2021 Teaching as Inquiry Evaluation

As an educator, every year comes with its challenges which we reflect on at the end of the teaching year. However, this year, there are so many more aspects of teaching and learning to reflect on. The Covid lockdown of 2021 has definitely been a challenging part of this year's journey. 

With many weeks of online learning and with not all of my students attending the meets, I felt as if I was battling a losing battle. When I reflected about learning from home during the lockdown, five of the seven students in my target group were consistent participants in our online meets every day.  They were the attending the meets, participating in our online learning and sharing their learning with me and also on their blogs. That is one of my successes for this year. 

The Project Based Learning programme enabled students to be more independent with their learning. This worked well with learning from home. The students were able to choose which activities they would work on. They were able to work at their own pace but all students had the same deadline for submitting their work. Throughout the year, most of the students gained the confidence to independently plan their work, seek help from their peers and teachers and also reflect on what they needed to do to improve their work. 

Looking at the data for the projects this year, there are definitely many successes to be celebrated. The projects were marked according to the marking criteria for each project. The students were awarded points from 1-3 depending on the quality of their tasks.  Looking at the last project which was NZ People and Places, most of the students were achieving Excellence and Merit for the tasks which they submitted. By the last projects, the students were confident in attempting and completing their tasks. Two of the students in the group did not submit their tasks due to their lack of attendance of our meets during the lockdown. I think it is also important to highlight that the Dux award for Glenbrae School this year went to one of the students in my target group and the Top Academic Student award also went to another student in my target group. Great achievements for these students due to their perseverance and effort right throughout the year. 

It is also important to reflect on the students who did not make significant gains in their learning. For example student KP. Throughout the year, this student did not get an achieved for his projects. I am questioning what more could I have done to support this student? Success for this student was his confidence to participate in learning discussions and not take an observer's role. His marks does not reflect the improvements he made during the year. 

Was self efficacy a worthwhile focus for my TAI this year? Yes! Definitely. When you have a student look you in the eye and say "Miss, I can't do this, I am dumb". That is heartbreaking to hear these words coming from a student. This was said to me in Term 1 and it really sent me on a reflective journey to question how this student has come to this conclusion about themselves. I also questioned the role of teachers in building the confidence of their students as learners and also how we can also be destructive in the efforts of students to be confident learners. Definitely a conversation I wanted to have with my teaching colleagues this year but did not have the chance to. 

Building self efficacy in my target learners, worked differently for each student. This is reflective of the complex needs we have to cater for in our teaching practice. I had seven students in my target group and they were all at different levels in terms of their self efficacy and abilities. The variety in learning abilities enabled the peer modelling to work well. The students identified their own "favourite" peer to ask for peer modelling and would always refer to these peers for help when they needed. I also noticed an increase in visiting the blogs of others as part of the peer modelling. Thus emphasising the different strategies the students were using to have their peers model work to them. 

That is a question which I have been reflecting on. We often would like to think we are doing all the right things to tick the boxes in terms of supporting our ākonga. At times in our reflections we can be one sided and say we are doing all the right things however, we might need to dig deeper and critically analyse our own practice and actions and how they impact our learners. Student, voice would also be very valuable to answer this question. The students, have always in their student voice given me valuable insights about my teaching practice. Most importantly, as educators, we need to be open to challenging our beliefs, thinking, professional judgements and be open to making changes. 

Planning for the year ahead

With the students now starting to enjoy their summer break, we as a team are reflecting on the learning from 2021 and planning for the academic year of 2022. We as the senior school teaching team have reflected on our teaching practice individually and as a team have have made a list of non negotiables which we are implementing and strengthening for the upcoming year. 

Being in the planning meetings was a great opportunity for me to share my experiences as a Manaiakalani CoL teacher. I shared templates for our team to use in their planning and teaching, resources from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre as well as other Manaiakalani Resources which our team can use in their planning. I strongly encouraged our teachers to use the integrated literacy approach as well as the T Shaped literacy. I have also encouraged our team to analyse the blogs of their students and take notes on the type of create activities the students were blogging because that is a reflection of our own teaching practice. We have set a goal to have the students blog SISOMO blog posts where they are able to discuss their learning through recordings and using more interactive presentations. 

I strongly emphasised the importance of exposing students to different texts to add to their knowledge and also challenge what they already know. We also discussed the value of dialogic discussions. That is another goal our team identified for our learning and teaching for 2022. We have been trying to implement having dialogic discussions in our classes for many years but there is still work needed to be done for this to be effectively happening in our classes. 

As I participated our planning meeting, I could not help but feel excited for the changes we will be making in our teaching next year. I look forward to seeing the teachers in our team implement what we have planned in their teaching practice and most of all, I look forward to our tamariki accelerating their learning through their learning experiences. 

Burst and Bubble 2021

This year, due to the current lockdown situation in Auckland, our Burst and Bubbles were online. It was quite a challenge to narrow down my talk to about three minutes but it worked out in the end.

It was a great opportunity to listen to our colleagues in our CoL group presenting their Teaching as Inquiry for this year. We are a thriving group of professionals in the Manaiakalani Cluster working to inquire into our practice to accelerate the learning of our students as well as build our own pedagogical knowledge and collaborate with our colleagues.

