CoL - Create: Make a plan

Create - Teaching Inquiry - "What strategies (evidence-based) are most likely to help my students learn?"

Make a plan

What can I already do and  what do I need help with? Who are the learners? Group/class  What are the goals for my practice and student achievement? Set up processes for capturing evidence about whether the strategies are working for my students.

1. Upon reflection on the 'Learn' stages of our inquiry framework, I have identified what I can already do and what I need help with.

What I can already do:

• Gather observation notes and use these to make informed decisions about my teaching
• Target specifically identified learning needs
• PD around 'create' pedagogy and activities has been most helpful!

What I need help with/ What I need to put in place:

• Balancing between my planning and conveying my vision to my student teacher who has full control of my class for 2 weeks.
• Organisation - having the technology available and ready to go. Eg: cameras & ipads charged.
• Building up my 'bank of resources' for create activities that can be used for different activities.

2 & 3 -  Who are my learners? What are the goals for my practice and student achievement?

Initially, I started off targeting and monitoring just my priority learners, but upon reflection, I realised my inquiry included the class as a whole. I've also clarified what my inquiry is focusing on and where it sits in our Achievement Challenge matrix. The Achievement Challenge I am focusing on (number 4) focuses on making sure our Year 7-10 learners accelerate, rather than slide down from Year 6. Years of data have shown the students improving steadily from Years 1-6, then start to plateau and slip from Years 7-10. So ultimately, this is my end goal - to accelerate my Year 7 and 8 learners to show sufficient shifts in their learning.

4. Setting up processes for gathering evidence: For this I need to be more consistent in my reflections to ensure I cover week to week happenings with my learners. Also checking student blogs more regularly to see how they are describing their learning. Does this align with your desired outcome? I have also started the practice of gathering students on the mat for plenary sessions at the end of every lesson. We could discuss as a class what we found difficult, gave students a chance to explain some of the new learning they were proud of and for me to hear how students felt the lesson went.