Q. Many school activities impinge on our time. How can we cover a whole unit in a term?
Q. Some units have too little or too much of one KLA. Should I try to balance them?
Q. How can I access the COGs units from home?
Q. Should I develop rubrics to help me assess my students' work?
Q. How do the COGs units support early career teachers?
Q. Do we need to develop 'rich tasks' to add to our COGs units?
Q. How can I report in all KLAs when I am teaching COGs?
Q. Where is Quality teaching in the COGs units?
A. COGs units cover four out of six KLAs. Forty percent of teaching time is to be given to HSIE, SciTech, PDHPE, Creative Arts and sport. COGs units cover these KLAs. Timetable allocations suggest at least four COGs sessions a week.
Some schools have addressed the time issue by including RFF teachers and Teacher Librarians in their COGs planning and programming. These teachers take parts of the COGs unit in their weekly sessions. Assemblies and performances can also be connected through COGs. The Time to teach website provides suggested timetables to assist schools in their planning. 
A. The units fit into the overall curriculum planning framework. Throughout the two years of a stage, all outcomes in four KLAs are addressed and the KLA coverage is sufficient and balanced. This balance will not always be evident in one term or one unit.
Remember that COGs can provide an answer to the overcrowded curriculum by providing a guide to schools as to what should and can be taught effectively.
Schools may need to look at their scope and sequence of units to make sure that KLAs are balanced across a semester. For example, one unit may not include HSIE. The other unit selected for that semester should have a strong HSIE focus.
Changing the balance of KLAs in a unit, by adding to or leaving out a KLA then gives schools the extra task of reworking other units to restore the balance and re-checking that all outcomes are addressed within a stage.
A. For teachers who are employed by the DET
If you are working on a computer connected to the DET network, you can access all the COGs units. Only the A string units are available on the Internet but all units are available via the DET Staff Portal.
If you are working offsite, and you have a DET Staff Portal login, you can access all the units through the portal. Follow the instructions below.
On the home page of the DET, on the right hand navigation, under the heading Related information,
Links to Word documents for descriptions are in the left column and units in the right column.
Click here to view an animation.
For non DET teachers:
Only the A string units are on the Internet. Other units are only available to DET employees.
A. There are many opportunities in COGs units to introduce local material, resources and local community activities. This is a wonderful way to make the units fit the school and the needs of the students. It may take some reshuffling of scope and sequence to maximise the effectiveness of incorporating local activities. Resources and learning experiences can be adjusted with consideration given to the outcomes addressed, the connection descriptions and the connection focus.
Here are some examples gathered from AGQTP project schools:
A. Kerry Long, Manager School Based Assessment and Reporting and Sadie Gow, Assessment Officer K-6, School Based Assessment and Reporting, Curriculum K-12 Directorate, discuss rubrics as part of a presentation on assessment and reporting and COGs. From the scrolling window, select the video called 'Kerry Long talks about how assessment is an integral part of what you are doing' and/or 'Sadie Gow relates how she collected assessment data in the classroom' to view the videos and transcripts.
A. View what two early career teachers say about their experiences in using COGs.
1. Kellie Bartlett, Bexhill PS, is in her first year of teaching at Bexhill PS.
Click here to view the video and transcript.
2. Nicole Wade, Harrington St PS, is in her third year of teaching. In part 1 Nicole talks about support for programming and in part 2 she discusses the flexibility of the learning experiences.
Click here to view video part 1 and transcript.
Click here to view video part 2 and transcript.
The rich task is defined by the Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts as:
'a reconceptualisation of the notion of outcome as demonstration or display of mastery; that is, students display their understandings, knowledges and skills through performance on transdisciplinary activities that have an obvious connection to the wide world.'
Many of the activities in COGs are already 'rich' in that disciplines are connected and learning experiences are linked to real world contexts. There are dangers in overusing 'rich tasks' as KLA integrity can be lost. COGs units provide connections which lead to deep knowledge while KLAs remain distinct to facilitate assessment for and assessment of learning.
A. The COGs are a teaching and learning program to assist with the management of teaching the 4 KLAs. While the 4 KLAs are clearly separated in learning experiences in the units, the units are not a reporting format.
Teachers are required to report in all subjects studied, and all strands in English and Mathematics. It is quite appropriate to report on what you have taught over that semester. The teacher comment should reflect the content taught and how the student has achieved this. If not all strands have been covered in a semester, then they report only on the strands covered, however it does alert them to the strands that need to be covered in the next semester.
The comment starters are a guide to assist with reporting in each KLA and reflect all strands. There are sufficient comments to adequately cover the whole stage over the 4 reporting periods as these were added to this year. However the comments should be personalised for each student and are not meant to be a blanket comment for all students in the class.
A. There was wide consultation the the development of COGs, including input from Quality teaching consultants. The senior curriculum advisers responsible for COGs ensured that all perspectives were covered and that quality teaching prinicples were the guide to the writing of the units.
Quality teaching is not enhanced by insistng that elements of the model are documented in all the units.
As a professional development activity, a focus on a particular dimension or element can be facilitated through the teaching of COGs units.
Click here to view an example of how the quality teaching elements are already embedded in the units. The example has added the labels of the embedded elements to illustrate this.
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