Callaghan College

Callaghan College is a multi-campus secondary school that is administered by the New South Wales Department of Education. It is committed to using technology extensively to prepare students for future learning and careers. Callaghan had used Moodle as its learning management system (LMS) for nearly seven years with other edtech tools. However, adoption was minimal and the college did not mandate the use of that LMS.

In addition, disparate software made access to content and communication among teachers, students, and parents difficult. Staff wanted teachers and students to have a central, integrated platform that could enhance their pedagogy, especially for blended learning and a “flipped” classroom. The school management stated, “We wanted a learning platform that really gave commonality of learning processes from K-12 within the college, was easy for people to use, was accessible 24/7, that really tapped into 21st Century learning for kids and for teachers.”

In 2016, Callaghan was implementing its student information system, Sentral, and discovered the Canvas learning management platform. Staff members saw that Canvas was able to integrate with Sentral and bring everything together in a flexible platform. Callaghan started a trial with Canvas - they migrated content and courses, set up rubrics, integrated Quizzes and saw that a teacher could save several hours each week by using the Canvas SpeedGrader. Callaghan made a decision to adopt Canvas as its new learning management platform and began training its staff with orientation and professional development courses. The college also realised that the change helped its objective to have learning and pedagogy at the forefront. Stacy Lambert, Head Teacher for Teaching and Learning at Callaghan, said, “What Canvas allows us to do is freeing us up as teachers from being a ‘sage on the stage’ and more of a ‘guide on the side’. You can get in and do those student-centred learning activities. And kids know what’s going on in the classroom.” 

Callaghan is using college templates to ensure look-and-feel consistency across courses. Pedagogy is designed to use technology and develop critical thinking skills that allow students to become “future-ready”. The adoption of Canvas has, among other things, elevated teaching, prompted collaboration and amplified feedback to students. Andrew Johnson, Head Teacher PDHPE at Callaghan said, “With the Canvas application they’re seeing how that’s actually broken down, what areas they’ve scored well in, and what they need to work on. Also the beauty of it is actually giving them a comment and that could be talk to text, it could be a voice recording, or it could be a video recording. Students are receiving a raw mark but also a breakdown of how they achieved that mark and feedback from the teacher.” 

Classes are engaging in more project-based learning with other schools in Australia and in Southeast Asia. This is one way to get more out of an assignment. Lambert said, “It’s more of a team in class now rather than a teacher and a student. The flexibility that the technology gives us now means that not always everything is face-to-face. It gives us a flipped learning and a flipped teaching kind of platform. It’s those tools if used correctly we can really change education completely. It’s going to be transformative.”