Creativity, Collaboration and Music

A huge part of my inquiry this year has shifted away from the elements of mathematics to the elements of collaboration and creativity. 

My hope is that by providing these activities for collaboration and creativity the children will be able to apply this learning across the curriculum. 

This lesson focused on building these skills and it was incredibly positive the way in which my class engaged with each others. 

Through this activity the children worked on expressing the values of our class as they see them in a song. 

See Class Onair lesson 

 

Distance learning in team 3 2021

 Over the past two years distance learning has become a tool in our teaching tool box. Each lockdown we reflect on our prior lockdowns and what worked and what might require changing. 

What has been a huge driver in our lockdown learning planning is consistency. Every day we talk to the children about 3, 3 blog posts a day, reading, writing and maths. 

We also have a structure that allows for learners to engage with learning that is manageable for them organising learning so that in ranges from level 1 to level 3 of the curriculum. We have found that this has meant we have maintained the interest of learners during this very long period. 

This Class Onair lesson gives a bit more detail around distance learning in team 3. 

Inquiry Mid Year Update

My teaching as inquiry this year has focused on accelerating achievement in reading. Specifically acquisition of new vocabulary and critical thinking. 

At the end of term 2 we conducted mid year testing to support the formation of our overall teacher judgement for report writing. 

One measure of data which I collected was running records to see what shift had occurred in reading ability. I used the PM Kit to conduct my running records as this provided a standardised measure that looked at decoding, comprehension and some vocabulary. 

Here is the data I gain from this assessment:

What does this show: First of all I must note that children with a * by their name have had additional support through the Quick 60 Reading Program. This is a well rounded support program aiming to fill gaps for the learners. Having this additional support means that for these learners it is harder to say which program Quick 60 or the Intervention have had the most impact. While students in Quick 60 have had additional reading their results are not all that different to those who were not in Quick 60 reading. 

There are 15 children in the inquiry group. All have made expected progress for 2 terms at school 0.5y. However for 3 children they have only made expected progress. GM3 is new so I have no historical data to look at to see if this GM only made 0.6 progress in year 2 and 0 progress in year  3. While GL made 0.3 progress in year 2 and 0.1 progress in year 3. For both these learners 0.5 progress in 2 terms is significant when compared to their historical progress. 

Seven children have made 1 years progress so far this year. This is half a years acceleration so far this year. So long as they continue to make progress I predict they will have accelerated shift this year. 

Four children have already had 1.5 years progress this year. That is accelerated shift.  My plan for these learners is to gain at least another 0.5-1 shift as they still have a way to go until they reach their chronological age. 

One student has made 2 years progress. This student has gain a lot of confidence as a reader. She still has 1 year to go to be working at an end of year 4 level and this is our goal for the end of the year. 

Words are a huge part of reading

 This year my inquiry focus has been on reading and trying to accurate reading learning for children who we reading below their chronological age. 

I have made a number of changes in my teaching ready for term 4 building in the changes I made earlier in the year. 

Towards the end of term 3 I finally had a chance to test the children 1-1 on their sight words. I expected this to be a significant challenge for the learners in my target group but was surprised that for the most part sight word knowledge sat at normal level. They knew sight words up to their current reading level. There were a view gaps that I will not more specifically in a future post. 

Given this new information I started asking if its not sight words which I still could be as they need the next set to progress forwards what is it? 

We have continued to us the Dr Gwyneth Phillips work around picking up the pace in literacy and I do believe that systematic use of these has supported reading however I still asked what am I missing. 

This is when I started thinking more about Phonics. We do phonics in context in our guided reading programs but that doesn't see to be enough. I started looking at the errors children reading between level 3 and 20 were making and so much of it came down to phonological knowledge. For example children were saying single letter sounds not blends, or mixing up vowels in the middle of words. 

I have taught for almost 5 years now and have not at this stage implemented a systematic phonics program. 

So given what I have found out what next:

Every day in Room 21 we do hand writing in the morning. Now I am going to use the more systematic phonics approach to this. I am drawing on the resources from the site progressive phonics who provide a step by step phonics program for free. I choose this as it allowed me to start at the Intermediate level in which they have a strong focus on blends and use poems, flash cards, games and more to learn blends and words in order. 

I still have a lot to do and the year is drawing to a close. perhaps phonics will be the missing piece that helps these kids to start to fly in their reading. I sure hope it is. 

I have also started to provide even more milage. Milage is something I know works to build fluency, word knowledge and over all reading ability. In order to do this each day I have had a buddy reading book along side the teacher supported book. 

