Evaluation for 2020 (Bursts & Bubbles Presentation)

 The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was 

How will I change my teaching practice to ensure my learners are developing a deeper understanding of vocabulary (in Literacy)?

I identified this as my focus when I noticed

The discrepancy between reading and writing was evident in school wide data but also my class assessment data, leading me to choose reading as my focus area for my coL within school inquiry & focusing on vocabulary as it was the highlighted area of weakness in my class.

To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used ……. (sources of evidence and data e.g. PAT reading, my own vocabulary test, student voice)

Student Voice - through google forms, padlet, interlead, literacy learner profiles from ALL intervention to collect information about students cultural backgrounds, things that were important to them, their reading interests, attitudes towards reading, what they’d like to read more of, types of texts etc

PAT Vocab results - I’d use these results to help me identify the level of understanding my students have with words.

Samples of Writing - I’d use samples of their writing throughout the year and from summative assessments to assess their standard of vocabulary used. From this, i’d know if they’ve used words correctly and words we’ve learnt and discussed during our reading sessions.

Talanoa with students’ previous teachers, themselves and their whanau - for more insight on students, id approach previous teachers

Blog posts

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were (their strengths and needs)

Strengths - They enjoyed reading through song lyrics, reading myths & legends from their cultural backgrounds, reading about cultural superstitions, visual prompts helped them understand the text more, texts on things they liked/enjoyed & familiarised with

Needs - 3 main areas were: Vocabulary Knowledge, Decoding, Comprehension

My profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in …. 

• Whole Class teaching

• Engaging students 

• Teaching my way! in a way it made sense to me

But my students would likely make more progress if 

• I provided students with explicit instructions to build vocabulary

• Creating more Cultural experiences for students to be more hands-on and actively involved in.

• Constant exposure to new key words and topic-specific vocabulary

The changes I made in my teaching were ….

• Changing my Reading programme, Implemented of Daily 5 programme and using a balanced reading structure inspired by Sheena Cameron

• Creating Authentic Learning Experiences relating to my students cultural background and using these experiences as points of Talanoa in class, enabling students to be exposed to thematic key understandings relating to our school LCS focus for 2020 which was IDENTITY

• Taught through cultural competencies framework - being aware of what was important to my students identity and using that as the hook in my practice this year

• Links to the LPF documents

• Front-loading students with keywords from the text prior to the delivered lesson

• Implemented the Sheena Cameron Vocabulary programme through my guided sessions 

• Continued to implement ALL strategies

The literature/expertise that helped me decide what changes to make was…

• The Reading Book by Sheena Cameron & Louise Dempsey

• Effective Literacy Practice in Y5-8

• Tapasa cultural competencies framework

• What every primary school teacher should know about vocabulary by Jannie Van Hees

• Boys in Literacy PD by Marshall Diggs

• Talanoa Framework

The easiest and hardest things for me to change were…..  

• My teacher ownership - giving more authority to the students

• Stepping out of my comfort zone and implementing a reading programme that was initially foreign to me

• Changing my practice by trying new things that I believed would help my inquiry but also be successful for my students achievement

Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as….  

“Work in progress”. 

Out of my 6 target students, (L, B, C, T, G, N), 4 made accelerated progress and the other 2 made steady progress. 5 of my students are Y8’s and I can confidently say that most of them are mentally & emotionally ready for high school learning.

5 of the boys are Y8 and they are leaving school with a passion for education and have the drive to persevere with their High School learning next year.

The most important learning I made about …. (my focus of student learning) was that 

• Talanoa/Story-telling and Oral language provides opportunities for students to dialogue more, enhancing their knowledge of vocabulary in English as well as their first language.

• Authentic cultural learning experiences provides opportunities for students to read/write/problem solve - it also encourages teachers to learn more about their students identity

• If you want to hit the nail with teaching Pasifika/Maori students you need to invest time into learning about the culture they identify with and what this means to them is key.

Boys in Literacy PD - 25/09/2020

 Name of Course/Programme/Seminar:

Boys in Literacy PD

Provider/Presenter:

Marshall Diggs 

If I was to summarise the key things I took away from this Professional Development what would they be and why?

• Teach and develop Reading Strategies which invite boys to create, compete and imagine
• Teach boys these 4 strategies: Making Inferences, Making Connections, Decoding, Summarising

• Boys will read material that interests them and captivates their attention

• Boys shouldn’t be sitting for longer than their age and 10 minutes

• You can have control OR you can have growth, but you can’t have both

• Your greatest contribution at school is not what you can teach - it’s WHO YOU TEACH

How has this professional development challenged my thinking?

