Student voice for beginning of Term 3

I wanted to find out how my students are progressing since their first student voice form. Most of the questions in the form stayed the same with the addition of some questions.

Looking at their responses, I am able to identify most of the students are more confident in expressing their reflections about their learning and writing. They are more specific with their answers. The growth in confidence is more evident in their responses.

Here are the responses on Google Slides

Manaiakalani Secondary Connects - English - Literacy

Today I joined a Google Hangout meeting for the Manaiaklani Secondary Connects with a focus on English and Literacy. 

As an intermediate school teacher, I am very keen to learn about what is taught in college so I am able to prepare my students for their upcoming college years. 

Aaron Wilson's presentation supported what I have been trying to implement in my practice with T Shape Literacy. 

T Shape literacy I feel is often mentioned in professional discussions but not often explored in deep details (deep diving). I am glad I joined the Secondary Connects today because Aaron shared some very important insights to support my understanding. 

Aaron shared during observations, the WFRC observed a lot of time was spent focussing on a single text which came at an opportunity cost for the students. He discussed a lot of time was invested in one text when the students could be getting exposure to many texts relating to the topic. 

This is something I have been implementing in my teaching. The use of different multimodal texts for students to read and make meaning from. What I learnt today was inclusion of Challenge Texts where students points of views are challenged by another text. 

T Shaped Literacy is often referred to as the Wide and Deep reading approach. The students read a wide range of texts with a deep focus. Aaron discussed today that the narrow focus is drilling deep into a specific aspect of the texts. I have been reflecting about this statement from Aaron. Often when we have a lot of texts, we as teachers want to cover all the ideas in the texts. With time management in the classroom, often this leads to surface level discussions just to cover all the texts. 

Below are the benefits of T Shaped Literacy from Aaron's presentation today.

Definitely added to my kete today. These connect meetings are very valuable. Moving forward, I will now analyse my implementation and modify using what I have learnt today. 

Using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy in teaching Writing

My inquiry question is: Will an integrated literacy programme with a focus on Learn, Create, Share accelerate the writing achievement of my target learners? (Refer to 27 May blog post)

I have been putting a lot of focus on integrating reading and writing. The students have been using written texts for a lot of their learning materials in the last term. This term, I am working on using more visual and audio texts for their learning activities. 

I have been promoting the use of SISOMO (sight, sound, motion) when the students are creating their sharing tasks. I find using Screencastify is an easy and accessible app for them to use. The only struggle now is the noise level when the students are recording their screencastify recordings in class. We are working our way through systems where the students can break out into more quiet spaces to record their recordings.

With using SISOMO resources, I am promoting what I am encouraging the students to create. This term, we are starting writing with procedural writing. The two slide presentations are examples of the use of SISOMO learning materials for students. They are watching Youtube clips on how to make Hangi and Trifle, then they respond by answering response questions. In responding to the response questions, the students are unpacking what they  understand from the clips. This will help them shape their ideas when writing the procedures. 

The students are also using a planning sheet created for them to use. This will help them structure their writing. 

I am currently working through my deliberate acts of teaching to change aspects of my practice which I believe will change the attitude of my students to writing, bring about more fun in learning to write, emphasise the purpose of writing and the target audience and accelerate writing achievement in my class.

The end of a wonderful DFI journey

It has been a wonderful, full on term with DFI learning every Tuesday. I have learnt so much during the DFI days. 

My confidence in using digital tools in my practice has increased and my appreciation for digital tools and how we can use these to empower our learners is stronger than ever. 

The exam was a good challenge. It was also fun to put what I had learnt to action and also challenge myself to problem solve. I was very happy today when I received the results from the exam. What a great way to finish off the term.

I am very grateful to Dorothy and the DFI team for their support and awhi during the DFI journey. Special thank you

to our bubble leader Mark for his help and support too.

Where to now? Is there a DFI for level two? To anyone considering going through the DFI journey, I strongly suggest you do. It is an empowering opportunity for you as an educator. 

