Yesterday at our CoL PLG, I was in a small group discussion where I shared where I am so far with my inquiry.
The focus of my inquiry this year is to work with a team of teachers in my school to plan a reading programme which aligns with the Manaiakalani Reading Plan FALA.
As a team, the teachers in my inquiry group and I have been constantly discussing what and how we will change our reading practice to cater for not only our inquiry groups but all our students. I think it is very important to highlight that, if we intend to make a change in the way students learn, then we as teachers have to make the change first.
From my teaching as inquiry this year, these are the changes we have made so far:
- At our team meetings we have a time set aside to share our planning for our literacy programmes and our inquiry programme as they are integrated
- We have time set aside in our team meetings to reflect and share what we are doing for our own teaching as inquiry
- We are working on using the same planning templates for our reading programmes
- We are consistently sharing resources which we can use in our classes
TWEAKING!!!!
I made the above templates to be used for our short term planning. These templates are to be used with the incorporation the T Shaped literacy in having a main text, support text and a challenge text. HOWEVER!!!!!! We have found that although the reading planning is very detailed, it is not very practical for a teacher to be spending so much time on doing the planning using this template for three reading groups per fortnight. We are now on a quest to simplify, modify or re-create a template for our short term planning for reading. A planning template that still encompasses what we want to have in our reading programme but is not too time consuming. That meeting will happen next Monday in our team meeting.
Another way I am monitoring my teaching as inquiry, is by looking at the class sites of our teaching team. By looking at what is on the site, I am able to make a link between what we are implementing from my teaching as inquiry and how this is translated to the learning of the students. I also make copies of the slides used for student work, make a copy then add comments and feedback. Some of the feedback I have given is around texts being used for students learning being at the right level of challenge for them. I have observed that when texts are too complicated for the students, the learning conversation is predominantly controlled by the teacher. We have also discussed as a team the idea of giving the students the texts at the end of the week so they are able to read at home during the weekend and have some exposure to the text by the time they start the next week.
As well as formal meetings, we also have informal conversations about what we are doing in our reading programmes. We often discuss what we observe in our students' learning and what we find works and what doesn't. It is good that we are consistently sharing our pedagogical journey with each other.
I will be collecting my next set of data from my inquiry group in the next week. Although I feel like we have not done enough to show any major changes in student learning, it is till good to gain an idea of where the teachers are currently at with their practice and reflections.