This year certainly has been a challenging year with us experiencing the longest lockdown yet but we are very blessed to have the support and kaupapa of our Manaiakalani Cluster to help us through these times. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

The long awaited return back to school for all schools in Aotearoa especially in Auckland has been announced. When this news was announced I was so over the moon. I have been battling an ongoing battle of trying to bring all my 27 students to our class meets but as the days turned into weeks, weeks into months we started to lose numbers. We had a committed group who diligently attended everyday, then the group who would join a few times a week then there is a small group who we have not seen much at all on the meets. 

When I asked my students on the meet if they were excited to come back to school, the answer was a resounding YES! They are eager to return back to school, to socialise, to be with their friends, be out of the house and hopefully seeing their teacher in person in on that list too.

For me as their teacher, it is an emotional return in a way. Why? Because I have wanted for so long to return back to school. Term 4 is a busy term with assessments, end of year activities such as prize giving and also graduation for my Year 8 students as they will be leaving our home nest of Glenbrae School and going on to college. It is also my last term before I am to go on maternity leave so I feel a bit deprived of my precious weeks with my tamariki before we finish off the year. Regardless, I am grateful to have the next four weeks to be with my class before we close off for the year.

In our staff hui, it was discussed the main focus for students returning is to reconnect and enjoy being back to school after learning from home for some time. We have to take into consideration the safety aspects of returning back to school while this pandemic is still in the community. 

As a teacher, my planning will be around reconnecting, socialising, learning and reflecting on what has been a very challenging year. I am just so proud of my students and their resilience and perseverance. These students will look back to this time when they are adults and realise just how challenging these times are for them and for the community and country. He waka eke noa is our school theme for this year and it truly plays a huge part in how we have been living through this lockdown. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel now. We are returning back to school what a wonderful feeling. See you soon Room 7.

Self efficacy - the can do and the will do

In working with my students to build their self efficacy, I have been noticing the dialogue in our discussions has improved tremendously. The students confidence in sharing their ideas, confusions, misunderstandings and challenges has opened up more opportunities for dialogic discussions about our project topics and tasks. 

Noticing and reflecting is a vital tool because at times we can take what is happening before our eyes for granted and not realise that some changes have occurred in how the students are learning.

Albert Bandura's work is similar to the work of Pajares on self efficacy.

Bandura states 'Self- efficacy is concerned with perceived capability. The items should be phrased in terms of Can Do rather than Will Do'. 

When reflecting on this statement, I cast my mind to my years of teaching with a focus on boys and reading. The reluctant readers. The boys who do work because they know they have to not because they want to. That intrinsic motivation to read for learning and to understand is not there. Rather they read to gain the information they need to complete the task so they can say it is done. These are the WILL DOs. 

The Can Dos. They can read for learning, interest and understanding. They can do the task because they have the self efficacy to achieve the task. If it is challenging they have strategies and support systems in place to help them do the task. They Can Do the task because they Want To and they know How To. 

Now, having high self efficacy does not mean you have mastered a high level of skills in any given area of learning. Rather is it about your ability to perceive the task ahead and how you can manage the task. It is about your perceived judgement of capability rather than your self worth. Self efficacy is about judgement of capability, self esteem is about your judgement of self worth. How each person judges their self worth is different but often it relies on how you are received by others in your social circle.

In working with my students to build their self efficacy, I had to tread carefully and not put so much pressure on them that they felt they could not cope. Rather it was a scaffolded approach of mentoring which I took. 

Vital to building self efficacy is the students' ability to self reflect. Reflecting on our journey so far, it has been challenging for a lot of my target group. I have often thought about how these students have gotten to where they are with their lack of self efficacy. "Miss I can't do it". When this was said to me, it was with all honesty and I welcomed this statement as a cry for help. I was very happy the student opened up about his frustration in completing a task which required, finding information, reading and understanding the information then creating a presentation to show what he has learnt. As well as given reading materials, the students have to do some independent researching for their Project Based Learning tasks. This to a student with low self efficacy in reading can be very challenging. An assumption I had was that, these boys have been so used to being in reading groups with a teacher aide help and they relied on the teacher aide to read and unpack the reading materials for them. Now I was pushing them to be more independent. I suppose the inexperienced Mrs Tofa could have said 'Yes you can do it but you are not trying' and leave the student try and complete the task. Rather experienced teacher Mrs Tofa sat down next to the student and unpacked the task, went through the given materials and then gave an example of how to complete the task. Show me don't tell me.

Examples are vital in building the self efficacy of students. When the students low self efficacy in an area of learning, they need a lot of examples of what the task might look like. This is where I utilised peer modelling. As Pajares discusses in his research. Students peer modelling to each other is more powerful than teacher modelling. I have seen this eventuate into students strengthening their friendships and trust with each other. Once I asked a student to contact me if he needed help for his work. His reply was that he is fine as he contacts his friend in our group when he needs help. Peer tutoring and modelling in action. 

Reference: Albert Bandura. Guide for Constructing self efficacy scales. (2006).

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

The challenge for today in our Fun Week Challenges was our cooking challenge. Our class had a meet at 9.30 am in the morning to discuss what we were going to do and also the recording/videoing aspects of our challenge. After the 9.30 am meet, all students and teachers then set off to do their cooking or baking. 

I had a staff meeting right after the meet so I did not make a start on my baking until after the meeting. It was definitely a challenge to bake pineapple pies before our 1.30 online shared lunch meet but I was able to finish with 15 minutes to spare for lunch and to catch my breath. 

