Key changes I've made in my Inquiry

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

At the start of the year, I had a few blog posts which covered the achievement challenge my focus in class fell under. This was achievement challenge #5: Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts.

Initially I started looking towards a TESSOL approach in this blog post, then while analysing more the problem at hand, these were my findings in my blog posts 'Why I selected this challenge', and 'Why is it catalytic?'.

This inquiry process this year has been very useful for me and my teaching practice, making me reflect and pinpoint exactly what my deliberate acts of teaching (DATs) are before and after the chosen intervention. The 'Tools, Measures and Approaches' blog post sets out how I had planned to monitor this change in my teaching.

The following slides show the 2 main changes in my teaching practice.
1. Deep Dive sessions: Used a combination of Jannie's higher expectations and Words have power workshop and Betsy's Agility with sound workshop. This unpacked words into syllables and known word groups. It also extended into word families, root word and synonyms.
2. More fluid discussion amongst the group. (Jannie refers to it as generating dialogic conversations). This needed students to have a keen interest/buy in into the topic and some someone to have some prior knowledge about the topic.

This is my blog post about 'Collecting and Monitoring the changes in my Teaching'.

One thing worth mentioning is the change in STYLE of learning as this was a major factor to getting my target group on board and interested in wanting to learn to read in order for them to be able to read to learn. This change was bringing in the use of iPads and Explain Everything. It was a new and exciting new way to learn for the whole group. This gave them 2 days of learning and the other days were back to normal site work.

Here is evidence in the change in my planning for reading.

Here is the change in my site layout over the year to accomodate for the different style of learning, and being able to work independently from the site and not waiting for the teacher.

Monitoring Micro-Shifts

To recap what my inquiry is focussing on this year, here is the challenge I am covering.

Kahui Ako Achievement Challenge 5: Improve the achievement of students with special needs in the learning areas of English/ key competency using symbols, languages and texts.

My inquiry problem/ challenge: Students who are 'stuck' in their learning 2-3 years behind where they should be at for Year 7 and 8 getting ready for College.

One of the biggest positives to come out of this are the big shifts my focus group is making in their running records testing. This is covered in my End of Term 2 Blog Post.

One thing I need to do a better job at keeping track of, are the micro-shifts students are making from week to week. These are things that might not show up during testing time, but show progress from what they couldn't do before, to what they can do now. 

An example of this came from the analysis of their running records. The words students were getting wrong showed their reading behaviours at only looking at the initial sound (or 1st letter) and the ending. Then students started guessing whatever words they know which started and ended that way. This showed students were not looking at the middle letters/sounds and not even attempting it. Instead they looked first to the pictures or the ceiling to try and find words.

One way I thought to try and cater to this problem was Besty Sewell's 'Agility with Sound' program. I had first observed this style in action at the start of Term 2 with Helen Squires but haven't done much with it until I attended a seminar of Betsy's earlier on this Term. 

I decided to try this out on the boys in my focus group who had only made 1 level shift during the mid year testing. From this, I was trying to find who can hear the middle sounds and who can identify and retain sounds in their heads long enough to record down. Here are a few examples and observation notes of my session with them.

               

Collecting and monitoring the changes in my teaching

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

I plan to collect information about the implementation of changes through my weekly planning and highlighted in tables like the one below. 

Here is a detailed description of the changes I made in my teaching practice. 

One of the major mind-set changes for me as a teacher was EXPECTATIONS! I had no expectation what so ever for any student in this group to make much/if any shift at all. This was from reading their history of learning in their black folders which you get the general picture that this group of students had a negative outlook on their reading capabilities and actually hated reading time. I simply wanted them to enjoy reading. Feel good about themselves when they read. I have since lifted my expectations for this group by setting goals for us to work towards within a given time-frame. These goals are covered in my previous blog post about Interventions in Action.

My evidence of this change will be in my planning as my DATs (deliberate acts of teaching) will have less description of sequencing of lesson (coverage) and describing follow-up activity but more bullet points of important phrases and vocabulary I want to draw their attention to in a text.

Together with my "feelings" of how I think things are going, I have also collected a few student voice opinions every 3-4 weeks. I have also made sure to stick to my timeline for when I had planned to test students again. 

Here are my target groups mid-term 3 running records testing.

My 2 students I'd like to comment about are the ones of didn't make much/if any shift the first time round. My first student 'FM' only made 1 level shift in the previous testing round failing level 9. This time he round he passed level 9 and 10 so could potentially keep being tested up. Student 'GW' failed his level 15 test in term 2. This time, he passed level 15 and 16 and was quite chuffed with himself. My last student 'RF', although she is not getting the same change in teaching as she has moved reading groups, I can report she has made another 6months progress in her reading age. However this is not attributed to my interventions as she moved group at the start of Term 3. 

