Study Turf - Purpose and How Alternatives Are Supported at SCSC

Study Turf - Purpose and How Alternatives are Supported at SCSC

Study Turf is the online portal that students, parents and staff at Surf Coast Secondary College use to collaborate online, share ideas, submit digital tasks and gain feedback and information about progress of learning. Whilst this using Study Turf enables us to create an easy managed, synchronous link between home and school, we do understand that some parents may decide against your child engaging in the use of an online platform for personal reasons. The table below outlines what the school processes will be given that a student should not be using Study Turf, either at all, or with a modified login.

Purpose / Using Study Turf with a Google Login (standard) / Using Study Turf with a non-Google login / Not using Study Turf at all
Collaborating Online /

students will use Learning Spaces to share resources with their peers and teachers
they can do this via links to websites, or by sharing Youtube clips or embedding documents from their Google Drive
students can comment on posts to create discussions, as well as 'like' posts to show an appreciation for the content shared in assisting with their own learning

students will use Learning Spaces to share resources with their peers and teachers
they can do this via posting links in posts, but will not have access to being able to share directly via their Youtube or Google Drive accounts
students can comment on posts to create discussions, as well as 'like' posts to show an appreciation for the content shared in assisting with their own learning

students will engage in face-to-face collaborative activities as per usual in the classroom
students regularly engage in whole group discussions, small group work and partner work that enables them to seek guidance and feedback from others and opportunities to work together
teachers may also at times display a conversation/collaboration that occurred on Study Turf on a larger display in the classroom so that other students can see the resources shared or add their own ideas to the discussion points

Feedback to students as they progress on tasks /

students submit work to a Learning Space using Google Drive, YouTube, DropBox or Instagram
teachers can comment on students' posts in a Learning Space to give them anecdotal feedback about a guiding activity or draft of work that has been completed in preparation for the submission of an assessable learning task
teachers can also access students' work that has been uploaded via Google Drive to provide corrections and annotations to this draft
teachers can either do this via the commenting feature in Google Drive, or by printing the work and annotating by hand and returning this to the student

students can only upload work to Study Turf via Google Drive, YouTube DropBox or Instagram
If a student has one of these accounts that they use that has not been set up by the school, they could use this to store their work and upload it to Study Turf
If this is done, the work can be commented on and assessed as per the process for standard use of Study Turf
If a student is not using any external cloud storage systems, their work will be submitted to their teacher via alternative methods. This would include emailing or handing in hard copies. This will be negotiated with each student individually to meet their needs
Teachers would either mark the work electronically and email this back to the student, or provide corrections and feedback in hard copy and then return to the student

students who are not using Study Turf will have to submit their work via alternatives that are negotiated depending on the needs of the individual student
one method may be emailing work to teachers and receiving electronic feedback and corrections via return emails
one method may be handing in printed or hand written copies of work and receiving hand written feedback and corrections on the work
we are happy to discuss other alternatives with families as necessary to ensure the students receive timely and detailed feedback

Feedback and assessment of students as tasks are completed /

students submit their final assessable task in the Learning Space for that subject. When doing do, they 'tag' the post for the appropriate learning outcome that they are providing evidence of working towards
teachers provide a written comment and assess the item either using an AusVels level, or a percentage grade for VCE/VCAL subjects

students submit their work in the method as negotiated (emailing, via another online cloud storage, hard copy)
teachers provide a written comment and assess the item either using an AusVels level, or a percentage grade for VCE/VCAL subjects. This is still visible for the student in the Learning Space and also in their overall assessment progression data and graphs

students submit their work in the method as negotiated (emailing, hard copy)
teachers provide a written comment and assess the item either using an AusVels level, or a percentage grade for VCE/VCAL subjects. Although not visible to the student or home, this will be stored here for official reporting purposes
students will receive a hard copy or electronic version of the assessment grade and feedback. This is commonly via a rubric which all students receive regardless of their use of the Study Turf system or not
all students also receive regular verbal feedback about their progress and areas for improvement via learning conferences and informal conversations in the classroom

Reporting on student progress /

students and their parents will be able to login at any point in the year and see up to date feedback and information on their progress
students and parents can see tasks that have been submitted and individual grades and feedback on these
students and parents can login and see graphs displaying progress in relation to AusVels levels and percentage grades for VCE/VCAL
students and parents can login twice a term and read a conference report from each teacher that outlines the progress made and areas for improvement
these reports can be downloaded and printed if students or parents wish to do so

same as for the standard use of Study Turf, except that students and parents will not be able to see individual task feedback if this was handed in via email or hard copy

students will receive ongoing feedback and grades from their teachers, but will only receive a printed report at the end of term. This printed report is the same version of the data that is accessible via Study Turf

Recording of attendance data of students /

students and parents can access attendance records that are updated daily as teachers mark their rolls
there will be a graph that shows the amount of days absent so that parents know what they need to inform the school about so that our records are accurate

same as for standard Study Turf use

students' Connect teachers will follow up with ALL students about absences and notes that need to be returned to if these are unexplained
Learning Community Leaders will be in touch with families to support students who are at risk due to low attendance at school

Notifications to students/parents and teachers /

students and parents will be notified on Study Turf when certain events occur. This displays on the main dashboard when you login. Some of the main notifications include:

alerts about non-attendance
alerts when due dates for work are approaching or have been missed

students and parents will be notified on Study Turf when certain events occur. This displays on the main dashboard when you login. Some of the main notifications include:

alerts about non-attendance

alerts when due dates for work are approaching or have been missed /

Learning Community Leaders and students' Connect teachers will be in regular contact with home about any important information regarding a students' engagement in school such as non-completion of work or missing classes
the College will continue to use Facebook as a means of keeping the community up to date with events and reminders, as well as the fortnightly College newsletter