While baking, I also knew that my class were cooking or baking and probably rushing around the kitchen like I was. I had a little help from my son and after hearing the students share, I also realised they too had help from whanau at home. Collaboration in the home at its best. 

My entry for today's challenge were Pineapple Pies. I have had the recipe for more than 10 years. It was passed on to me from some sister missionaries and I have made so many modifications to the recipe to suit my liking. I am very fussy with my pastry. I like the pastry very flaky and bakes until very golden brown. The filling is custard which has to be Edmonds custard with crushed pineapples and pineapple chunks also because I like eating pineapples. That is why I use the pineapple chunks as well. The end product were delicious, flaky and light pineapple pies. Probably the best I have made so far even though I was in a rush when I was making them.

Our online shared lunch meet was fun. The students shared their cooking and baking.  Other food entires were: frooze balls, hash browns, cookies, chicken curry, donuts, burgers, Maori bread, chocolate cake, mini curry pies. 

It was a great way to end the day sharing our cooking and baking. I am so proud of the effort my students are putting into these challenges and also grateful to their parents for their support in their children's activities. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

Term 3, Week 10. My class were meant to be on camp this week but due to alert levels, we have had to change our dates to Term 4. Regardless I still wanted my students to have some fun this week. Therefore the Room 7 Fun Week came into action.

Totally understanding the need for my tamariki to have some other type of learning activities while learning from home. We finished off our Project Based Learning for our current unit in Week 9 and kick started our Fun Week today. 

The objective is to have some hands on fun activities to do from home and be creative and innovative. Each day, there is a different activity to do but the goal is to give it a go and of course blog about your fun idea and creation. 

A while ago, I shared a poster with my class which emphasised the positive effects lockdown learning can have on our tamariki. There is often the discussion that students are not learning as much while learning from home. That not physically being at school and learning in school will have negative effects on their learning. However, this poster opened up another perspective.

Here it is: WHAT IF THEY ARE AHEAD?

would be very keen to have a discussion with any of my fellow teaching colleagues around the motu about how you have found the engagement of your learners during this lockdown. What innovative ideas did you put into action to engage your learners during your class meets? 

Supporting my colleagues with their Teaching as Inquiry

In my role as a CoL Across School teacher, I have been working with my colleagues on supporting them with their practice in the classroom using digital tools and also their Teaching as Inquiry. 

In the professional discussions I have been having with my colleagues, I have realised that teachers are at different levels of understanding when it comes to Teaching as Inquiry. We have the experienced teachers who have been inquiring into their practice for some years and have received a lot of professional development in how to carry out a Teaching as Inquiry into their practice, then we have our PRT teachers who are starting with their Teaching as Inquiry. 

I believe as teachers, we are always inquiring into our practice because of the nature of our work. We plan, teach, reflect, change, implement and the cycles goes on. However, there are more practices we can implement into our practice when we are conducting a Teaching as Inquiry. 

Teaching as Inquiry is a journey that we as teachers travel to learn and reflect on how we can utilise our role as teachers to accelerate the learning of our tamariki. If we know something works, do we still need to inquire into this? Or are we taking a safe route in our practice by repeating something we are doing in our teaching practice which we know works for learning? 

My advise is do not be afraid to go into the unknown. Identify the challenge you want to address in the learning of your tamariki and inquire into how you can improve and change this challenge. 

I created this slide presentation to help my colleagues with planning and actioning their Teaching as Inquiry. I am adding more details as I work through this year with hope, come end of this year, this slide presentation will be ready to be utilised by my colleagues from Term 1, 2022 when I am on maternity leave. (Yes, I am going on maternity leave beginning of Term 1, 2022).

If you have time to go through the slides, I welcome your feedback in improving the slide presentation. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

We are now several weeks into this lockdown. The daily meets are happening, the normal attendees are attending and then there are some who we are trying to engage with to attend the meets. 

One of my non attendees is a lovely student in my class. On the first week of lockdown, this student attended some of the meets then she stopped. I was getting very worried and phone calls were made, emails sent and the reply was "Yes Miss, I will come on". That didn't really happen. However, although this student is not attending the daily meets, she is actually doing the required work. She is sending through work that we are currently working on. Blogging her tasks and its almost as if she is getting information from the meets without being there.

I reflected on this and realised. This student is able to do all the required work because of the way the Home Learning page is set up with the required work and I am also sending email reminders to students of the work they are required to work on every day. I also add screencast recordings at the end of the day to wrap up the day and just reflect and acknowledge the students for their dedication and effort in our meets and work. 

I suppose the objective of this post is to remind ourselves as teachers about the importance of having a class site which is easy to navigate and while we like to play website designer and make our sites flash, we also have to keep in mind that the site should be easily navigated by the students and their parents. There is already a lot of anxiety attached to being on lockdown and adding more anxiety by having to navigate a complicated class site is not helpful for our learners and their whanau. 

Site tips:

On the landing page of your class site, have a very visible HOME LEARNING button which links to your Home Learning page 

Keep the site simple and easy to navigate

Have visuals to guide the students (too much text is uninviting)

Be present on the Home Learning page. What I mean by this is, have photos of yourself or recordings of you talking. I believe it helps with connecting with our tamariki while we are not seeing them face to face

Update the Home Learning Page daily. Some people might think, this is too repetitive and I am having to copy the same thing. For me, updating daily with announcements, meet times, recordings of myself keeps the Home Learning page active. The students will visit the Home Learning page and be updated if there is a change of meet times, or there is an assembly...

