Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

 One of the main targets for my inquiry this year, was to engage boys in writing! This has been something I have found difficult throughout my whole teaching career. For some reason, boys just don't enjoy writing. Until it's about Minecraft that is...  My recommendation to every teacher is to look at Minecraft Education ! It is amazing! There are lesson plans and ideas for everything you could imagine; maths, literacy, social sciences and even te reo Māori!  We started with this - we used lessons from Minecraft Education and adapted them to suit our learners. We found a 'First, Next and Then' structure to be useful so they had a very clear view of what was expected of them every lesson. We also did not have the luxury of having someone supervise the learning full time (we we still teaching other workshops in the hub).  Success!! This targeted the interests and passions of all our target writers and they were engaged! We were also surprised to see that the learners ve...

  Kia ora,  My inquiry question this year is ‘ How might   my design for learning and deliberate acts of teaching in writing, support  boys, in particular Māori learners to become effective writers and cause shift in writing.’  With 2020 being the year that it has been, it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with my writing design. I was surprised to see how many learners were engaged with learning online and especially with their determination and creativity when it came to writing.  What happened for my learners:  The learners attitude towards writing was the biggest change. Learners who previously would not write anything independently were now writing narratives, information reports and mysteries. A survey given to target learners at 3 points in the year, showed an increase in their attitude levels and when asked to find a piece of writing they were proud of and were previously unable to do, were now showing 2 or 3 examples. E-asTTle da...

 Summarise key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning.  Structure of writing lessons  In the past, I have always modelled writing to the whole group. Problems that I faced with this were:  The model was either too high or too low and was not targeting specific needs.  Different learners have different interests Difficult to engage 25 learners and make interactive Changes I made to the structure of my lessons:  Split writing group into 2 modelling groups Offered a range of skills based writing workshops that relate to Schooltalk progressions. (I wanted these to be opt in workshops)  Made sure that all lessons followed the writing process      2. Opportunities for vocabulary building  I found this to be the change that made the most difference.  Things I tried:  Connecting writing topics to concept learning so they already had vocab knowledge about the topic as well as word walls that were easi...

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2021 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise As a school, our data shows that learners (particulary Māori boys) are not succeeding in writing. This has been my inquiry focus this year and I hope to continue with this further next year. I love teaching literacy and hope that my inquiries over the last 2 years have been helpful for other teachers. This year I have learnt a lot around challenges for these children such as limited vocabulary and engagement. I am working hard to build my knowledge about te reo Māori and I hope to inquire into whether integrating te reo Māori into writing lessons will give Māori learners more of a sense of belonging and purpose to the writing process.  What learnings from the 2017 - 2020 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking. Jannie Van Hees research around oral language and all the inquiries that used her research. In my previo...

 It was fun sharing at the Manaikalani Create Staff Meeting! Create to Learn is such a powerful way to engage learners in learning! Here are our slides: Using Minecraft to Spark Imagination  

 During lockdown round 2, I found it diffciult to monitor much real evidence. This was due to a number of different things:  1. The kids online attendance was a lot lower this time round 2. Target learners were not submitting any of their learning to me With that in mind, I am able to use some anecdotal evidence from before lockdown around my recent changes to my teaching.  I found that the learners were particularly excited about the topic of Aotearoa. I believe this due to the fact that it connects nicely to our concept learning for term 3 so learners are able to make connections to the knowledge they have already built. Also I think they enjoy writing about themselves as a character in a fictional story.  Some evidence that I have been able to gather is from their gap analysis on Schooltalk. It is obvious that my target learners are getting stuck when it comes to generating ideas, building their vocabulary and using a variety of sentence structure. This is great a...

