Evaluation of inetervention

 This year my inquiry has focussed on supporting my students to gain reading ability and confidence to tackle unseen texts. 

I noticed that this was particularly the case when they encountered lengthy or challenging texts, or when they were required to read several different texts in a short time period - such as on a PAT test. 

At the start of the year

I noted a really need to increase reading ability for a number of student working below their chronological age. The aim was to identify their needs which I found was around vocabulary, decoding strategies and letter sound knowledge. 

Starting the Intervention 

Throughout the year the intervention and its focus adjusted. There were many factor that impacted the changes including progressional learning, lockdowns and changes to the way we were teaching more generally because of covid.  

Final Data Collection (mid term 4)

Over all reading data in my class was very mixed. 10 students made significant progress over 1.5 years in a year. While 5 made a years progress and the remaining students made less than expected progress. Given the challenging year we had with Covid19 and the two significant lockdowns and on going effects of those it is hard to say what factors determined reading success. 

As for my target group:

5 students made significant progress of 1.5 years or more. With one of these student boy E making progress of 2.6years. Girl D made 0.9 year progress which well compared on norm progress is not significant compared to the less than a year of progress she has made in her prior 3 years of school this is significant for her. 

However there were sadly some results that were not has positive with 6 students making 0.5 years progress or less two of these made no progress in reading level during the year. 

These results were supported by the start test data shown below. 

With average progress for year 4 being 16.2 and progress for a year 3 being 27.6. You will note that Girl C, Girl E Boy E and Boy A made over average progress. While girl B came very close to average progress. 

Given this data I feel confident to say that the intervention had mixed results but was also influenced by a number of facts including lockdowns, attendance and attitude. 

What change have I Made to my teaching in 2020

My inquiry focussed on supporting students in reading with a focus on understanding new vocabulary and being able to decode unknown words so that they could tackle more challenging age approbate texts with less support. 

In June I looked at my teaching in depth asking what texts am I proving learners with a why, what do the children think about my teaching and their learning and what strengths and needs do I have in my practice. 

Changes to the way I teach reading

As a result of this study I made a point of actively including sight words along with other text specific word work to every reading group lesson. I also made more opportunities to talk about words and made this rewindable through our group digital modelling books. 

Changes to my learning design

To be honest this was something I did not change because of my inquiry but rather because of the ever changing needs of 2020 with Covid-19 and to address every day changes in the classroom. I found that I was providing less differentiation. This included proving one book a week at the children expected level with audio support to encourage engagement with more vocabulary and complex language structures. 

Did the change in teaching affect student learning?

This is a challenging question as for some students these changes provided a needed challenge and pushed them to engage more with a wider range of vocabulary and ideas. While for others the challenge was perhaps too much and therefor served to discourage them. I don't think I found the hapy middle ground I would have liked. 

To what extent did my teaching change?

I think my teaching changed in small but significant ways. I began asking why did I choose this text and how can I provide challenge within the scope of what learners are capable of.

Bursts and Bubbles

The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was specific and careful teaching of vocabulary in an environment that fostered discussion in order to increase not only reading ability but achievement across the curriculum.

I identified this as my focus when I noticed that a number of my leaners were reading well below their age and that these learners were often the quietest in the class and used simple vocabulary in their discussions.

To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used running record data, teacher observations, student voice surveys, video recordings of students reading and discussion observations of student engaging in games.

The main patterns of student learning I identified in the profiling phase were that student in my target group were significantly behind their peers in the class on a Star test, running records. There were aware of this achievement gap and did not choose to speak without prompting during whole class or even some small group discussion. They would not self identify words they did not know or understand but rather waited ours or the teacher to bring them up in discussion. They did however have a very positive attitude towards reading and when asked to join a discussion would attempt to do so.

My profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in providing reading mileage and introduction of the topic and identifying topic specific vocabulary, But that my students would likely make more progress if I developed in supporting discussion and student questioning and supporting children to identify challenging vocabulary themselves.

This year I made a lot of micro changes in my teaching, I started out by adding more independent reading time, more sight word games and poems more regular. I also looked at how challenge could be provided through text select while still providing plenty of mileage for my learners. I also had to think about to to provide this in a distance learning context and challenging text with audio support became a huge part of our distance learning program.