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

 Engaging our learners and whanau during lockdown

Our school from the first week of lockdown have been setting challenges for our students and their whanau to participate in this week the challenge was a Baking Challenge. It is great to see our students participating and our parents in the background lending a helping hand. 

Here is a movie for our students challenge this week. What talented students we are blessed to have at Glenbrae School. 

As well as challenging our students to take part, we also set the challenge for staff. Here is the movie for our Staff Challenge this week. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

Through all the lockdown teaching I have been doing, I have been learning to adjust to what is the norm when teaching from home and students are learning from home. 

I have come to realise that, it is harder to engage the students when they are not sitting right in front of you. At the beginning of our meets, I have always had to remind students to have their cameras on because personally, I prefer talking to my students when they are visible on my screen. When their cameras are off, I do not know if they are still lying in bed and I feel it is part of respecting themselves, others and their learning when they are on the meet ready to learn. 

How did I attack this challenge of the cameras being on during the meet? 

I assigned one of the students, one who is always the first to join the meets to be the monitor for the cameras. When this student was assigned, he gladly took the role and would remind people to have their cameras on. Quite funny though, because the monitor is one who I also had to remind a few times to have his camera on. It is quite pleasing to see the respect that the students have for each other. When ever my monitor would ask his peers to have their cameras on, they would comply. I have to admit the meets are much better with everyone's cameras on. 

Building self efficacy by fostering goal setting

Goal setting can be a powerful tool for students to use in building their own self efficacy. As well as student led goals, teachers can also give students goals to work on. As a teacher, one has to know the students well to set realistic and manageable goals for each student. A one size fits all model does not work here. We often discuss that our classrooms are differentiated to cater for our students and their learning abilities but are our expectations realistic for each student? 

In my practice and working on my teaching as inquiry, I have been discussing with each student their own journey in their learning. We have discussed their challenges in completing their tasks and how I as their teacher could be of help. We have also discussed how we can overcome challenges by seeking help from peers, whanau and self directed study. We have a long way to go yet with self directed study but making a start by asking the teacher or a peer is proving to be effective. My target learners are engaging in more discussions about their tasks where they share their ideas. The less confident students are not afraid to say they need help or say they do not understand. This is an improvement from getting stuck in their work then finding other activities to occupy their their time until it is time for their break or packing up for home.

I have always been a firm believer in the power of self realisation when one analyses their own performance or achievement. I did a task with my target learners where they reflected on their last project which was Architecture. They looked at their submission sheet for the Architecture project and summarised how many tasks they completed as well as make notes on how many Excellence, Merit, Achieved and Not Achieved tasks they had. As the students shared their reflections, they were very honest about their lack of effort, making simple mistakes and missing out on valuable points. It was also very evident they were very eager to ensure the current project which is Great Books would be an improvement. 

To set a goal, one has to realise where they are and their next goal for improvement. This was the purpose of this activity. Now the students are on a quest to ensure they complete all the tasks for the current project and working towards improving on the marks they receive. 

Diary of a teacher on lockdown

We have had a good run since last year and life almost felt normal again. At the beginning of this month, the news, social media and communication in schools started pre warning that it was a matter of time before Covid's Delta Variant will affect New Zealand. I was sitting in a Manaiakalani leader's meeting when our principal sent through an email from the ministry asking teachers to start preparing just in case we have to go into an urgent lockdown. 

Today, we heard the update from the Prime Minister that there as been a positive case of Covid in the community and it is Auckland. It is unsure if it is the Delta variant but genome testing is being conducted to determine if it is the Delta variant. 

Here we go again. We are going into teaching from home and students learning from home. We got communication from our principal that we can access school devices tonight and hand them to students in preparation for learning from home. Luckily for me, most of my students take their devices home and also VERY LUCKILY, my class had a practice lockdown drill in class yesterday. YES! Just yesterday we had another lockdown drill. 

What does a LOCKDOWN DRILL look like? 

In my best Jacinda Ardern voice, I announced to the class that there is now a positive case of Covid in the community and in an hour New Zealand will go into Alert Level 4

The students sit at their tables with their devices and chargers

We check all devices and chargers have labels with the students names on it

All students go on to the class site and go into our Home Learning page

On the Home Learning page, the students join the class meet using the link on the Home Learning page

I then accept all the students and we smile at each other while I take a screenshot to capture our beautiful faces on screen 

Benefits of a Lockdown Drill

I have peace of mind that all students have a working device and charger

All students are able to go on to the Home Learning page and access the class meet

Our new students to our class and Manaiakalani are taught how to access the class meet link 

I am confident our class site is easily navigated by students and parents to access the meet link

All devices are chargers are labelled 

Therefore, tonight, it took me about three minutes to take the devices out of the lock up cupboard and put them on the table. It took about 30 minutes to wait for my students to arrive and pick up their devices and that was it. Done! I left school confident that in the morning I will be seeing my tamariki on our first meet in this August 2021 Alert Level 4 Lockdown.

Guiding questions about self efficacy

In the planning of my self efficacy intervention for my students. I have been having a lot of conversations with my buddy teacher who is a long time colleague of mine. We have been discussing what we have been observing with the progress of our students in their project work and more importantly their self belief and perseverance when they come across a task which they find challenging.

