Thursday 30 April 2020

Preliminary Findings

TAI 2020 WFRC #4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence

One of my takeaways from CoL last year was to have a larger pool of target students. Depending on what your inquiry is, this is sometimes not ideal. However, in looking at my students data, I realise I can actually have a larger target group which give me more concrete data on whether interventions are working or not. 

Before we went into lockdown, I'd only just started collating data on my whole and had not actually informed students I would be tracking them. Therefore I also didn't get a chance to get student voice from Term 1. I am planning on sending out a google form to get student voice while we are still doing distance learning in Term 2.

Out of my 27 maths students, I'm selecting 22 as my pool of target students. They range from levels late year 3 to late year 6. Here are their OTJ's (Overall Teacher Judgements) from 2019 reports and this year 2020 PAT results analysis.
An overall view of how this particular group of students look using stanines is below.
Throughout this inquiry process, I am hoping to shift these bars to the right with a higher number of students achieving stanine 5 and higher.

Wednesday 29 April 2020

Tools, Measures and Approaches

TAI 2020 WFRC #3: Building an accurate profile of students' learning - tools, measures and approaches...
Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools.

Kahui Ako Achievement Challenge 5: Increase the achievement of Years 7-10, in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets.


My inquiry problem/ challenge: Students who are 3-4 years behind in math. Combining a variety of best practice approaches to find best mix towards accelerating students who are 3-4 years behind in math.

My challenge with this is that we've just finished 2 years of DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiring Communities). Some kids really grasped and grew from this approach and some kids were put off with math altogether. This did not help those students who were already behind in math.

To measure how much 'new knowledge' students are learning or picking up, I plan to use the following tools and approaches:

PAT/Ikan/Gloss/e-asTTle:

  • I plan to analyse the PAT closely and group the types of questions students struggled on. Ikan and Gloss tests would be great indicators to how well they are retaining and picking up strategies and number knowledge. These combined, will give me a clear picture of exactly where students are in their learning and identify the gaps.
  • Use of e-asttle mini test will also be beneficial for strand in getting pre and post test data.
Student Voice:

  • This has been very useful and informative in my past inquiries as sometimes the way you think the lesson went doesn't always match up with how students feel. Gaining student voice before, during and after an intervention in a great way to gauge whether something is working, and students are interested in what they are learning.
Plan/Reflect Weekly: 

  • This is very important to carry out as well as monitor. Plan on how I will go about the intervention, then reflect each week on whether it needs changing or if it on the right track. Completing reflections straight after a math lesson can sometimes be difficult so jotting down notes to self on the modelling sheets or on the board with student initials as students are learning will be great in helping to gather evidence as reflection time.