Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

 During our staff PLD this week, we had an update of our mid year data.  NOTICINGS:  Writing is by far our main lowest achieving subject. We are making small shifts of improvement. Yay! Year 3 and year 4 have the highest numbers of learners working towards in writing.  REFLECTION:  What is not working in writing? What do we need to get the data up before the end of the year? 

I had my amazing colleague Anita observe me teaching writing.  She made the following comments:  Observation: Emma Clark Writing 29/07/21   Following a clear pathway using the learning process  Which links to the writing process  Building knowledge - building communities spent two sessions on creating communities Making meaning - Labeling pictures, making a list of what/who is in the community. Supporting Student Support Learners - providing one on one support  Continuing to make meaning by recording the senses  Noticings: Learners engaged and pick up the learning straight from where they left - using their models they created, recapping on prior knowledge using photos. Learners using tools and strategies (writing frames) to support the structure of their writing.  Gifting language - learners experiencing success.  Supporting with putting the ideas into sentences.  Providing group an one on one support Digital / paper modeling book to su...

Causal Chain - Why is thinking about a causal chain important before you design your intervention? The purpose is to tighten up your intervention and to understand more deeply  what you did that resulted in a shift in student achievement

Develop a rich profile of relevant aspects of your current teaching . This profile will be used formatively to help you design an intervention and summatively as a baseline on which you can judge shifts later At the moment, writing is happening every day without fail which is great! We have timetabled it into our week so it is always in the first block and therefore not moved around. We are planning rich writing opportunities that connect with our concept of diversity which has engaged and hooked our learners.  What is happening in the writing programme?  The writing process is used as a guide for planning and we ensure that every writing opportunity follows the whole process. During the planning phase of the learning process, we hook and engage learners by offering them a range of experiences such as science, art and drama that are integrated through concept learning. Once they’re hooked, we build our knowledge about a particular genre through videos and looking at examples o...

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...

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. Learner voice: I will use the learner voice survey at at least 3 points of the year so I can compare how the learners are tracking. I hope to add in a question about how they are giving and receiving feedback and whether this helps them to understand the next steps or not.  Gap analysis: this will be an ongoing assessment tool throughout the year. As the learners and I upload evidence to Schooltalk, this will build a rich picture of how the learners are making progress in each goal.  Writing samples: Similar to Schooltalk, I will regularly be monitoring the progress of my target learners through their writing books and writing samples.  Easttle: This will be used as a beginning and end compare and contrast tool.

Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding. Evidence  Findings  Hypothesis  Learner voice  Low assessment capabilities  Do not understand the purpose for writing  Do not understand next steps  If I offer regular opportunities for feedback , will they be more assessment capable?  If I find opportunities for learners to write on a range of meaningful, authentic and purposeful writing topics , will they have more to say/write about?  Gap analysis and writing samples  Low assessment capabilities  Areas with the most gaps are vocab, sentence structure, spelling, writing legibility, punctuation  If I explicitly teach learners spelling patterns and develop a structured spelling programme , will these gaps close?  If I explicitly teach handwriting and have this as a separate learning programme to literacy, will this remove ...