At times, as teachers we might say the students are not working hard enough. However, as reflective practitioners, we have to think of what is underneath what we see. In a way thinking about the iceberg image. We only see the tip of the iceberg but beneath the surface, there are more we need to consider, in this case the challenges our students are experiencing. 

I have been doing some readings on the resources available on The Education Hub, I came across guiding questions teachers needs to ask themselves on how they are building the self efficacy of students. My experiences in conducting teaching as inquiries has taught me that inquiring into your practice is not just about looking at what the students are doing and how you can change that. It is also a deep reflection of yourself as an educator, mentor, teacher to your students. 

Below are the questions with my responses:

How often do all students in your class experience success with their learning?

When I first read this question, I thought of course my students experience success with their learning every week. However, I re-read the question and saw it referred to ALL of the students. I would like to think that all my students experience success in their learning on several occasions a week. How would I measure this though? Without qualitative or quantitative data, how can I be sure the students are experiencing success? This is a really interesting question which is highlighting the importance of noticing when students are experiencing success and also celebrating success. I know my students experience success, whether it be solving a problem in DMIC, completing all their blog commenting for the week, completing a task they have been working on for their project or for some...There are so many ways to experience success but what this question made me realise is the lack of noticing when success is experienced in my class and acknowledging and celebrating success. 

How do you scaffold learning into smaller tasks, so that students experience smaller successes more regularly? 

With Project Based Learning, I realised after the first project that the tasks we complex for a lot of students. The students struggled to manage the tasks because it required a lot of planning and self management. In the second and third project we planned, we looked at breaking down each task on the submission form so the students understood what the task required them to complete. Now, as the students work through their tasks, they have the submission form open on their devices so they are able to check if the requirements of each task is met in their work. 

My buddy teacher and I have also been discussing working with students who are struggling with completing their projects on breaking down the tasks to manageable sections for them to complete. 

This question is emphasising the importance of scaffolding students to experience success by working on smaller tasks and experiencing success. In my intervention, this is an aspect of I am incorporating into my self efficacy intervention. Students experiencing success regularly and working through manageable tasks which will enable them to experience success and build their self efficacy.

How do you communicate your aspirations for your students, and let your students know that you think they can succeed in their learning?

I have always been a teacher who communicates my aspirations for my students. I strongly believe in building a positive relationship with my students and this starts from the very first day of Term 1 every year. When a student is feeling down, I always take the time to unpack how they are feeling and the factors which contributed to their emotions. Often I find the students are able to articulate how they are feeling towards the situation but often neglect to consider how they contributed to situations. It does take a lot of time to build the trust of students but I always find that once the students have my trust and I have theirs, collaboration, teaching, learning, sharing...is more effective. 

With learning, I always emphasise to my students that success is a matter of perseverance and resilience. Failing is a part of learning. I do not hide my failures from my students. I often embrace my mistakes and share these with them and we collaborate together to solve challenges we have in class with learning. 

These guiding questions have been a good reflective experience for me to think about what I am currently doing in my practice and what I still need to work on. Following on from this post, I will complete the rest of the iceberg with my target group where they will unpack what is under the iceberg for them. 

Casual chain for my inquiry

This is the casual chain I have created for my inquiry so far. I have identified the area I will focus on for my inquiry and also the actions I will implement for this inquiry.

 

The big focus of my inquiry is to build the self efficacy of my students so they are able to make judgements about their ability to achieve a task or tasks. 

I have chosen to focus on the Manaiakalani Community of Learning, Achievement Challenge 4. To increase the achievement of Years 7-10 in reading, writing and maths. Through this inquiry, the goal is for these target learners to increase their achievement in reading, writing and maths. 

With the Project Based Learning approach we have implemented in my class this year, I have noticed a lot of my target learners, struggle with the self efficacy to pursue a task. Giving up or saying "I can't do it" was becoming a common trend. After observations of my students, gathering student voice, marking the first two projects and giving feedback, I realised my target learners had very low self efficacy. They were threatened by the complexity of the tasks and did not attempt the tasks at all. 

There are other aspects I thought about when I was thinking about my 2021 inquiry. Were the instructions explicit enough? Did I provide enough scaffolding materials to help my learners carry on with the tasks when they were not in class with me? The answer to some of these questions were NO! While I thought all the students were able to understand the task requirements, my target learners needed more unpacking and more explicit instructions in chunks to be able to manage the tasks and see themselves successfully completing the tasks. 

In my inquiry this year, I will build a framework within my practice which focusses on building the self efficacy of my learners. 

The outcomes as stated above are what I hope my students will achieve through my inquiry in building their self efficacy. 

The intervention design incorporates actions which will be taken by myself, the target learners, their peers and their whanau. I am focussing on a lot of collaboration from all the contributors towards this inquiry with an immense emphasis on my role as the teacher. 

I also wondered what could be done earlier in a child's education to help build their self efficacy but for now I will implement my inquiry and see how this can be translated to our other classes in our school. There are other aspects which are yet to be added to this casual chain such as my deliberate acts of teaching and how student progress will be documented and regularly recorded. 

Analysing my own practice

I have been reflecting a lot about Project Based Learning and how this has been going for my class. It is a different way of teaching from what we have been doing at Glenbrae School but I always believe changes can bring new learning and challenges for the better. 

I have collected student voice from my target group and learnt that they do like the Project Based Learning approach. 

I came across The 'big six' - catalytic digital teaching capabilities through my readings. 

