Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

  Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools. I plan to use a range of tools and approaches to give me an accurate profile of learning.  Easttle data - I will use their writing samples for term 1 and term 4 as a way to compare the progress learners make throughout the year. This initial data will give me a good idea of which areas of writing learners have gaps in.  Schooltalk gap analysis - This data will give me regular, up to date evidence of the progressions learners are achieving in as well as what their next steps are.  Learner voice - Learner voice will give me information about what the learners are finding tricky, what they believe to be their next steps are and what tools and strategies they are using. It will also show me how attitudes and needs may change throughout the year. I hope to use this measur...

Summarise the discussion you had with your school leader(s) about your proposed inquiry focus and their reaction to this As you can see from the data in the previous post, writing is our focus across our school. With a particular focus on raising the achievement of Māori boys.  After a discussion with my fellow CoL teachers (Anita and Sammy) we feel there is a space for development in how we deliver feedback to our learners for their writing.  I would like to collaborate with this shared goal around feedback but with the focus being around making writing purposeful for all learners.  During a discussion with the year 3 and 4 Assistant Principal, I came up with the following ideas:  How can I make writing more purposeful for all learners? Is the learning meaningful and relatable?  How can learners give and receive meaningful feedback that is relevant to their learning? Does this lead to agency?  How can an audience from whānau make writing purposeful? Could ...

Summarise the challenge of student learning you plan to focus on in this inquiry. Be as clear and specific as you can about the evidence you have about this to date. This year I plan to focus on raising writing achievement. As you can see in the data below, our writing data is our biggest challenge. This is evident in our hub data as well:  EasTTle data from 2020 shows that 46% learners are working below expected level.  Overall OTJ data for 2020 shows that 22% of learners are working below expected level.  If we delve deeper into our writing data and look at Māori learners achievement in writing, you can see that this is a schoolwide focus. w

  I’m really looking forward to jumping straight into my inquiry for 2021 and so excited that we are taking a more collaborative approach to our inquiries this year. We have started off collaborating with a digital connect with my fellow CoL teachers (Anita and Sammy) where we had a brainstorm about where we would like to head this year with our inquiries.  Our discussion focus was around raising achievement in writing. The brainstorm included:  Have flexi connects with a learner and parent after school (virtual or physical) to discuss the feedback given throughout the week (the successes, challenges, and next steps).  Provide further School Talk support and other workshops for whānau to strengthen home-school partnerships. Gather whānau voice of what is going to help when giving and receiving feedback? Create and use strategies and tools to give feedback/feedforward in writing. Create agency for our learners when sharing and co-constructing feedback by using the suc...

 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...