Theme for the year-Press Pause-Press Play

2020 and 2021 have presented us all with many challenges and we have had to think, plan, rethink, replan, pause, redesign, recalibrate and reshape what we do and how we do it in our work life and our day-to-day life.

NSW Chapter managed to facilitate several successful events last year. Before lockdown we were able to conduct two excellent site visits. The William Clarke Branwhite STEAM Centre (designed by PMDL) and the OLMC Contemporary Learning space (adaptation of Diocese of Parramatta Offices) provided us with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate two very diverse, innovative spaces that have been designed with student learning at the center. On both occasions, students identified the space as a place of welcome, belonging and connection enabling learning.

Once in lockdown we moved onto a virtual platform and ran two Webinars. The first was to explore the development and evolution of the DFMA approach to building learning environments and the benefits that this modern method of construction brings. Our second webinar focused on the use of Augmented Reality in learning. Our speakers from Sydney Jewish Museum, Sydney Living Museums, TAFE NSW, students and teacher were insightful and inspiring and the event received very positive feedback from attendees. 

While our plans for 2022 remain aspirational, once again Covid has had us pause again and rethink. We hope to be a little more playful in our events this year and explore the notion of play for learning and engagement. With the ongoing challenges we have learnt to keep our plans fluid and to be responsive and adaptive to change. Our events will be designed as a mixture of in person, hybrid and virtual events to facilitate both learning and connection  between the members and friends of the Association. 

We hope to be able to ‘kick start’ the year with a bang, with an inspiring key note speaker in an innovative and future focused venue. The keynote will be Michael McQueen who will focus on trends in learning and navigation of disruption to maintain momentum.  

In term 2 we are planning to run a hands-on workshop in the agile spaces at Corpus Christi Catholic College. Delegates will experience the spaces firsthand while they build Solar Buddies in teams to be sent to a community of need-followed by a celebration of our learning catered for by students in the new Café-The Vine at the College. The event will also be filmed by the Media students at the College, modelling authentic learning.

Having experienced some very successful virtual events as a Chapter, we have decided to add more of these to our program. We will be running a Series of Webinars titled: In Conversation with…..One ‘Conversation’ will be with Designers: featuring NSW Award winners from 2021 and the other ‘Conversation’ will be with Educators exploring such topics as Excellence in Learning Frameworks, Wellbeing initiatives and the effective use of agile spaces.

We hope to see many of you at our events.

LEA NSW Chapter.