet/Digital Based Subjects
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Do you consider yourself tech-savvy? Interested in the development of new technologies? Concerned about our ever-increasing reliance on the internet? Questioning how people use the internet and its impact?
- Social Media Decoded – Media Literacy, Media Literacy, The Language of Current Media, The Evidence Backed Algorithm, Ethics in Media Production
- The Digital World – AI, VR, Gaming, Cryptocurrency
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Science/History Based Subjects
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How does our world work? Scientifically, Historically, Socially, Environmentally. What impacts throughout our history have shaped us as a society? What can we do better?
- Ideas that Changed the World – Renaissance, Darwin, Luddites, Hiroshima, Australian Inventions
- History of Our Land – Greenwashing, Climate Change, Indigenous Perspectives
- Strong Women, Big Ideas – Feminism, Famous Female Figures, Issues Effecting Women
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Art/Philosophy Based Subjects
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Culture! What is it? Who has it? Creative thinking, critical thinking, questioning and responding. Analyse what is happening in pop culture and its significance.
- What is Art? – Value of Art, Public Art, History of Art
- Philosophy and Pop Culture – Ethics, Metaphysics, Beauty/Art and Epistemology
STEAM.
STEAM at Eltham High School is both a way of thinking and doing where:
- Teachers inspire, shepherd, and foster the ‘big picture thinking’ that shows STEAM thinking and doing in our society, so that,
- Students engage with concepts and problems from their own personal communities and lives by, thinking about them through different lenses to identify, issues, changes, and small-scale solutions they wish to see.
Students show curiosity and creativity in their thinking and approach., think critically about the issues presented to them, and provide evidence-based arguments to posed questions as well as seek evidence-based responses from others. With a growth mindset, students trust in the problem-solving process, are open to communicating and reflecting to change tack and try new solutions, processes, and approaches to their issues and work.
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Year 8 STEAM Prime
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In STEAM Prime students use the STEAM Design Process to solve an identified problem (that is safe and meaningful to them). Though this class, students use the research and thinking skills developed in Year 7 Integrated Studies as a component of investigating and ideating their problem and solution. In addition, students use reflective folio journaling and collaboration to ideate, design and test their solutions.
This course uses the STEAM Framework to explicitly teach skills and get students to practise them using through the development of their own project. This will include a range of cognitive, writing, speaking and practical activities. Learning to create a Da Vinci Journal (i.e. folio) is a core experience throughout this course.
The focus of this course is engagement and completion of the problem-solving process (through the journal and classroom activities) rather that the overall completion and effectiveness of the developed product. This course explicitly teaches and assesses 21st Century Learning Skills reflected in the Victorian Curriculum
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Year 9 STEAM Expansion
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This course is a continuation of STEAM Prime for Year 9 students to further develop their skills in exploration, ideation, research and development.
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