Building on rich vocabulary

Exposing students to rich vocabulary through authentic texts has expanded their vocabulary about topics they are writing about. 

Manaiakalani_Student Achievement Data Sense making Feb 2020

Through texts my students have been reading about topics we are studying, I have found they are confident in using the vocabulary they are reading in their discussions and their writing. The ideas presented in topics are discussed in detail and the students make connections with texts by critically thinking about texts and questioning the ideas in texts. 

For example, this term our topic is Garden to Table where our class are learning about horticulture and also making a community garden to share with our community. Through their reading materials, the students have been reading about seasonal planting, the horticultural industry, how technology is improving the harvesting of fruit and its consequences for labour work and employment. 

During the reading discussions, the students explore the main ideas in texts. We then as a group dig deeper into the text by critically thinking about the implications of what we read. In one text Kiwifruit growing spills beyond Bay of Plenty to other regions the students discussed the impact technology has on kiwifruit picking, the technological aspect of the invention and also how this could impact people who are employed by farmers to pick kiwifruit such as the seasonal workers brought in from the Pacific Islands. In one text, the students explored so many perspectives in their discussions.

Through these rich discussions, I observe the confidence the students have in sharing their ideas, exploring ideas which are new to them and using vocabulary related to the topic.

When the students move on to writing, they already have many ideas about the topic and are now learning to organise their writing in sequence by brainstorming ideas and expanding their brainstorms into paragraphs. 

One of the activities we do in class to help students with brainstorming ideas is a vocabulary activity where we collaborative use a Google Doc to write down vocabulary related to the topic we are writing about. Most of the vocabulary the students use come from their reading materials and some from their personal vocabulary. We then elaborate on the vocabulary in the brainstorm by adding detail about the vocabulary. By doing this activity, the students are supported in using the vocabulary from texts in their writing. It also helps them by planning paragraphs for their writing. 

The power of rich discussions in reading which translates to writing

I have been seeing a lot of improvement in the writing my students have been producing. The genre they have been working on is argument writing. It is wonderful when you see the confidence in students to voice their opinions and put their thoughts into writing. 

There have been a lot of discussions in Reading through the texts the group have been reading. The text Me, Me, Me by Renata Hopkins stimulated a lot of thinking about the use of devices and social media. The discussions were rich in sharing of ideas and exploring issues with social media and devices.

The supporting text was an article from Insight NZ was about the ban of phones in some schools. The supporting text discussion brought more insight into the challenges school and young people are having with devices. 

Through the rich discussions,  the students were able to brainstorm ideas to write their arguments confidently. I am really happy with the confidence the students have, to start their writing after being in reading discussions. 

The students have also been going out of the classroom to interview teachers and other students about their opinions regarding phones in schools. The joy they have in gathering views and opinions is just wonderful to see. Their use of technology in their learning is also very encouraging to their peers in other classes. 

Through rewindable learning the students were able to draft their writing using the brainstorm on the Google Slides. A lot of the students worked on their arguments from home and using the slides was essential in helping them with their writing at home.

Here are some writing samples the students in my class have produced:

Soane argument writing 

Richie argument writing

Meeting the author of our class novel

 Yesterday my class had the privilege of meeting Andrew Taafuli Fiu who is the author of a novel I am reading to my class. The novel is about Andrew's life and how he has overcome years of challenges from having rheumatic fever at a young age. 

Yesterday Andrew's message was about never giving up and always pursuing your goals. He counselled the students to work for their goals and to ensure they finish tasks they start. He also reinforced the importance of gaining an education as it is the key to success. 

He too really believes in being readers. Although he is not a trained writer, he decided to write about his life to tell his story. He had many challenges in writing the book and finding a publisher but he never gave up.

He told many stories about his life and was pleasantly surprised to learn how much the students knew about his journey as a child and adult going in and out of hospitals.

Yesterday's visit from Andrew was a powerful and meaningful experience for my class. They were just beaming with questions and excitement during and after Andrew's visit.

Watching the engagement of the students was a wonderful experience. Novel reading in my class is a time where we take a break and focus on reading for enjoyment.

Today's PLG reflection

 Today our CoL teachers had another online PLG. We had to share in small groups what we have been doing in our inquiries.

These are the questions Aaron asked us to discuss in our groups.

1.     Evidence about the monitoring of your implementation  - how you are collecting data and information with your changed practices?

2.     What is happening for students? How are you systematically tracking progress?

3.     What are you doing differently?

I shared that for each genre we write, I have created folders for students to put a copy of their completed writing in. This will help us analyse and view progress as the year progresses. 

I am collecting data by collecting how many words the students can write within a certain amount of time. A stocktake of how much they can write in a given amount of time. This activity is helping with their focus, independence to write and self assessment. This stocktake of a word count is done at least once a week. At the end, the students write how much time they were given and how many words they were able to write. 

I am also making notes on our discussions about the contribution of the students and their confidence to share their ideas in our writing discussions. 

Student blogs also have evidence of student work and their progress. I keep track of how many blog posts my students are making not only in Writing but all curriculum areas. 

With regards to question three, there are so many changes I have made to my practice. I am implementing T Shaped Literacy in my practice. I am constantly reading and going over slides from the WFRC to gain more understandings and ideas about implementing T Shaped Literacy. Another step I can take is to look at the sites of other school who are implementing T Shaped Literacy such at Pt England School as Danni shared today. 