How might   my design for learning and deliberate acts of teaching in writing, support  boys, in particular Māori learners to become effective writers and cause shift in writing. Changes I will be making to my teaching: - Topics - are they engaging? Relevant to Māori boys?  - Vocabulary Building - where are the opportunities for this in my learning design?  - Feedback - what have I learnt about this from lockdown?  - Separate programmes - handwriting, phonics, spelling  - Fitness - how could this be included in my learning design?  - Learning pit - reflection opportunities before, during and after learning 

Reflection of main learning about teaching and next steps Reflection:  Is gifting vocab during the planning stage helping ENOUGH with these learners who are struggling to think of ideas?  Could we use a well known story as a model to gift ideas and vocabulary?  These learners appear to enjoy writing about themselves as the main character.  These learners appreciate writing on slides rather than in their books. They also like to receive feedback in the comments in slides.  How am I structuring my workshops to build the writing skills of these learners that is separate to the genre writing?  These learners are comfortable talking about the learning pit. What other strategies could they use to help them when they get stuck?  Next steps:  - Use a well known story as a model  - Incorporate oral language and role play into the planning phase - Give feedback on slides - Give feedback from skills workshops  - Discuss and develop strategies to su...

  As part of my intervention, I have used Schooltalk gap analysis to create groups for my learners based on the different skills they need to work on in their writing.  I have then started to design learning that is fun and can be taught in a quick workshop that will not interrupt the flow of the writing the learners are completing for the week.  The main areas for focus are:  - Vocabulary   - Sentence Structure - Organisation - Revise/edit (includes punctuation)  I hope that after these workshops, learners will be able to then include what they have learnt in their writing.  Reflection:  - How will I measure if these workshops have been beneficial to the learners?  - How will I ensure that they are targeting a range of abilities?

  In my previous post, I discussed some areas that I wanted to inquire into and make changes to my learning design for writing.  I am going to inquire into the following areas:  - Topics - are they engaging? Relevant to Māori boys?  - Vocabulary Building - where are the opportunities for this in my learning design?  - Feedback - what have I learnt about this from lockdown?  - Separate programmes - handwriting, phonics, spelling  - Fitness - how could this be included in my learning design?  - Learning pit - reflection opportunities before, during and after learning  With these in mind, I designed learning to meet these needs. I observed a lot of excitement when this topic (Aotearoa 500 years ago) was first revealed and learners appeared to be engaged in the writing. We had a great session around vocabulary (adjectives) building and then lockdown happened.... This learning was continued during independent learning time in lockdown which some ...

  Plan and conduct detailed inquiry into specific aspects of your current teaching that are relevant to the hypotheses you identified in the literature. Inquiring into your teaching should give you: Formative information about your current strengths and areas for development Baseline information that you can use at the end of the year  to provide evidence of shifts in teaching Use multiple tools such as self- or peer-observations, analysis of your class site, student voice. I am going to inquire into the following areas:  - Topics - are they engaging? Relevant to Māori boys?  - Vocabulary Building - where are the opportunities for this in my learning design?  - Feedback - what have I learnt about this from lockdown?  - Separate programmes - handwriting, phonics, spelling  - Fitness - how could this be included in my learning design?  - Learning pit - reflection opportunities before, during and after learning 

 We recently had some interesting PD around what writing looks like in our school. We unpacked in our year group teams about what we are noticing in terms of strengths and struggles. We also then discussed all the things we are doing and seeing in our hubs.  Reflect:  These conversations were really useful! We were able to identify that some of the things our learners are struggling with are quite similar to what we are noticing with our learners.  Commonalities: Punctuation, spelling, vocabulary and ideas building  We discussed that there could be an opportunity for a school wide spelling and phonics programme. 

In relation to my hypotheses, my research and observation feedback and reflection, I have discovered which areas I feel would be best to focus on and make changes to my practise.  These areas are:  - Engaging topics  - Opportunities for vocabulary building  - Opportunities for learners to give and receive feedback - Opportunities to explore strengths and interests  - Incorporate fitness into writing programme - Opportunities for mistakes to be made  - Separate handwriting and spelling  Below is a photo of my writing programme intervention: 

Baseline Survey Data from Target Learners    Below is the data collected from my baseline survey from my target learners Below are the baseline writing samples from my learners. They chose these pieces as the piece they are most proud of.