Inquiry in action

Earlier in the term, I made the change to have three literacy groups in my class. Prior the students were in different reading and writing groups. Now in literacy groups, they are in the same group for reading and writing.

It has been an effective change. There in coherence in our discussions from writing to reading and the students are working very well together in their groups. I also find the flow of the lessons and rotations between groups are really effective.

With learning materials, I have a main text, then supplementary texts to support the main text. There is a lot of exposure to different texts at different levels. The students who struggle to understand some texts are finding support from their peers and also from listening and asking questions in our discussions.

With rotations, I have one main discussion group each day, then a mini discussion with another group. Each group has one main discussion and a mini discussion with me each week. With the integrated literacy groups, I find what we did not cover in reading discussions we can also catch up during writing discussions as the materials are linked between reading and writing.

For students with extra learning support needs, this integration is working very well for them. They are not having to think of which group they are in and what time they see the teacher as the rotations between groups are very well executed.

Where to from here? I am focussing on the quality of discussions. These are some of the questions I am constantly thinking of after group discussions.

How much of the discussion was led by the teacher?
How engaged were the students?
Did we achieve the goal of the discussion?
How much of the learning materials did the students understand?
How were the less motivated students encouraged to participate?

There are so many other aspects to my inquiry which I am working on. I am happy with what I am observing and working on so far and persevering to make more changes to my practice.

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Day 7 - Devices

Another full on day of learning today. I am enjoying the opportunities to learn then create a DLO to share my learning.

The focus for today were devices. I had the chance to the a Chromebook and experience what it is like for my students to work on a Chromebook. Learnt some shortcuts which I did not know before. Below are the slides I worked through to familiarise myself in working on a Chromebook.

We also had to work with using ipads today. Devices which the junior school students use for their learning but it was good to use Explain Everything again. I have not used Explain Everything for a while and I can see the many learning opportunities the students can gain from using ipads. 

For my last create activity today, I chose to use screencastify to create a movie about one of the Cybersmart areas. I chose to focus on Smart Footprint.  I used the information on from the Cybersmart Site and created my DLO using google slides. After creating the google slides, I used screencastify to talk about the content of the Smart Footprint lesson. 

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Day 6 - Enabling Access to Sites

I have to say today, I did the most practical work I have ever done since starting DFI. It was great to look at other sites to get ideas from. When we had to share our sites in our small bubbles I was shocked to learn some of the pages were not linked properly to the buttons. A little help from our facilitator Mark fixed this. 

The rest of the day I worked intensely on making my site more appealing and user friendly for my students. The buttons on the site were horrible with the background still visible. I changed this by making new buttons using Google Draw and ensuring the buttons were downloaded as PNGs. Below are the before and after screenshots. 

Before

After

I also changed the buttons and added dividers for the subject pages on my site. Before, I had all the buttons for the terms on the page. Now I have added new buttons and separated the other terms using a divider. I also did this for Writing and Maths. 

Reading page with new buttons and other terms separated

There are many more changes I want to make to my class site but for now I am very proud of how my class site looks now. 

"You can't CONNECT if you won't share" (Dorothy. Burt). 

I have gained so much from the sharing of other teachers and facilitators in Manaiakalani and other clusters. The above quote from Dorothy really emphasises the importance of connecting through sharing of our ideas and work as teachers. 

This brings me to my next point of discussion. VISIBILITY. It is important to ensure what we put online is visible for our students, whanau and colleagues. This a lesson I learn't today and probably will never forget. Viewing Incognito is helpful to view what others can see when visiting our sites.

I am quite proud of the work I was able to do on my class site today. I am glad we were given the opportunity to share our site with others in our small bubbles and receive their feedback. I learnt a lot from viewing the blogs and listening to our small bubbly members share their sites. We are all at different stages in our teaching and also teaching different year levels but we were able to take ideas from each other.  

Below are some tips for creating successful sites.