As mentioned in previous posts, instead of having a Reading group then another Writing group, I have made literacy groups in my class. The students are in the same group for Reading and Writing. This is working effectively. Integrated learning with reading materials, genres, topics and discussions. There is also a lot of group collaboration. 

I mentioned today that my inquiry is about accelerating the writing levels of my students by using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy in my practice and that it was working. After reflecting, I wanted to share in my small group that there is a lot of evidence from research and data collection that the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy does improve student learning but my inquiry is about will how I implement Learn, Create, Share accelerate the writing of my students? This is a good point for discussion I think because, we can attend so many professional development sessions or discussions and not implement what we learn in our classroom practice. Therefore, what I am doing differently this year is planning learning where there is visibility with the learning, creating and sharing. To do this, we are utilising digital technologies in our learning more than ever and I am challenging my students to explore other ways of creating their create activities. For example, instead of just using Google Slides, they can also add a screencastify where their blog viewers can listen to them discussing their learning. 

It is always a great learning opportunity to listen to the inquiries of other CoL teachers. Today Anna from St Pius shared her inquiry is around fostering a love of reading with her students. I was very excited and wanted to share that this was also part of my inquiry last year. From the work I did last year with my inquiry, I am still building on with that I did in Reading and integrating Reading and Writing together. I can confidently say that I have seen many of students enjoying reading for enjoyment. I am still reading a class novel to my class daily and also introducing them to other literature I come across which I think they will enjoy. I think it is very important to build on what we are doing in our inquiries and implementing what we know and learn every year. 

Having fun creating in our learning

This week, Room 7 are reading a story called Badge of Honour. One of the activities was to impersonate the school principal in the story and to address a student character in the story who has not been wise in his decisions. The story is a great read. It is based in New Zealand and the Room 7 students can relate to this story in many ways. 

Here are the slides Room 7 have been working through. You can also access the text from the slides.

Here is Soane's impersonation of Miss Latu the school principal from the story Badge of Honour.

The create aspect of the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy is a focus in my inquiry. I have a lot of fun thinking of activities where my students can learn and create at the same time. I love seeing their creativity coming through in their work and their confidence to take risks. 

Going back to Alert Level 3

The Alert Level 3 announcement although it was an urgent announcement, I am not in a panic because I am prepared with hangouts and work on our class site. I am however, worried that the amount of work my students can complete from home is not the same as what they can do in class. 

Going back to update the Home Learning page on out site, memories of the first lockdown were there from the daily reminders of hangouts, work completion and my screencastify recordings for the students to watch. My Bitmoji has been making a regular appearance on the Home Learning page too. 

Our first hangout felt quite normal. I was proud of my students for being so adaptive to the changes in learning environments. It is as if we just picked up where we left off in class and carried on. I am so grateful for our Manaiakalani cluster because it just makes digital learning, remote learning so easy with the systems in place.

Being Cybersmart is constantly being discussed in our hangouts. I feel my students area aware of why it is important to be Cybersmart and also the consequences and effects of their actions if they are not respecting themselves and others online. 

Here are some tips for hangouts from a veteran hangout teacher :) 

• Keep communication with your students going - emails, commenting on work, announcements on the Home learning page (screencastify, notices). You have to let your students know you are there supporting and monitoring their learning.
• Update the Home Learning page regularly - I use images, backgrounds for the dates, Bitmoji (good conversation starter)
• Talanoa, Talk, Chat, Share - my class and I love talking about subjects of interest to them and myself, current events, families, community, school...(we carry this on in our hangouts). Don't let the hangouts be a 'do this, do that act'.
• Have at least two hangouts a day - one in the morning to set the students up with work and clarify any work they do not understand, one in the afternoon where the students can report back on their progress
• Record the hangouts - in hangouts you can record, this is a good record of your discussions and also memories to look back on
• Very important - MAKE SURE WHAT YOU HAVE ON THE SITE IS VISIBLE. Imagine you are a parent trying to help your child navigate the site and you can not access what is on the site? Don't be that teacher!

Presenting my inquiry to our staff

Last week, I had the opportunity to present what I have been working on with my teaching as inquiry. I was very happy with the feedback from my principal and colleagues because it shows my inquiry is moving in a direction where it could help my school and colleagues. 

In discussing that my focus is in embedding the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy in my teaching, I explained that within the Learn, Create and Share aspect, each word has a lot of deliberate teacher actions involved. 

I also shared what I have been trying to achieve with using the  SISOMO acronym with the creation of DLOs. I noticed my students are very confident in creating DLOs using Google Slides and Google Draw. At the DFI sessions I had been attending I learnt that SISOMO is when a digital object has sight, sound and motion. I have encouraging my students to use Screencastify on their devices for their DLO creations. They can still create a Google Drawing or Google Slide presentation but most of the explaining can be done by them using Screencastify. I will post up a few examples of what my students have been producing using Screencastify in my next post. 

In supporting my colleagues, I have sent a document where each teacher can explain how they are embedding the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy in their practice. After analysing this data, I will then plan a presentation to be presented at a staff meeting where we will collaborate as a staff to get a common understanding of how to embed Learn, Create and Share in our learning programmes.