What do masterclasses look like at Aurora?
The delivery of masterclasses is flexible, given the Aurora context. Each masterclass is closely aligned with student interests and:
1. NSW syllabuses in the subject areas offered at Aurora, such as
- English
- Maths
- Science
- Agriculture
- Economics
2. General capabilities as specified in the Australian Curriculum such as
- Critical and creative thinking
- Personal and social capability
- Ethical understanding
- Intercultural understanding
- critical and creative thinking, problem
3. The needs of gifted and talented students
- futures
- social justice
- accelerated or condensed content
- challenges
- ability to come together with like-minded peers
With the full assistance of staff from the coordinating office at Aurora, masterclasses can be presented in a range of ways such as:
- via our virtual learning environment using Adobe Connect, from the Masterclass partner’s workplace
- on-site at one of two residential school programs per year
- at a visit by small groups of students to the Masterclass partner’s workplace during a residential school excursion.
Partners
We seek to build partnerships with a range of educational, scientific and cultural institutions. At Aurora, masterclasses are a key feature of the learning experience as they allow for unique opportunities for students to take part in small group sessions based upon common interests and engage in robust discussion and discovery with experts and leaders in their field. For example we have previously engaged and partnered with:
- A range of amazing people from Macquarie Uni eg: F1 engineer, psychologist, criminologist
- Agronomist, Department of Primary Industries headquarters in Orange
- Astronomers from CSIRO
- Authors including Libby Hathorn, John Marsden and Fiona Wood
- Bell Shakespeare
- CEO, International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) in Geneva
- Economists including Ross Gittins and Jessica Irvine from SMH
- Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)
- Australian National Maritime Museum
- Physical computing short course with experts from MAAS (Powerhouse Museum)
- Physicists from Sydney Uni and the Arc Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO)
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
- Ross Gittins, Economics editor at SMH and Jessica Irvine, Senior Economics Writer at SMH
- Scientists including Dr Karl
- State Library of NSW
- University of Sydney