1. Ambitious outcomes for all
2. Eyes on text
3. Language and vocabulary development (KC - language, texts and symbols)
4. High level discussions (KC - participating and contributing)
5. Transforming and transference of knowledge through creation
6. Making thinking visible (KC - thinking)

In planning our current project of Great Books I looked at The 'big six' - catalytic digital teaching capabilities and tried to plan activities which encompass all these capabilities. I reflected on how I can better implement the Project Based Learning approach to cater for how we learn in Manaiakalani schools.

The Great Books unit is a unit I have looked forward to planning because of my passion for literacy. We chose the book Refugee by Alan Gratz because a few years ago, this book was a great novel which I read to my class and it just really engaged my learners. There are so many learning opportunities present in the story and using The 'big six' - catalytic digital teaching capabilities will ensure my learners will gain so much more from their learning activities. 

Below are the slides with the learning activities I have planned for English, Health & P.E and also Social Sciences. I have planned these activities with a focus on The 'big six' - catalytic digital teaching capabilities.

Great Books English Slides

Great Book Social Sciences Slides

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Coaching as part of the DFI team

 It was only last year that I got the opportunity to be a participant of the DFI programme. I thoroughly enjoyed reinforcing what I had learnt throughout the years I have been in the Manaiakalani cluster but most of all reflecting and being grateful for where I am in my career because of the many professional development opportunities and being part of a great vision for the tamariki in our area.

Back track a little bit, I became a teacher because I wanted to empower our Maori and Pasifika students in education. I have always been passionate about education in my family, church and wanted to spread this passion to my community. When I graduated, I first applied to be a teacher in Mangere. Although I had a good chance of getting the vacancy, I made a decision not to go through with the application process but instead applied for a job in Panmure. Little did I know then, it was the start of a career of empowering myself, meeting highly professional and passionate educators and also being a part of a team who have a vision to empower tamariki in their learning. To learn locally and think globally. 

Through Manaiakalani, I have been an MDTA mentor teacher working with a beginning teacher at the time who is also very passionate about education and a very effective teacher. I have been a CoL within school leader and now a CoL across school leader. 

This year, for the past two terms, I have been coaching in the DFI team and also working with teachers in my school on my second day of release. For me, it is a wonderful feeling to share what I know and learn with other teachers about teaching in this digital age. We have so many tools available to us but how we utilise these tools to be effective and safe for our tamariki is a very vital part of our learning. 

I don't need to remind teachers about last year when we had to go into our first four week lockdown. Some teachers shared their frustrations and anxieties on social media because they did not have the tools to connect with their students during this time. It was not the case for Manaiakalani schools. We were set up ready to go on the first day of the lockdown. 

Through the DFI journey, I worked with many teachers who are dedicated to implement and utilise digital learning in their classrooms. They are all at different levels of their learning journey but the willingness to learn was there. It is always great to see when teachers are keen to learn and implement what they learn in their practice because I know that is how we are empowering our learners in this digital age. 

I strongly advocate for teachers to do the DFI course. It will be an empowering experience which will enable teachers to be more effective in their teaching practice. 

Back to the drawing board

I have been looking deeply into my practice and identifying trends in my teaching and the learning of my students. After gathering data from the first student voice survey, I was thinking my main focus will be on feedback and feedforward. Through implementing this feedback and feedforward system through commenting on student work, oral discussions, peer assessments and communicating with students through emails, I realised there was something more that I could do. The feedback and feedforward was happening in class regardless. The student voice collected emphasised to me that through Project Based Learning, some of the students felt I was spending less time with them in discussions and giving feedback. That I have now addressed through a more focussed approach to giving feedback and feedforward to students. 

Throughout, this time of the students working through their projects, I have always been keeping a closer eye on students who were not completing their tasks unless being monitored or given consequences if they were not to complete their tasks. I also noticed some students really struggled to manage their time and their work. The big projects is too much for them to unpack and plan around. They needed a lot of support to be scaffolded in how to complete each task. 

Could building self efficacy in students be my inquiry focus?

Through marking of the first projects the students completed, I noticed a trend in work the students handed in. Some did not complete every aspect of the task, some did not attempt some of the tasks and some students missed out on tasks altogether. 

In class, I would encourage the students to work through their tasks, give them support my verbal and written feedback but still, I was not receiving the work I was hoping the students would hand in. I believe the students did not have the belief in themselves or the motivation and determination to carry out their tasks until completion. Thus making self efficacy a very important focus for me in teaching using the Project Based Learning programme. 

What is self efficacy in students?

According to Pajares (2002), 'Self-efficacious students exert extra effort, persevere with difficult tasks longer and show resilience by bouncing back from difficult learning situations. Students with high self-efficacy regard problems as challenges, set goals and are committed to them, attribute failure to lack of effort or as yet unlearned skills or content, and increase their efforts in order to overcome failure'. After reading the article by Pajares, I knew this is what I want to focus on because these are the goals I have for my students. To be able to persevere when tasks are hard, set goals, bounce back from difficult learning situations and be committed to their learning. 

I am wanting to find strategies which I will implement into my practice which will foster and build self efficacy among my students. I am thinking of incorporating strategies I find in readings about self efficacy to design a learning framework in my practice which will build student self efficacy. 

Inquiry question: Will a self efficacy framework designed for my learners, build their self confidence in their abilities and enable them to have more self efficacy to persevere in difficult learning situations?