Hypothesis 2 & 4 - Interventions in action

Term 3 started by revealing new reading groups and explaining why the changes were made and the challenge was made for others to monitor their own reading so they could see their progress - especially my target students who were still tracking along the colour wheel.

As a result from running records last term, one of my target students has moved out of the target group into the next reading group up. I haven't quite figured out how I will ensure the same interventions used with the group will be used in her new group but I will endeavour to sort that out next week. 

Here is my collated data for Hypothesis #2: Student voice. This also includes our goal setting talk which links with Hypothesis #4: High expectations. 

One of my highlights from this one-on-one session was students were able to say what they were good at and what they needed help with. I could also see that students struggled with spelling and they saw this as a barrier in their writing. 

They also completed a quick sight word test.

My goal for this term is to make the students learning visible. Only 3 or 4 students have shown they are able to select the best part of their learning/task to share onto their blog. My aim is to up-skill everyone in the group with the skills to share from 'explain everything' and then write a short description about their learning to accompany this.

CoL Inquiry - CREATE checklist

Organising my blog posts into our Manaiakalani Teaching as Inquiry Framework has enabled me to identify the gaps in my inquiry which I have not addressed. The table below clearly identifies this for me as being the Create - Innovate part of our inquiry cycle.

Create - Innovate: 
Are we capitalising on the affordances of the technology to support the Five Affordances of Learn Create Share (Engagement, Teaching Conversations, Visibility, Cognitive Challenge, Scaffolding) identified by the WFRC

Reflecting back on my inquiry, I can confidently say these things have been happening and overlap with some of my other topics discussed in my blog posts under the label "Ctry" - try new things. So I will try and distinguish the differences between the 2 labels next time and be more specific to ensure I cover this aspect of the framework.

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.	Make a plan Teaching as Inquiry Framework PD - Creativity Empowers Learning
Try new things	It is a constant state of action, monitoring, reflection, and adjustment - and then more action. Failure may occur. Feedback from learners - how will I engage them with new learning? Do they know we’re trying something new?	End of T1 inquiry reflection Student Voice - what do they really think of maths? Rotations and half-time breaks Extensions students Strand data - pre test It’s the little things that matter
Innovate	Are we capitalising on the affordances of the technology to support the Five Affordances of Learn Create Share (Engagement, Teaching Conversations, Visibility, Cognitive Challenge, Scaffolding) identified by the WFRC
Implement	Just do it!	Success Criteria and self assessment Rotations and half-time breaks T3 - Update on target students Extensions students Strand data - pre test Hands on Geometry
Reflect	“Inquiry into the teaching–learning relationship goes hand in hand with formative assessment, in the cyclical evaluation process that goes on moment by moment, day by day, and over the longer term.” Assessment-in-the-classroom/Teaching-as-inquiry	Success Criteria and self assessment Student Voice - what do they really think of maths? Rotations and half-time breaks Mid-Year GLOSS outcomes Teaching as Inquiry Framework T3 - Update on target students Extensions students Strand data - pre test Hands on Geometry

It's the little things that matter

My inquiry has come to a point now where its the little things that matter. The small steps we take, the teachable moments in class, and the 'warm-ups'. These are the things that matter and I (and we - as a class) need to do well. Attending to these, and planning well for these will really help towards my goal of embedding knowledge into learners - for the long haul.

As part of this, I've been trying to think of engaging warm-up activities which require students to move around in order to create experiences which will help them remember the learning better.

Here is a warm-up activity we did for Geometry - Transformations last week.

Outcome - This activity really helped students to complete their set tasks and activities manipulating shapes by rotating them, flipping them or sliding them side by side. Students were able to use the warm-up activity to help them sort out what their shape will be doing based on the task they had to do. Check out some of the poses we had. 

So although we don't give warm-up games in maths too much thought, let me tell how useful it can be, as that 5-10minute game (especially if it relates to your lesson for the day) can do a world of wonders!

Strand data - Pre test

One of my 'points of interest' that came out of one my previous post about MidYear GLOSS outcomes was: 1) Parents pointing out that STRAND work in maths was one of the weaknesses when they got to high school. 2) We had no formal way of measuring how much progress students actually make in strand.

To address this Team 5 (Year 7 & 8 block @ Pt England) decided to create our own asTTle test which covered curriculum levels 2-4 about geometry and measurement. We used this as a pre-test for the start of this term and the plan is to create a similar test for the end of the term to see how much progress students make.

Here is my Year 7 and 8 data as well as data for my 'target group' and my 'extension group'.
 
 
A closer analysis of students Individual Learning Pathways will help to target areas in which they need support in. But this is a great starting point for my teaching and I look forward to comparing it with my end of term data.