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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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

Great Books The Arts Slides 

Great Books Health & PE Slides

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 

Searching, reflecting, noticing and hypothesising.

As in my previous blog post, Project Based Learning is now implemented into my classroom programme. Our first unit was the Animals Unit where the students carried out project using the theme of Animals. Each curriculum area has their own tasks to complete. During the first Project Based Learning unit, I observed the interaction of my students with the work and the change in the way they were learning. 

For the first week, it was a challenge because this is a new programme for the students and a change in how we have been learning in my class.

I am trying to decide on what I will focus on with my inquiry in accelerating the reading of my students. Project Based Learning is focussed on individual student inquiries and self management. At this stage, I am considering focussing on self regulation in reading and learning activities to strengthen student autonomy and accelerating the students' progress in reading. 

Here are the units for the Animals Unit which my students started this term. 

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini

Yesterday we had our second CoL PLG. It is always an empowering and inspiring experience because as I looked around the room, I saw leaders, collaborators, passionate educators, innovators and also challenges. All of us have expertise which we can share with each other. Collaboration thrives in our Manaiakalani Cluster. 

Our convenor Russell Burt gave us a few wero to think of as we begin to identify the challenges we will be addressing in our inquiries this year. When identifying our focus, to be specific about the changes we will be implementing to cause lift in student achievement. He warned us about having big inquiries. For example: Accelerating boys writing or boys reading. That in itself is a big focus and I would imagine the inquiring teacher would go around in circles trying to implement so many changes to address the issue. 

We were encouraged to think about what practice changes we were planning on applying to our target groups to change the outcomes for our students. This also reminded me about our previous PLG where we were reminded not to think of solutions yet but to identify the challenges in our student data and have discussions with our school leaders and colleagues before identifying our focus for our inquiries. I think diving into the deep a saying which comes to mind when I think of this. I feel it is very important to be clear in the challenge you want to address, then reflect on what has been happening so far to address the challenge, then make a plan on changes to teacher practice which will change the way students learn.

We had the opportunity to have learning conversations with our other CoL colleagues about our inquiries for this year. We are all at the planning stage but we already know which area we are focussing on. I found my conversations with Clarelle, Danni and Hannah very valuable. We were able to share ideas with each other and also ask questions to identify other areas to explore about our inquiries. 

Where to now?

I am now at the finalising my focus for my inquiry. I am inquiring into accelerating the achievement of my students in Reading through Project Based Learning. This is because I am implementing Project Based Learning in my class now. I am looking at self regulated study, independent research, purposeful inquiries for projects, implementing Learn, Create, Share in the project learning curriculum for my students. There are many aspects I am thinking about at the moment and I am having conversations with different colleagues to share my thinking and gather some more insights. 

I am also identifying my target group. I plan to have at least eight in my target group. After finalising my target group, I will then profile my learners which is a task I enjoy because it gives me a lot of insight into the learning journey my students have been on throughout their primary years and enables me to understand more about their learning needs. 

There is a lot of mahi to be done. It is a journey which I hope will be of success but I also know will have a lot of challenges along the way.

Possible inquiry focus for 2021

This week has been a busy week with my classroom teaching, assessments, DFI and all the lovely frills and spills of being a teacher. I have to admit it feels like I am running on all gears this week. Full steam ahead. I have always said busy is good and my other favourite saying is change is good.

Last year we had a meeting with Rebecca Dow from Innovative Education Consultants about the Project Based Curriculum. Our principal had visited South Auckland Middle School and observed how project based learning was implemented at this school, she was very impressed and asked Rebecca if she could meet with Mrs Raj and I as we will be co-teaching in Room 7 this year. 

Our own visit to South Auckland Middle School was yesterday. Mrs Raj and I observed how the students were engaged, self managing, focussed (well most of them). I was quite impressed with the vast variety of topics the students were learning about in their projects. The villas in South Auckland Middle School classes were from Years 7-10. In every villa (hub) we visited, we saw students in these year levels working on their projects. Some were on independent activities and some were with their teachers in class discussions. The maximum students in each class is 15. We were told there is also a big waiting list of students wanting to attend South Auckland Middle School. 

What is Project Based Learning?