In Parajes (2002), there are some strategies mentioned to build the self efficacy of students. I will now gather more readings about building self efficacy and reflect on what I know about my students. I will from there start to build the self efficacy framework which I will implement in my practice. 

Reference: Pajares, F. (2002). Self-efficacy beliefs in academic contexts: An outline. Retrieved from https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/efftalk.html

Digging into my current practice

 Who better to hear from than the recipients of the learning?

I have collected student voice from my target group by using google form. The questions were based on what I wanted to learn from them in how they have experienced how we learnt in literacy with a focus in reading before we started Project Based Learning in our class.  I also included questions about how they see themselves as readers and if they are encouraged by their whanau to read at home. 

Hypothesising

Before collecting student voice, I had hypothesised that giving more opportunities to be creative in their learning through their projects would accelerate student engagement and accelerate student achievement in reading. However, after reading the responses from students, I am now rethinking that oral literacy with a focus on teacher and student learning conversations around feedback and feedforward would be my focus for this inquiry. 

In a previous blog post, I shared an analysis of the impact of Project Based Learning which was conducted in the USA. A common theme which arose from this analysis was the limited interaction between the students and the teacher with regards to the learning. I strongly believe that teacher and student interactions and korero is vital to the learning of students. 

My hypothesis

"If I have planned learning conversations with students with a focus on feedback and feedforward, will this improve their ability to discuss their learning and accelerate their achievement in reading?"

The big BUT at this time. I have to do some more reading around learning conversations around students with a focus on literature from New Zealand. As my students are mainly Maori and Pasifika, I want to learn more about how to facilitate RICH learning discussions with my students. Why I am thinking this is because if I am focussing on feedback and feedforward, will the conversations be around me just talking and the student listening? I would like the conversations to be around what the student identifies as their needs and how I can give feedback and feedforward to scaffold them in addressing their learning needs. 

There are so many other aspects which I will incorporate into my inquiry this year but learning discussions will be my main focus in my deliberate acts of teaching (DAT).

Other aspects of my teaching as inquiry

Using the BIG SIX - catalytic digital teaching capabilities 

1. Ambitious outcomes for all
2. Eyes on text
3. Language and vocabulary development - language, texts and symbols
4. High level discussions
5. Transforming and transference of knowledge through creation
6. Making thinking visible

Profiling my target group

I have chosen seven students for my target group for this year's inquiry. The group are mixed in ability and year levels. The data I have collected to be my baseline data are their PAT raw score, PAT scale score and their Reading level for Term 1 2021. Looking at the data, these students have some similarities in their data and some big differences in their achievement data for reading. 

My next step in profiling my target group will be to collect student voice. The student voice will collect how they see themselves as readers, what they struggle with in reading and also what they enjoy in reading materials and follow up activities.

I have been observing this group in my class and have identified that two of the boys are very reluctant readers, one of the girls is an ESOL learner and struggles with reading, reading materials at her year level. She is very capable of understanding concepts when unpacked with her. Two of the male students are able readers but have challenges in sitting assessments. These are all factors we will work through with this target group this year. 

My hunches so far are: 

1. My target learners will accelerate in progress if they work on self regulated strategies with the Project Based Learning programme we are now implementing in our class

2. My target learners will accelerate their progress in reading if they have a focus on creating DLOs or create activities which will represent their understanding and how they connect with reading materials

 

What are the impacts of Project Based Learning?

I have heard of Project Based Learning in the past from teaching friends and read some information about what it is. I knew it was implemented in some schools in New Zealand but I did not have a lot of in depth knowledge about it.

When we made the decision to implement Project Based Learning in my class, it was after a discussion what our data has been saying for the past years, gathering student voice and most of all we were looking at trying something new. My biggest worry was, I felt as a teacher I was losing the autonomy of planning learning activities, looking for resources which I believed will benefit my students and using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy in my classroom. 

However, we are now into the second unit of Project Based Learning in my class and I am learning that although the topics are given from the Project Based Learning programme, I still have a lot of input in the implementation of the learning through the task design. 

Our first unit was following what the Project Based Learning Programme gave us in materials. The second uni of Architecture which we are working on now is following what the programme has given us and also implementing our own learning activities. I feel we are are finding our way and taking more control of how we implement Project Based Learning in the classroom. 

I wanted to learn more about the impacts of Project Based Learning in schools where it has been implemented for many years. A reading was given to me which discussed the impacts of Project Based Learning which I will discuss in this blog post. The article was written by the Buck Institute of Education. It was a collation of studies and analysis of the Project Based Learning. Is it also important to note that this analysis was of school in the United States implementing Project Based Learning. 

What the article discusses:

• Research shows that PBL (Project Based Learning) can promote learning and is more effective than traditional instruction in social Studies, science, mathematics and literacy 

• The demographics of the schools in the study is relevant to our school. We are situated in a low socio economic area

• In social studies, students gained more academic success in PBL than when they were learning Social Studies in a traditional classroom

• The social studies unit focussed on real world challenges and the students learnt about the unit in an extended period of time

• Projected embedded opportunities for collaboration and choice for students

• PBL was more effective than traditional approaches for students with average verbal ability=

• In science, students showed an increased ability to apply information to new situations and draw relationships between concepts

• Students showed significant gains in science between pre tests and post tests

• PBL provided opportunities for integrated learning and using technology in learning 

• In maths, PBL students did not have greater knowledge of maths facts, procedures and rules but were better able to make more use of math in different situations

• In literacy PBL students made significant gains in informational reading but did not in writing

• The analysis highlighted the lack of information and classroom instruction in some classrooms where PBL was implemented

After reading through this article, I reflected on what I had already seen and discussed with my students about PBL. My students like that they have choice in which activities they can do and when they would do the activities. They liked having a deadline they were working towards for their big project hand in. When I read that PBL was more effective than traditional classrooms, I reflected on the fact that as a Manaiakalani school and a one to one classroom, my classroom was not your TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM. Our students learn in a digital classroom where they are able to utilise digital tools to accelerate their learning and also share their learning with a wider audience that would not be possible without the use of digital tools.

