Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

  Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way (‘cos you won’t otherwise remember all your many micro-decisions and why you made them) We will continue to add data to the above charts for each target learner. Those that are making accelerated progress will continue in Jess’s intervention group and those that are making less progress will repeat lessons with Emma.  Each week the learners complete a word work activity in their Structured Literacy books based on that weeks learning outcome. We use this as evidence of whether they can independently achieve the learning outcome. 

  Identify informal & formal ways you are monitoring the effects of your changed practices/intervention on learner outcomes.  Explain the reflections and tweaks you are making along the way (Don’t wait to the end of your inquiry cycle and find it didn’t work) We are regularly testing our target learners on their progress. We are using Running Records, spelling tests from Liz Kane’s ‘The Code and the structured literacy assessment from Little Learners Love Literacy.  Through these formal assessments and informal observations in the target interventions, we have decided to split the group into 2 where some learners will continue with the iDeal Scope and Sequence and some learners will repeat the lessons. We will continue to monitor these as we go.

  Restate your inquiry question and your theory of action/chain of events (so you keep your eyes on the prize) To what extent does explicitly teaching of the Learning Process thinking skills impact learners shifts/achievement in Reading?

 My amazing colleague Sammy and I ran a workshop at our staff literacy PLD. We wanted to share some of our learning from Murray Gadd's course and what is working for us in terms of success criteria. We had a really thought provoking conversation about what is working in different year groups across the school.  Thanks team for making us think and reflect on how we can leverage success criteria's in our writing programmes. 

As part of my research for my inquiry, I was lucky enough to go on a course with Murray Gadd. I was blown away! The course gave me so many take aways and inspired me in so many ways.  Unfortunately I cannot post all of the notes here but some of my top take aways were:  - Ways to motivate and engage ALL writers - Murray uses a lot of picture books to engage his writers. His videos are on YouTube for future reference.  - Vocabulary is a key focus area for writers. How can I give learners more opportunities to explore different verbs and adjectives? Mainly verbs.  - Effective teachers ensure that ALL writers know that they have something to say and something to write.  - All writing tasks need to be goal oriented. This means asking 'What am I going to have to be good at as a writer to do this task well?' 'What does achievement/success look like?'  - Murray talks about giving learners a success criteria that involves using looking words (words I can see on my ...

Share three pieces of academic or professional reading and explain how they and other sources helped you form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning. Reading #1:  Claudia L. Keh “Feedback in the Writing Process: A model and methods for Implementation.  Feedback is a fundamental element of a process approach to writing. It can be defined as input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision. In other words, it is the comments, questions, and suggestions a reader gives a writer to produce ‘reader-based prose’ (Flower, 1979) Through feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled or confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something like inappropriate word-choice or tense.  She discusses the benefits of 3 types of feedback:  Peer feedback Conferencing  Written feedback  My take away...

 We were lucky to have Shawn Hawthorne come to our school to present his research on engaging reluctant writers! These were my takeaways:  Data:  97-2016 data showed:  Attitude to writing declines with age (2012)  Girls acheive higher than boys  Boys have a less positive attitude than girls Māori and Pacific Islanders achieve lower than Pākeha.  Engaging in Writing:  What do we mean by being engaged?  Behavioural engagement - we can see it  Cognitive engagement - how do they feel about writing?  Emotional engagement  **Some researchers added Agency as a 4th element.  Why do some children fail to engage?  They do not see themselves as 'doers' They do not see a need for it. It's too hard/risky.  Little respect for teacher Engagement is essential for other things to click Factors:  Interest/relevance choice/control Knowledge/skills  Belief about writing and self as a writer. What do they perceive writing t...

 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...