The literature/expertise that helped me decide what changes to make was I looked at a range of literature and had many discussion with colleagues, I also looked at pasted inquiries and as this inquiry build on my inquiry from last year I had a wider range of resources and my own experiences to use as a guide.

The easiest thing to change was building more independent reading into my program, the children love to read and so this just happened and was amazing to watch. The hardest part to change was build discussion about vocabulary in which all students had a voice.

Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as interesting, many of the students in my target group made 1.5 years progress or more in reading, they had become more independent in writing and use more topic specific vocabulary when they write, however it is hard to say with full certainty the impact across the full curriculum given the challenges of measuring this with two lockdowns during the year and period were group learning was more challenging.

The most important learning I made about vocabulary and discussion in reading was that it is not a simple issue and that the target vocabulary need can be sight words or topic specific words and that I still have a lot of work to do to get the discussion to the level I had hoped for. The most important learning I made about inquiry was that the little changes can made a big difference, and how you measure that can be very challenging.

Reading professional learning

This year has been very busy and different but that does not mean that our focus on accelerating learning specially for those learners who are struggling. Our area of focus has been reading as this is an area where the data shows us we need to make shift to help our children get to the norm or ideally accelerate past it. 

What we have seen is that there is not accelerated progress and high achievement. 

We started the day by discuss the Model of literacy development. Moving from basic literacy, intermediate literacy and disciplinary literacy.  We are able to get children reading but not being critical reader and this means they do not always have the skills to read in a disciplinary way need for high school and life reading. 

We recap the understanding the reading and the teaching of reading is complexed and we need to have a process around, providing feedback, carefully plan instructional reading and an in-depth knowledge of the subject. 

We are focuses on our instructional group teaching. 

Today we are looking at how we orient the children to the text and how this varies for at different reading levels. 

We also need to front load language to provide children with support for them as they read. 

early level: The orientation is short and limits the possibility of what they might encounter in the book. Example: This book is called Baby Panda, this story is about Baby Panda and Mother Panda, they are in the snow,  Mother Panda doesn't know where baby panda is and Baby Panda has tp be careful because it is dangerous in the snow. 

During the reading, having a children reading, listening to each child at different stages and supporting them in their decoding. 

Middle level and above: Orientation might be slightly lower and focuses a lot of prior knowledge and understanding of what they might encounter in the text. Planning the thoughtful questions throughout the text. Toni uses sticky notes throughout the book to link back to the learning intention throughout her reading. 

Hearing children reading is an important and tricky challenge for teachers. We know from research and for experience that the best way to understand how children decode is hearing them read. It has been noted well across the literature that round robin reading breaks up the way we read. Listening to children read can been done by everyone reading and listening in or tapping to get children to read aloud. In unison reading is still useful.  

We want to provide a safe, support environment for reading in which every child can tackle the book at their own pace. 

With a larger group it can be ideal to move around the groups, this means you can hear the children well and really see their decoding. 

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. 

Across schools Col teacher Role

What do people want?

Supporting with Cybersmart Kawa of care 

I have worked with a number of teachers and classes using iPads for the first time. This has involved modelling lesson or supporting lesson around the the skills they will use everyday in explain everything. 

In one lesson we used the skills of taking a photo, cropping, duplicating, moving and locking to to build a Castle. 

 

See this blog post for more.  

Support with creation of class sites

I am privileged to work with Dorothy Burt, Fiona Grant and many others over my time teaching. Due to this I have a good understanding of the elements of class sites and how to make them appealing for learners. I have worked with a number of teachers to help them develop their class site and discuss the content they create for their learners. 

Creating with iPads

Getting started with animating 
This animation was created by a child in my class. I have used examples from the children in my class and modelled in classroom and supported teachers in 1-1 iPad classrooms. I this has helped to to enhance their use of iPads for creation.

Getting started with coding
I have also worked with teachers to impanelment the digital technologies curriculum. This has focused on using Scratch junior and the directions used.
I also have this Manaiakalani Google Class Onair lesson to support others wanting to use scratch junior. 

Blogging App

Many people have come together to create the Manaiakalani Blogging App. This App makes sharing simple and straight forward for our year 1-3 learners working on iPads. See this blog post for how to use the App. See Fiona's Blog for the journey of the blogger app. 

Inquiry Conversations
I have worked with a number of the CoL within school teachers and other teachers having discussions about their inquiries. I have also visited classes to see their inquiries in actions and provide questions, ideas and support wherever I can to help them.

