Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

On the first day on non contact time, I was fortunate enough to attend a literacy symposium. I learnt a lot of useful strategies for oral language and ESOL students.  Workshop 1: Oral Rehearsal and Developing Authority in Writing  Using talk to generate ideas Using talk to support writing process (oral rehearsal)  Practical ideas  Children are not given opportunities to write authentically Resources:  Effective Literacy Practice  Learning through Talk  Essential Oral Language Toolkit ESOL online  Differences between oral and written language:  We are expecting students to write in a certain way and that is not the same as the way we are expecting them to speak  Oral Rehearsal “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk” - James Britton, 1970  Possible Difficulties  Modeling as teachers is so important - if we want learners to be writing grammatically correct, they need to be hearing it in the c...

Post 3 Explain why you judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year. After a lot of thinking and with further observations of my learners, I have finally decided that my inquiry question will be:  How might an increase in oral language opportunities support Maori learners to develop agency in literacy?

In order to get a more detailed and accurate profile of my students learning, I plan to use the following tools and measurements:  Student voice This will give a deeper understanding of what my learners are capable of discussing. I want to know: Do they know what they are learning?  Do they know what to do to help them with that learning?  Do they know what their next steps are?  Do they know if/when they have been successful?  Do they have an opportunity to share that learning? In order to gather this student voice I will create videos of my learners answering the above questions.  Combi Tool An assessment tool that focuses on what my learners can do in terms of spoken language. This tool will give me information about my learners on the following areas:  Their willingness to communicate Communication Participation  Contribution Do they benefit from feedback? This tool is so useful because it automatically transfe...

Jannie van Hees visited our CoL meeting and talked to us about growing our learners language capabilities.  She discussed how as teachers, we need to optimise learning conditions. The following ideas really stood out for me:  Noticing and responding  Effortful and purposeful engagement and interaction ALL participating - does this mean no hands up? What is my classroom 'talk culture'? Triggering the known to connect to the new - The Stonefields learning process is allowing opportunities for this.  Learners need to:  Participate fully Dig deeper - am I allowing them opportunities to do this?  Learn from others Share - am I allowing time for this?  Think and talk  Wonderings and askings - this can be related to the Stonefields learner qualities.  Reflection:  Am I giving opportunities for learners to add more detail?  What does strategic turn taking look like in my hub?  Are we deep diving i...

Jannie Van Hees visited our school and introduced us to a tool that can be used to assess the oral language capabilities of our learners.  "Children need expressive patterns in talking and we need to give them the space to do that"  The Combi Tool 16 assessments using a rubric that is designed for 4-7 years of age.  The Combi Tool looks at these main areas:  Willingness to communicate Communication Participation Contribution Benefits from feedback Reflection:  This tool will be useful for me because it gives a good indicator about the oral language capabilities of my learners. It also seems very easy to use and once data is entered it will generate a graph so I can highlight the needs of my learners.  Things to note:  When using the tool ask 'can they or do they?' - Do they not because of something personally or because the spaces are not there for this to happen.  Could we get more information from parents? Especially...

Connecting with Manaiakalani Making teaching and learning visible. Visibility to our parents and whanau is hugely important. When learners and parents understand how their learners are doing at school, they are more likely to be successful in school.  Back in the day; teachers did not share what the children were learning. Children who were successful were able to read the teachers mind.  Learners deserve to have visibility over their learning! No surprises - makes learners successful! Hapara dashboard is enabling this visibility for learners and teachers. Teachers can access all of their learners documents. Parents can access all of their child’s learning. Have a look at some Google class on air lessons where teachers have recorded their lessons. We have access to the teachers planning and all of the children's documents, as well as the teachers reflections on that lesson. Reflection: How can I reflect on my own teaching and learning by videoing lesso...