 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  

  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 

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: 

As my focus is on raising achievement of Māori boys, I thought I would tap into an expert in our school; Lynn. Lynn is the lead for Te Puawaitanga in our school, PE teacher and is confident in speaking te reo Māori.  How can I incorporate more te reo Māori into my writing session?  - Learn some key phrases and repeat over and over again  - Māori games - Te Puawaitanga learners will automatically be experts in this space - Incorporate language through concept learning  How can I include more movement and PE into my writing sessions?  - Make writing about physical moving e.g narrative with a game context - what will you see/hear/feel in a game?  - Instructional writing - how to play a game - connect to Māori games  - PE is a good opportunity to put kids in the learning pit in a different space  There is a direct relationship with PE to writing so if we boost PE, we should be able to boost writing. 

Blogging task #3:   Share three pieces of academic or professional reading and explain how they and other sources helped your form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning. I started my research looking into previous studies around boys engagement into writing. I felt very fortunate that there was a lot of research and findings already out there that aligned with the needs of my learners. Reading one:  "Boys will learn like boys"  - Education Gazette NZ 2015 Key findings:  Interests - by meeting the interests of the boys, you are likely to build a sense of trust from the learners and they will develop confidence in their own skills. The article uses the example of sports to interest their target learners.  Engagement - Narrative writing is the genre that is going to allow the most imagination. Learners will need support in the planning process and lots of opportunities for vocabulary building and brains...

Evaluation 1. Summarise evidence about key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning. 2. Summarise evidence about key shifts in the problem of student learning. 3. Write an overall evaluation of your intervention in terms of the causal chain you had theorised. i.e. To what extent was the intervention successful in changing factors such as teaching? To what extent were those changes in teaching effective in changing patterns of student learning? Quantitative Data: Running Record data: One of my main assessment measures for this inquiry was running record data. I was very pleased with the data shift with most of my target learners. There were 2 learners in particular who did not seem to benefit from my intervention.  At the beginning of the year my students’ on average had a score of 13 for their running record which was below for year 2 and well below for year 3. At the end of the year my students’ on average had a score of 18 which...

8 & 9: Explain the hypotheses about teaching that you decided were MOST woth testing and why. Explain how you will test it and what evidence would support (or refute) that hypothesis.  Learner Agency:  I chose this hypothesis because I feel if learners are able to be agentic in their learning then they will be more entitled to drive their progress in literacy. I feel that when learners have a deep understanding of what they are learning and the appropriate tools to support the learning then they will be more successful.  How I will test this:  I have taken some pre videos of my learners student voice and I plan to do the same in term 3 and term 4 to measure the progress of the learners understanding of their learning.  During each reading and writing lesson, I will co-construct a success criteria with my learners and make sure that this is often referred back to throughout the learning. These success criteria will align with the Stonefield's learning ...

7. Describe the process for developing hypothesis (What you read, who you talked with)  Professional conversations:  - Jannie Van Hees- We are fortunate to have Jannie working a long side our school supporting our 2019 oral language project. We discussed the importance of learners giving detail in their speech. This needs to be modelled and encouraged in all areas of the school day.  - Team conversations - We are noticing that our learners are often giving 1 or 2 word responses to questions and very rarely volunteering information without prompting.  - Dianne Ley (RTLB) - As part of the oral language project, my team has had coaching with Dianne. We have discussed ways to incorporate oral language across all areas of the school day. We also have a focus on supporting ESOL learners.  - Naomi Toland - We have been discussing the development of the brain and where there could be barriers for some learners to make connections to learning. We have discussed usi...

*Develop a set of hypotheses about patterns in your teaching that could be changed to more effectively address the student learning focus. *Describe your process for developing hypotheses (what you read, who you talked with). Reflections: Am I giving my learners the opportunities to reflect on their learning? I noticed that my learners weren’t reflecting on their learning. They were unable to discuss whether they had been successful in their learning, what helped them with their learning and what they might be doing next. I have spoken with many teachers at Stonefield's about how the learner qualities could be used as a tool for reflection.  Agency: Are my learners able to discuss in detail about their learning and make decisions about that learning?  I asked my learners to tell me what their next steps were and they were unable to do so. I attended a literacy symposium where I learnt different strategies to gift learners the vocabulary they might need. We use S...

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...