Opening up my classroom to others
I have also welcomed many people into my classroom both physically and digital through (Manaiakalani Google Class Onair) to share my practice and discuss what I do in my classroom.

I'm here to help please book me using this form, leave a comment or email: ccarruthers@ptengland.school.nz

Over Languaging Learning - How much gifting is too much gifting

I was so excited after our last CoL PLG that I jumped straight into languaging learning. My co-teacher and I had decided we were going to do narratives about owls with our class as this integrated nicely with what we had been doing in art and the stories we had been reading in class.

I was working with the 1B writers which are my target group for my inquiry. I had had them for a few weeks and they seemed to be doing well with the gifted language and creating sentences with support.

I decided that I would Language learning and that I wanted to give them choice as these were two big things we had talked about in our PLG. I created an explain everything with lots of gifted words and sound bites for each gifted word or phrase. The first lesson went really well but what I found was that there was so much choice and so many new words that the children felt overwhelmed and only those with the ability to face challenges head on kept going and the rest became highly dependant on me.

So with the help of the colleagues I started to ask, How much is too much? Is simple better? When are high expectation too high? How can I come at this group from a place they know and build in an exciting and fun way? How does choice feature for these learner or does it?

This writing task really made me question myself. One thing I did find work was students recording their sentences and using this to help them write, almost like a self created dictation. It allowed for a clear connection between speech. I also found when gifted words were connected with a meaningful picture they were more likely to be remembered.

I still have a lot to learn in terms of languaging learning, especially in writing. I would love to hear what others are doing so please leave me a comment.

Reflectioning on my inquiry

2018 has been a huge year of learning for me and my inquiry focus has been language acquisition in mathematics. I have learnt so much about shifting the balance of talk and providing support for learners to engage in talk.

This is my presentation about my inquiry and my findings. I have also share some insights into my tool and how it has worked for me and my class. I hope that you will find this presentation interesting and perhaps it will have an impact on your practice as my inquiry has in mine this year.

Video of my Inquiry Presentation Manaiakalani & Outreach Principals Wananga 2018

This year I have enjoyed the privilege being part of the MIT program. Throughout the year I have learnt so much and extended my knowledge. It was a big moment for me presenting to the Principals from Manaiakalani and the Outreach. This is the video of my presentation at the Wananga and I hope it will connect with my journey.

Inquiry update Term 4

This year I have learnt a lot so far but also seen some gaps in my teaching and my implementation. Recently I tested my inquiry group on the gloss test again and conducted the vocabulary survey again.

My findings were interesting.

Gloss

What I noticed was that three of the six in my target group have made progress in some areas of maths. I found the shift in fractions interesting was this area is high in topic specific vocabulary that students did not know earlier in the year. This links to the data form the vocabulary survey in which I found students understanding of mathematical language tested earlier in the year had improved greatly.

Vocabulary Survey 

I am wondering if Students A and B's lack of shift has to do with the way in which they engage with others in mathematics as these students skill struggle to talk positively to others and share their ideas in DMiC.

Digital Fluency Intensive Northland Cohort #2

Last week I had the privilege of sharing my experiences with the wonderful group at the Digital Fluency Intensive Northland Cohort #2. I am so great for this experience and I find that every time I go up North and share (this being my second time) I find myself humbled by the commitment and passion of the teachers as they learn what they need to know to embark on their journey to develop their classroom.

The day focused on learning to develop our classroom site focusing on the users and the purpose of our sites. We talked a lot about why we make and use class sites and how having a clear plan and layout helps to make our sites effective.

It was incredible seeing the Cohort setting big goals and working hard to achieve them. I really enjoyed helping different teachers identify challenges for them and supporting them to overcome these. The challenged ranged from creating buttons to embedding content.

At the end last week I got some wonderful feedback from Kerry and the Cohort:

Hi Clarelle

It was lovely to have you here with us this week on our Digital Fluency Intensive, thank you so much for coming and sharing your expertise.  I think everyone now has their sites well underway and looking pretty fancy!  

Robyn said you really helped her put things into perspective with how to organise and upload her iPad resources to her site, you'll probably hear from her if she gets a bit stuck.  With your help Sue from Kawakawa was happy with the improvements she made to her class site and Dani left you a nice comment on her blog, click here for the full post 

After looking at Clarelle's class site, I have gotten some ideas for how to link in Explain Everything activities to my slides and she is happy for me to use and adapt some of the activities accessible on her site - Thanks Clarelle! 