I can also understand the point discussed about the lack of classroom instruction as mentioned in the article. With PBL, students work on projects which take five weeks to complete. Each curriculum area has tasks which need to be completed by the end of the five weeks. I feel it is really up to the teacher and how they implement PBL to ensure sufficient classroom instruction and support is given to students. Although PBL provides a lot of opportunities for self directed study, there is still a great need for the teacher to fully participate and support the students in the projects from the planning of the units and projects to the handing in at the due dates. 

Where to from here? I AM THE SILVER BULLET. I will finish this blog post with a saying Dorothy Burt shared with our DFI group this week. We may have all these digital tools and advance technology available to us for the learning of our tamariki, but its effectiveness depends on how we as teachers utilise them for the learning opportunities for our tamariki. With that, PBL gives us the unit topics and support materials but our tasks designs will make the difference in how we implement PBL in my classroom and its effects on our tamariki and their learning. 

NOTE: the implementation of PBL in my classroom this year is a shared collaborative effort between my co-teacher this year, Mrs Raj and I. 

Reference: 

Kingston, S. (2018). Project Based Learning & Student Achievement: What does the Research Tell Us? PBL Evidence Matters. 1(1)-11. http://bie.org/x9JN

The nature and extent of the student challenge

I have been inquiring into reading for two years now and have learnt a lot about the challenges students have with reading. There is always the notion that boys struggle with reading but I have also found that girls struggle with reading too.

I believe some of the challenges students have with reading are as listed below:

Students not connecting with texts 

Through my career I have gone through many trends in teaching reading. From using materials I was told to use when teams planned together, to using materials I thought would benefit my students and dare I say it using materials which were readily available. In other words using materials because they were easy to access at the time I needed them. Text selection in my experience is a process which teachers have to take into consideration when planning learning for students. Successful lessons I have taught in reading have occurred through careful selection of texts by reflecting on the learning needs and interests of students. 

Students not engaging in meaningful conversations about reading materials

I reflect back on the my professional development opportunities I have had and reflect on a saying I have always used a mentor teacher to beginning teachers. "If you don't plan for it, it won't happen". When we plan for meaningful and rich discussions, they will happen in our teaching. If we don't then learning conversations about reading materials will be random opportunities with no real direction towards the goal of the discussion and the lesson. Planning for rich and meaningful discussions about reading materials relies on the teacher having a goal in mind for the lesson and knowing the reading materials well enough to pin point main ideas for discussions. 

Schools need to have strategic plans to raise the achievement of students

A report released by ERO in 2018 identified that strategic and successful schools had a long-term commitment to improvement through deliberate, planned actions to accelerate student progress. Our school motto for this year is He Waka Eke Noa. We are all in this together. The statement by ERO emphasises the importance of strategic planning in schools for accelerated progress for all students. Five capabilities that made a difference in schools’ effectiveness in accelerating student progress were:

1. leadership capability 
2. teaching capability 
3. assessment and evaluative capability of leaders and teachers 
4. leaders’ capability to develop relationships with students, parents, whänau, trustees, school leaders and other teaching professionals 
5. leaders’ and teachers’ capability to design and implement a school curriculum that engaged students

Data collection is valuable in tracking progress and making changes

Early this year I presented our school data to our staff. In that presentation I emphasised the saying that "Numbers tell a story". When we collect up to date and valid data, we can use data to analyse if what we are implementing is making a difference to the students' learning or not. Data is a valuable source of reflection for change. The way we collect data also needs to be reliable. Student voice is valuable but it has to be collected in a way where students are free to say what they feel. I often feel when students are interviewed, they will often say what they think the interviewer wants to hear. That is why I prefer to use Google Form to collect student voice or to collect student voice from a group interview. Summative assessments are also valuable sources of data as well as formative assessment and student work. The blogs I have found have been a reliable source of data collection as it can track what the students have been working on for as long as they have had their blogs.

Teachers are THE SILVER BULLET   

I believe this is the fine line for changes for accelerated progress. The teacher! As a reflective practitioner myself, I know that the most effective tool I can use in my teaching is to utilise my skills, knowledge and passion into changing my own teaching style to cater for the needs of my students. Being educators, we are very fortunate to have many professional development opportunities and within the Manaiakalani cluster we are part of a very strong and progressing Kahui Ako. When we as teachers take hold of what is available to and use them to strengthen our practice, then our students will benefit. However, if we are passive participants in professional development opportunities and not gather new knowledge and skills for our own kete, then we will stay in the same position we are in. The sad cost will be our students and their learning. 

Reference

Keeping children engaged and achieving in reading. ERO. (2018). Retrieved from http://visioneducation.co.nz/welcome/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ERO-Teaching-strategies-that-work-Reading.pdf