Burst and Bubbles 2021

This year my inquiry focus was: ‘How does feedback develop assessment capable learners and cause shift in writing?’ 


At the beginning of this inquiry I gathered learner and whānau voices about what they believed to be the barriers in writing. From this, I discovered that the learners did not understand their next steps. Whānau were concerned about spelling and handwriting and a lack of enthusiasm for writing. I looked at Schooltalk gap analysis, e-asTTle results and guided writing sessions to identify that the areas with the most gaps were vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling, writing legibility and punctuation. 


My initial hunch was that if I offered regular opportunities for feedback from peers, whānau and teachers, they would become more assessment capable. To begin with, I created success criterias based on the genre of writing we were exploring. After attending Murray Gadd’s course ‘What makes a great writing programme’, I made some key changes. We moved away from having a success criteria based on genre but instead focused on key skills used in writing. We co-constructed this ‘Writing Code’ and developed simple images to go with each skill. Learners would sign up to a skills workshop based on feedback from peers, teachers and their success criteria. 


My second hunch was that if I found opportunities for learners to write on a range of meaningful, authentic and purposeful writing topics, they would have more to say and write about. The most success I had was when we connected writing topics to our concept learning which often had an element of STEM or science as a hook into the writing. This made writing a meaningful and authentic experience and it also was a great opportunity to gift vocabulary. But how do you make writing more purposeful? I started getting the learners to publish their writing onto a Padlet and then get them to comment feedback on others' writing. It was awesome to see parents comment on learning as well. Having the parents involved in the feedback process is definitely something I want to continue when we return to school. 


Another hunch that I had was that if we had a structured spelling programme, would spelling improve as well as learners confidence? We started using Liz Kane ‘The Code’ and we set up weekly spelling workshops where learners would learn a new spelling pattern and be given a list of words based on that rule. It was easy to see that learners really enjoyed the spelling rules and were keen to find more words that matched that spelling pattern. By comparing writing throughout the year, the spelling capabilities of my target learners had improved. Parents and whānau were also pleased to have the spelling notebooks sent home so they could support their children at home too. 


My wonderings and next steps: 

  • How can I continue to develop the vocabulary of my learners? I noticed that the vocabulary was a lot richer in writing tasks based on experiences in the hub compared to for example recounts and descriptions during lockdown. 

  • How do I continue to involve parents in the writing process? I have seen some success this year but I want to make sure this continues especially when we are back at school. 

  • How important is handwriting? Could we use Chromebooks for writing more? Does this remove a barrier?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TAI post 5: My preliminary findings

Image
The results from the Combi Tool: From the Combi Tool data, we noticed that the learners are not necessarily shy and they are willing to communicate with others. However, they lack the ability to articulate elaborated responses. I am thinking about whether they are given opportunities to build on their responses? Are elaborate responses modelled or scaffolded to them regularly? We also notice that learners require prompting when responding and their responses are rarely spontaneous. This makes me wonder about the culture of the hub? Do we allow learners time to think about responses? Are they given time to share these responses regularly? What feedback is given to them about conversations? Student voice: What did you learn about today? "I learnt how to stop and sound out words.” Answers show that learners do not have the dialogue to discuss what they have been learning about. They touch on the surface of the learning but it is not specific. Reflection: Could I gi...
Read more

Empathetic Educators: Session 1 on CBT

Image
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)  I am stoked to be working closely with a lovely colleague; Naomi who has done loads of research around neuroscience around how the brain affects our emotions and behaviour.  Our first session was about CBT: Fear, Anxiety, trauma, behaviour that challenges us. We came away with a lot of things to think about as well as a bank of helpful resources to support learners who might be struggling with anxiety.  Naomi discussed the idea that often our thoughts and feelings are built up to be a lot greater than they really are and often we need to capture the thought and then break it down with evidence for and against that thought. From that we can hopefully create a change in the way that we are feeling.  Here is a diagram/visual that could be useful to explain this (for ourselves, as well as learners).  Reflection: As teachers, we often find ourselves worrying and over thinking constantly. Could th...
Read more

#8 How the data will be used as baseline data at the end of the year

Image
  Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year. As you can see in post #4,  we have collected formative assessment data from Running Records, Little Learners Love Literacy and Liz Kane's 'The Code' spelling tests to gather baseline evidence for where our target learners are sitting at the beginning of the year. We will use these assessments throughout the year and will monitor their progress. If we notice that there has been no shift in the data at the middle of this inquiry, we will revaulate.  We have also decided to monitor the wellbeing of these learners. Stonefield's has developed a Wellbeing Assessment Tool called Te Whare Tapa Wha. We will use this to monitor the wellbeing of learners at the beginning of the year and the end.  We are also able to track their wellbeing progressions through Schooltalk. Below is a snapshop of target learners wellbeing gap analysis:...
Read more