I was really grateful for this feedback and for all the people who supported me and gave me this opportunity to share.

Manaiakalani Hui Inquiry update

On Friday I was privilege to share my inquiry at the Manaiakalani Hui. At the event we our video played and everyone at the Hui got to choose a table to go to and talk with the people there. I really enjoyed the conversations had at my table and some of the questions and connections I made from this event.

I hope you enjoy this video summary of my inquiry. Please leave any question you might have as I would love to talk with you about my journey.

Feedback on my tool

Thanks to Zac Moran for sharing some insightful feedback on my tool. 

Today we got the opportunity to give Feedback to one of our colleagues tools that they have created.  Clarelle has created a site that is still in progress but nearly finished, this site is for learners and teachers to help build vocabulary in mathematics.

Clarelle has worked really hard over the last 6 months creating a tool that can be used to help learners build vocabulary in mathematics.  Not only will this help learners in mathematics but will go across the curriculum and help build vocabulary in so many different areas.

Clarelle has placed laminated cards around her classroom so her learners are able to go to them when they need help.  These cards have a QR code on them where learners are able to use their iPad to take them to her site where her learners have made short videos explaining what these words mean and how to use these different prompts.

The only problem that she is facing is that the videos don't open on phones via Google Drive, but her learners are using iPads so that won't be a problem.

This site will bless so many people and is extremely helpful with our new DMIC approach to mathematics this year.

CoL Reflecting What Now? Conversation 3

So what now? I have talked about where I am at and now I believe this conversation needs to look at what next. 

As we come into term 3 I feel like some of the conflict is lifted. Now is the time to bring it together, step it up and keep moving forward! 

As I look at refining my intervention I thought of 5 things that I am doing but that need stepping up or changing. 

1. Focusing the activities even more to make sure they provide the best opportunity for recycling of language, use of language and development of understanding. I will do this by making the language central to the task. I have a few ideas about how I want to do this. Firstly making sure the language specific to the learning is visible in written and oral forms.  Secondly given students a chance to create example of language. A fraction is....... explainer videos. This could ideally big picture -My wish- lead to a word wall that is digitally interactive. 

2. Planning more closely at the language. This links closely to point 1. I need to think even more closely about the language in my problems and activities and make sure this is clear in my planning. 

3. Providing discussion scaffolds. I know that conversation and discussion is a struggle for many of our learners. I want to add to the stills our children have been learning in DMiC. I believe that students having a physical scaffold they can hold and touch will support this further. 

4. Providing texts that support mathematical language. This is around building a link between literacy and mathematics. I want to connect the mathematical language, concepts and ideas to a story or text. This would provide a context for problems that are real while building the knowledge that mathematic is across the curriculum. 

5. Using video recording and analysis to really understand at the quantifiable level the impact of the action that I am taking. This would happen over a two week cycle as we rotate or learners every 2 weeks to develop a classroom culture that we are all  one class with two teachers who learn in different ways each term. 

I believe this is accelerate learning because it is just stepping up and adding to what I have already been doing but really stepping it up!

CoL Reflecting on my actions Conversation 2

As we continue to explore our inquiries it is important to look at what has worked, what has changed and for who. I have been thinking about this a lot. What is my impact and how do I really know that I am having one. Yes I know that sounds a bit strange but it is really important to me that the things I plan and run through over and over in my head are seen by the children as having the desired impact and if they are not why. 

What have I done differently:
-I have introduced frameworks for discussing the norms of mathematics in the classroom. I have intentionally been discussing this framework daily with the kids to build a knowledge of the language and develop a positive mindset for my learners. This is something I first saw in Rob Wiseman's Class.
-I have been choosing vocabulary that I know the children struggle with and unpacking it for the learners in the launch of the problems. I have been thinking carefully about the vocabulary in the follow up activities for the children to ensure that language is recycling of language.

I know that I have done something differently because we are all taking on new a approach to mathematic. I am constantly reflecting and considering What Next?

I feel that I always want to do everything but that is not reality is it. For that reason I believe that a lot of the changes that have happened have been the intended changes however there is always times where things do not go to plan.

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