Blogpost #4 - Hypothesise & Research

 1. 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.

- From the 5 Achievement challenges, it was difficult to hone in on ONE particular challenge that I felt, best fit what my Inquiry is this year. I've decided to go with Achievement Challenge #1 because of the keywords "Cultural Visibility and Responsive Practices across the Pathways". 

My inquiry this year is on the importance of 'Student and Teacher well-being' and how it impacts the learning that takes place in the class. It's a broad focus, but I feel it holds power, especially in the times we're living in. The reason I made this decision, is because I have seen how chaotic it's been with student/teacher absences due to covid, the winter flu and other illnesses. Days of recovery take up to 2 weeks. The absences and even the returning to school after it, can take on a toll on everyone.

So, my hypotheses for my inquiry this year is: Schools need to consider HYBRID LEARNING as a new form of teaching (in this day and age) and should further implement it and not use it as a one-off mechanism. Taking into consideration the health and well-being of our learners and teachers and being well aware that the recovery process for covid and the flu, can easily take up to two weeks.

Some of my Findings: 

1. Student Absences may not seem like a big problem. But, absences add up quickly. And, these missed school days can have a big impact on the child's learning. 

Link to website: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/school/Pages/School-Attendance-Truancy-Chronic-Absenteeism.aspx

2. Staff Absences 'through the roof' at schools due to illness surge. This year, covid and the flu have hit hard, particularly in our schools.

Link to website: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/468695/class-cancelled-staff-absences-through-the-roof-at-schools-due-to-illness-surge

Blogpost #3 - Preliminary Findings

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence

With my inquiry this year being on "Teacher and Student well-being", I will have a mix of concrete and abstract evidence for my findings. 

My target group (teachers and students) is my team of teachers and my class as a whole. My team did partake in the 'Occupational well-being' survey and my students have completed a learner voice survey that I will conduct on a termly basis. 

I aspire to conduct the learner voice every term to ensure there is consistency but also to affirm the results are not just based on a one off experience. The most recent learner voice was based on Teacher expectations and Teacher-Student relationships. Here are the results:

Standards & Expectations:

-Believes I can learn

-Is sad when I not do well

- Tells students off if they have been naughty

- Students are well behaved and do not get in the way of my learner

-Is very good at treating everyone in the same way

-Is ready & organised to teach us there is no time wasted getting things ready

Teaching & Learning - Relationships

- Cares about me

- Trusts me

- Is excited about teaching me

- Is interested and listens to my ideas

- Takes time to find out things I am interested in

- Knows what I can and can't do in my learning

- Is someone I look up to; I think very highly of them.

Another piece of evidence i'd like to share is my class winning the Glen Taylor School 'Alan's Class Attendance Award'. Since the beginning of Term 2, Room 11 has won this award EVERY WEEK (that's 5 weeks). I consider this evidence because it shows me that my learners enjoy school. They are attending on a daily basis, the sound of laughter and chatter ripples through the class and the student work displayed around the class reciprocates this.

Blogpost #2: Tools, measures & approaches

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.

Well-Being.

A term that encapsulates so many things that it needs to be broken down, layer by layer.

Prior to our GTS Teacher Only Day in the first week of this term, my understanding of well-being was as broad as many others. It revolved around the contentment and state of happiness of an individual.

Well-Being is one of our school goals. How to ensure that the school supports the well-being of its staff and students. I somewhat understood that well-being counted for many things, such as emotional well-being and feelings, physical well-being, social well-being etc. 

However, I had only just learnt that 'Occupational well-being' was something of existence too. What does that mean you ask? Occupational well-being is a term that was introduced to our staff by an outside facilitator named Tony Burkin. He usually works with management and staff on how ensuring that our teacher practice is effective and top quality. He challenges us to challenge ourselves.

One of the tools he introduced to our staff was the 'Occupational well-being' survey. This survey helped us analyse our own 'occupational well-being' in 4 main areas: Cognitive, Subjective well-being, Physical and Mental well-being and Social Well-being. Basically, we had 62 questions we had to answer by a grading system, 0 being disagree strongly, 1 = disagree, 2 = agree and 3 = agree strongly. When the staff had gone through the set of questions, we then had to add up our score. Tony would say "ok, please add your score for questions number 2, 25, 42, 1, 6 and 12. If you totalled 5 or below you are in the lower division, 6-10 is average, 11+ is high.

What this survey helped me realise was the need to balance things out in life. We can't let what happens in our personal life, affect our professional life. It's very complicated to manage this because as teachers, many of us are emotional people and part of our life, outside our profession helped shape us into who we are.

So what?

I'd love to use this survey on other teachers - rather than having my own group of 'target students', I feel like my group could be made up of staff members instead. I believe that in order for student achievement to occur, teachers are key to making this happen. If the learner is not learning from how the teacher is teaching, the teacher needs to change his/her practice to best cater to the learner and their needs.