My hope is that this will combat some of the effects of the two lockdowns. 

Inquiry intervention

What micro changes have I made in my teaching so far:

Listening to children more one on one

This year I have made a point of listening to children reading below their chronological age one on one at least once a week. This allows me to give them specific feedback and more importantly positive encouragement. It also allows me to see needs that I could not see in a small group. 

Independent reading time

Every afternoon after lunch, I have independent reading time for my whole class. This is 10 to 30 minutes depending on focus and need of time for children to read books themselves. These range from readers, to picture books, to chapter book and non fiction books. I do limit this to physical books to support focus. In reading time children have access to digital books but during this time the focus is on reading physical books of choice. Children have suggest they like this time. I use this time to check in on my target group and listen to them one on one. 

Sight word teaching and games:

I have become much more specific in my sight word teaching. Using 1/3 of each group session to look at words. This can range for words in content, topic specific words to word families and sight words. I still have a lot of work to do in this area but have made a good start always writing words on the table. Next I want to capture this in a rewindable way so that children can go back to it. I have also introduce sight word games like jenga, sight word snap, memory and more. I want to introduce more games and get children developing their own games. 

Looking at the books closely:

I have started looking at the books closely and looking for books that provide more challenge like the ready to read books and sunshine books over the PM books. I have been careful in my selection to provide books they have not seen over and over. 

The Key changes I have made in my inquiry

1. Summarise evidence about key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning.

At the beginning of the year it was clear that there was a huge need for my learners in writing and reading. See this blog post.

This need lead me to look at my practice and think about what I was doing and what changes needed to be made to address the clear need in the data. As a result I tried a number of different practice aimed at building vocabulary in literacy and building writing capacity and skill.

As a result I tried a number of different things. Looking back perhaps to many different things and nothing for quite long enough but my practice definitely changed.

Each term I made a change based on reflections on student engagement, data and need.

Early in the year, Chrissy and I worked together with a focus on building oral language and written language through connection of reading and writing with a strong focus on oral record. We did this by focusing on an element of text, setting, character and plot for 1-2 week blocks and this being the main focus of all reading and writing with an aim of building descriptive language around each element.

This is an example of the children's created character and shares the same feature as the reading activity. 

Here are some example of what this looked like. We found that well the language used within their activities was similar to that they already had and that this was not maximising gifted language the way we had hope. Gifted language was used more in writing however.

Also in Term 2 (See blog post) I looked at how I could gift more language using the digital technologies. I found myself over gifting which and the learners were so overwhelmed. I learned from this experience.

In Term 3 we had some wonderful team professional development with Dr Jannie van Hees this made me think about the things that are missing in my program. What am I doing about sight words. I started using this approach and the kids said "I like writing the little word." "I write more this time."

I also filmed this lesson for my Manaiakalani Google Class Onair.

What has shifted and why.

I have been asking myself a lot this term what has been the impact of my teaching? Have I really made a difference for these learners and how do I know?

This lead me to think back about the shifts I have been monitoring this year and the interventions I have put in place for my learners. 

Below is a presentation that shows writing samples from one learner over 3 time points. It looks at what shift was made in terms of number of words, working out unknown words, content and punctuation. If you look through the presentation you will see that this learner has made a great deal of shift in these areas. 

I included this example as the main way I monitor writing shift is through conferencing with the learners and looking closely at their writing looks. 

Below is the reading shift for my class from term 4 2018 to term 3. The blue shows the starting point by number of students at each PM reading level and the red the number of students at each level in term 3.  You can see we have had a large number of students shift however shifts have not been as significant as I would have liked. 

This data shows level and age shift of my target learners. Many of whom have moved a number of levels but this has not meant a large shift in reading age. 

During this reflection I have found that the interventions I have put in place have been beneficial for the learners however they have not been constant enough. This is due to time spent out of class with my CoL Across School Role and the changes that have happened in my space with year with changing co-teachers. 

Inquiry update term 3

This term I have continue with write the little words this term a long with a focus on writing together. Trying to balance the I write, we write, you write in my classroom. I do not believe I have this balance right yet and hope that I will be the end of next term.

During this,  I have noticed that modelling the experiences before the children do it helps to build the vocabulary for them. I did this in my chocolate fish writing and the quality of language used by the learners increased considerably. 

I have also noticed an increase across the class of excitement about writing and want to write. With learner say “when can we do writing”, “Can I finish my writing now instead of playing a game” and “I love writing.” 