• This PD was a reminder about the importance of knowing my learners.
• Use to my advantage the positive relationship I have with my boys as the stepping stone of really making a difference with their learning in literacy
• It hasn't changed my thinking - it's reaffirmed my thinking - particularly around the strategies I should be teaching in Reading. From the Sheena Cameron PD, earlier in the year, I had identified similar strategies as the NEED in my classroom. Today's PD confirmed I'm on the right track.
• Reminder that boys think, learn and work differently to the girls
• Move away from the traditional 'Writing genre teaching' and empower boys through engaging tasks that involve boys to write about facts, competition, humour, survival, conflict, adversity etc
• Inspire boys to WRITE through learning experiences - i.e the flying teabag experiment (Concrete Prompts for an Abstract Task)

What aspects of my practice would I consider changing as a result of this professional development and why?

• Some aspects of my literacy programme - include more warm-up games such as word association, Buddy A & Buddy B, Walk & Talk, Tap & Read
• Use videos to prompt writing
• Word Banks are effective when wanting students to remember key vocabulary (I had started this after the Sheena Cameron PD)
• Subtle Praise
• Boys shouldn't be sitting longer than their age + 10 minutes - so encourage them to walk about the class and elbow shake others or play the finger/palm game as little brain breakers
• Boys in Literacy PD 2020

 

Home Learning Part 2!

Description
Students in charge!

Significance
I got the idea from Poto's blog post - about giving the students time to talk, time to take ownership, time to lead!

Learning
Week 2 of Home Learning Part 2, I decided that Room 11 students will now host our morning calls. The decision was inspired by Poto's recent blogpost about letting the kids do more of the talking during the google calls.

The idea was mentioned last Friday in my class call with Room 11, response was 50/50, some looked excited and others didn't even blink. But thinking of lockdown and how i'd usually run my calls, it can be quite boring. If the students have no input or questions, they're sitting there for a good 45 minutes watching and listening to me. So, our first student-led session was this morning, I decided to choose Rottpon and Anna, because I know they'll get the job done and take the lead. I did provide an opportunity of 'volunteering' but I think they were still in shock, with the thought of 'Miss Tupou just said we had to run the meetings' - yikes!

But I know how my class works. Yes, they'll be hesitant and nervous at first, but once we get the ball rolling, they will roll it as far as they can.

So what?
I've learnt to practice what I preach! We often hear teachers talk about 'student voice is important' and 'learning should be student driven' but do we really let the students drive the learning? If so, how often?

As teachers, we're accustomed to the idea of 'leading the learning' and forget that our students watch us everyday. They know what we'd say, they know the class routines, they know EVERYTHING. Poto's reflection was a reminder for me to give my students a chance. A chance to have fun, to wear the 'teacher' shoe and to sit back and enjoy.

And that, is how Home Learning Part 2 is going :)

Blogpost #11 - Collecting Data

Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way

Having a plan for everything is part of teacher practice and as a CoL teacher. However, with the realities of Covid-19 and having been in lockdown twice this year, that plan wasn't executed as expected.
If you have a look at my previous blog posts, you will find out more about the changes I have recently made in my practice.

Collecting Data:

1. OTJ's - Overall Teacher Judgements
2. Assessments - Probe/PATs/Teacher Observation/Student Educational Output
3. Student Voice on reading & writing
4. Frequent Spelling/Grammar mini-tests
5. Student Blogposts
6. Video recordings of lessons
7. Learner Wall - display of student literacy work

Record Keeping:

1. ETAP graphs - these are produced once assessment results are entered
2. Spreadsheet 
3. PAT graphs
4. Video recordings of students working independently but also in guided reading sessions
5. Photos
6. Interlead Reflections
7. Observation notes (either from myself or from another Teacher who has come in to observe a lesson)
8. Student Voice - have a recorded visual/audio of a talanoa between students and teacher about their thoughts & feelings about Literacy and the focus on Vocabulary

Blog post #10 - Monitoring the effects

Identify informal and 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 

1. Interlead Reflections - Glen Taylor School uses interlead as an appraisal tool. It allows us to reflect on our teacher practice as much as we want. From 'wow' moments, to 'fail' moments. It's a great way for me to monitor the effects of my own practice and the new changes I've implemented.
2. Student voice - this occurs informally and formally at GTS. Once a term, our learners provide learner voice on our practice. Informally, we use google forms or padlets to gage student ideas on what learning should look like for the term, what they enjoy most about each learning area, what Miss Tupou needs to work on etc. We are open to feedback from our learners because we tell them "We want to be the best teachers we can be, so be honest about what needs improving, no offence will be taken".
3. Teacher Observation - With shared reading, I've noticed student engagement is at an all time high. For the first couple weeks of re-introducing shared reading, we looked at song lyrics and spoken word poetry. Our goal was to 'infer using evidence from the text'. First time we worked on this as a class, it was a fail, due to interruptions through out the lesson (Kapa Haka rehearsal, support staff teachings, dentist appointments etc). So, I tried again the next day, with my whole class there. It was a huge success. The song was 'Dear Mr President' by PINK. We had a class copy put on the whiteboard and each student was given a copy of the lyrics. By the end of the lesson, most of the students had made 5+ inferences/anecdotes on their pieces of paper. Below is an example of one students anecdotes on a piece of spoken word poetry piece, we used for shared reading.