Here is the Innovative Education Consultants - Project Based Curriculum website for more information. From my understanding, the projects curriculum is already planned and there are project for each year level. There are eight projects for the year in each year level. The projects are linked to the New Zealand Curriculum and are very much inquiry focussed encompassing core subjects in the New Zealand Curriculum. From what I saw, there is definitely a lot of room for our students to Learn, Create and Share. South Auckland Middle School do not have blogs or use the apps which we use in the Manaiakalani Cluster so my students will have many more avenues for exploration and creation for their projects. My students will also be able to constantly share their learning progress with their project through blogging. 

From Term 2, we are planning to start Project Based learning in my classroom. In discussions with my principal and Mrs Raj yesterday, I shared for my teaching as inquiry this year, I will be looking at how project based learning will change the way my students learn and if that change in learning style will accelerate their achievement Writing, Maths and especially Reading which is our area of focus this year. 

Project based learning is definitely a change in the way my students will be learning. They will be given projects to complete in five weeks and they will have self guided learning time to work on their projects during the week and also collaboration time with the teacher. At the moment, I am questioning how my role as the teacher will change too because the projects and the curriculum are already written. I am thinking of how my autonomy as the teacher will be affected in the classroom learning for my students. There is a primary school implementing the Project Based Curriculum in their school. I have asked to visit this school to see how project based learning is happening in a primary school setting. 

My inquiry question is yet to be finalised but this is where I am at with my inquiry focus for this year. I would welcome any questions and suggestions regarding this blog post. It will help with giving me ideas and more direction regarding my teaching as inquiry for 2021.

Leading discussions about our school data and planning for next actions

Today I presented my analysis of our school data to our staff. After going through the 77 page Glenbrae School Student Achievement Data Analysis Report, I was able to summarise where we are with the achievement of our students compared to the national norm and also other schools in our cluster. 

I emphasised during my presentation that numbers/data tell a story. In my years of conducting teaching as inquiries, I have grown to have a passion for collecting and analysing data. Our school data has really given me a bigger insight into the learning journeys of our students and where we as a school need to focus on to raise the achievement of our tamariki. 

I created a google document where I collated information I gathered form the tables and graphs on our school report. I also used voice recordings to discuss my questions and wonderings about what the data showed. (MOTE is the extension I used to record my voice recordings). At the end of the document I put down my wonderings and shared these with my colleagues.

During our staff discussion, a lot of great ideas and questions were discussed. As a staff we collaborated about our next learning steps. Each of us sharing our expertise. Collaboration is a wonderful tool especially when we all have the same vision. HE WAKA EKE NOA.

I also presented how to conduct a teaching as inquiry. We have a number of beginning teachers on staff this year and this presentation was of great importance to them in making the start on their own teaching as inquiry. 

At the end of my presentation, I asked our staff to write a reflection of what they were able to gain from what I presented. I feel it is vital that I gather their feedback and comments as this will enable me to help in my role to support our staff. 

Here are some of the feedback I received. 

I am very happy that I have analysed our data, I have presented to our staff and we as a staff are aware of what we need to do now. We have agreed to focus on raising the achievement of our students in Reading. We are also looking at utilising PD we have received in Oral Literacy for our Teaching as Inquiry. 

Across School CoL Teacher

Talofa lava, my name is Amy Tofa. I am year 7/8 classroom teacher at Glenbrae School. I have been teaching for 12 years in the Manaiakalani Cluster. I am very grateful to be an Across School CoL teacher this year as I know it will contribute immensely to my professional growth, my career path and also enable me to be more effective in my teaching practice in accelerating the progress of my students. 

In the past two years, I have been a Within School CoL teacher. My inquiry for these years were focussed in Reading. In my 2019 inquiry I focussed on deep diving into multimodal texts and teaching my students to have rich conversations/talanoa relating to the texts they were reading and emphasise their ability to carry meaning from texts into their social conversations. 

In 2020, I focussed on integrating my literacy programme by having my students in one literacy group where they were in the same reading and writing groups. Through this integration, we (the students and I) were able to use the reading materials to gather information and analyse features of different writing genres in preparation for writing. My 2020 inquiry also emphasised our use of the Manaiakalani Kaupapa of Learn, Create, Share. We started to be more critical in how we were blogging through the types of blog posts we were posting, how we were responding to each others' blogs and also sharing our learning with our wider audiences. 

Please feel free to visit my class blog and my class site.

Nga mihi 

Amy