I have also noticed the connections with reading. The learners who are excited about writing are also making good progress in reading. One learner has moved from level 12 to level 19 this year and her engagement in reading and writing has increased also. 

Inquiry Update term 3

10: Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

11: Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way

When I started my inquiry my question was will the use of more rewindable teacher and learning in literacy lift student achievement and support improved teacher practice? What I have come to realise is that this question is huge and that perhaps rewindable is not the biggest change I need to make in my teaching. I realised this as the students became reliant on the rewindable resources. As such I have adjusted my inquiry question will gifting language and targeting specific area lift achievement student achievement in literacy.

What am I doing differently in my classroom?

-I have had focus blocks on setting and characters
-Used gifting EE to support writing

What new changes I am going to start
-Building sight word automaticity through writing warm up
-A focus on modelling, guided and shared writing.

How will I measure and monitored changes in my teaching?

I have begun pull a group of learner to do a writing sample, dictation and automaticity test. I will do this very 5 weeks and monitor changes. I will also ask learners about their feelings towards writing and monitor changes in this.

My Inquiry Presentation Manaiakalani & Outreach Principals Wananga 2018

This year I had the privilege of being part of the MIT program and as part of this we shared our inquiry impact story with the Principles and School leader from the Manaiakalani and Outreach Cluster at the 2018 Wananga on the 1st of November. 

What happened for the learners

As a result of my inquiry was that learners became more confident in their use of mathematical language and this meant they were able to model, explain and use this language when solving problems and discussing mathematical ideas.

For one of my target learners this supported great shift in her mathematical ability and with her making two years progress in one year. Another learner in my inquiry group made 1.5 years progress. However this was not the case for all learners and as such I wondered if students interaction in the intervention played a larger role than I had anticipated.

What evidence do I have for this
A clear picture of the language development was painted by the vocabulary survey which was taken in terms 1 and 4 this showed that students understanding and ability to use this small range of vocabulary had greatly improved.

I also used Gloss Data to look at mathematical strategies and explanation. This as we have discussed a lot this year may not be the ideal for of assessment for the DMiC method however it did how that students how activity engaged in the intervention could understand the language and this supported them to solve the problems.

What did I do to make this happen?
This inquiry has been a huge area of growth for me as a teacher. I have step out of my comfort zone and tried many new things. This started with a focus on coding which quickly shifted toi using a range of approaches to support language development and discussion in mathematics.
-Developing a shared language and classroom culture.
-Write Questions rich in language and open for discussion
-Integrating language into coding tasks
-Providing language and discussion prompts

Wonderings about what next

As we move toward to end of 2018 and into 2019 I want to continue this approach and see if with learners becoming more familiar with DMiC in can have a bigger impact. I also wonder if the key principles of this approach the rewindable videos, prompts for discussion can be adjusted and applied to literacy as an aid to goal setting and discussion of goals in reading and writing. I am interested in this because of the work that Danni Stone has been doing this year with her year 7 and 8 students in the connection between reading and writing and the language that we can draw from reading to writing. It also came up at MIT that the prompts and videos could be integrated across the curriculum building more familiarity and cross curriculum integration.  

Pulling it all Together

As I reflect back on my inquiry so far this year I am very aware of the way that it is may little bits and I am still struggling to find the trend that pulls them all together.

As a result I wanted to go back to the problem and think about it along side the the bits and pieces I have been doing in class.

This Image shows where I am at currently with my inquiry. I now believe I need to change my project to focus more on the language and making that rewindable for the learners as that will have more impact for the people who count the most the KIDS!

Manaiakalani Teaching As Inquiry Framework

My 2018 CoL Inquiry Focus

"Increasing Mathematical ability,  using coding to build computational thinking and vocabulary"

The Manaiakalani cluster are always working together to overcome challenges for our learners with a focus on specific achievement challenges that exist with our community of learning.  

In 2018 my inquiry will focus on the CoL achievement Challenge: 

Lift the achievement in maths for all learners in years 1-13. 

I will be using the Manaiakalani cluster inquiry framework to focus my inquiry and make my learning and teaching visible in 2018. This framework has been co-constructed specifically for Manaiakalani schools drawing on the New Zealand teaching as inquiry framework and using the Learn, Create, Share pedagogy as a guide for inquiry. 

Throughout the year I will label my blog post to make sure it is easily accessed by others. I will label them using the Learn, Create, Share structure. 

Click on this link to see blog posts organised by label-Inquiry links