Teaching During Lockdown; Ubiquitous Learning

During the lockdown, our students are learning in multiple ways. Some are learning independently, some with limited resources, some with help from whānau, and everyone at different times of the day.

This highlights the need for learning to be ubiquitous. 

Here are some ways I have adapted my teaching practice during this time to make sure children can access their learning anywhere at any time.

1. Making instructional videos. This is a fun way to create lessons that you would normally do in the classroom at home. Using materials takes the new abstract concepts easier to understand.

2. Using Jam Board and Screen Castify to make recordings of lessons, massive thanks to Matua Stefan for introducing us to this tool. Lessons like the one bellow allow you to make a visual representation as you explain concepts to your students.

Jam board has been such a great tool this lockdown. Having students talk to the Jamboard and explain their thinking as you record it is interactive and allows you make valuable formative assessment of where your students are at. You begin hearing things that would get missed within the busy classroom environment.

We have been using Jam board for online phonics lessons. We use the stickies to put the phonemes together in words or change the phoneses within a word to make new words.

3. Using Screen Castify to record shared reading books. This idea was gifted to me my colleage Whea Lee and I don't know why we hadn't thought of this last lockdown! It is always hard to get students to read texts at their level at home but how easy is it for them to follow along to a story read by the teacher. The teacher can use this opportunity to teach concepts about print and decoding strategies. They may not be reading the text independantly but hopefully they will be looking at the words and taking in some of those key concepts modeled.

4. Language Experience Videos gift students new vocabulary which is learnt in context, sentence structures and a range of new experiences. For these videos I have tried to slow my speech down and repeat language multiple times so that students hear it more than once. I have also explained some of the new vocabulary used.

These videos may not be the most well crafted but they hopefully do the trick and help my students connect to their learning. I hope this has inspired you to get creating and given you some new ideas for online learning during lockdown.

Changes to my Practice During Lockdown

 

Suddenly we find ourselves in lockdown again.

This poses the question 'how can I continue to develop student's foundational skills during distance learning?'

What aspects of my teaching had I changed during class and how could I keep this practice going through lockdown?.

• Building memory; As much of junior early learning has an aspect of rote learning and repetition, I had been focusing on memory games and that would hopefully transfer to remembering letter sounds, sight words, basic facts. I have integrated memory games into their reading program such as playing memory with sight words at school and then tried to create similar experiences at home using an Engage game 'Card Memory and connecting it to the text Hannah's Game.

• Incorporating teaching of direction language into my daily program; the top slide shows another aspect of developing foundation skills, which is developing an understanding of directional/positional words. Experimenting with different ways to connect with students during lockdown I have found that videos of me doing activities is the most effective way of engaging students. They love seeing their teacher and seeing they can't read yet, seeing and hearing the 'how to's' allows them to easily access their learning tasks. This activity not only tells and shows directional language, they then have to use it to create a race themselves.

• Development of gross motor skills, balance, and stability, hand-eye coordination; at school my students love doing exercise circuits after they have finished their writing. We also incorporate fine motor skill activities into our daily program as some students haven't the muscle strength and control needed to write with a pencil or cut with scissors. We talk about what skill the exercise is teaching them. I know this is best not to teach skills in isolation (vs within a context such as a game) but my students love it and it works for this particular group of students. Therefore to take this into their homes I again set them the challenge of creating their own exercise circuit 'boot camp' for them and their whānau. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I used resources that were already available as well as videos I made myself. I also gave students a yoga video to do as they love doing yoga at school.

Some resources I have incorporated onto my site are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X655B4ISakg

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/home-learning-tv/episodes/sage-5-8-e148

Sport Auckland Health and PE resource

 

As well as some homemade videos by me... nothing fancy and slightly cringy but the students love them.

• The last aspect is something I have carried over from my inquiry last year which is 'say, and do' language experiences. Using Dr Jannie Van Hees's technique of reusing and recycling vocabulary, say and do language experience activities related to a context outside of their daily worlds. This teaches them new vocabulary in context. 

How will I measure if this change of practice has had a positive effect on student outcomes? 

I will use whānau voice, student voice, and work samples to measure student outcomes. I will hopefully see student work samples and have feedback from my students on their return to school. Through talking to whānau, I have learned that students are using the site and videos and are engaged and motivated by them. They understand the learning tasks and are completing them. It will be interesting to see if the learning they are doing at home, transfers to learning in the classroom when back at school. 

What happens when light hits an object?

What happens when light hits an object?

My CoL inquiry has been looking into developing student's oral language using two week, high interest topics hands-on learning tasks. 

This weeks topic has been light.

This has been my lesson sequence:

1) Look at our shadows outside in the play ground. Why do we have a shadow? Does anything else have a shadow. Introduce the words; shadow, opaque, the concept of light coming from a source (the sun) and an object blocking the light's path. 

2) Read in dual language book 'Shadow Sleeps' . Students listen to audio in their first language and take the book home to share with their family.

3. Introduce the concept of reflection e.g. like light bouncing off. Discuss that some objects reflect light. Sit in a circle and students role play light traveling in waves to another person and bouncing off of them. Students take turns to walk across the circle and pretend to bounce off someone. 

4. Give students a torch, mirror, paper plate and magnifying glass.students make a prediction what the light will do when it hits the object. Gift students the words penetrate (meaning the light goes through it), reflect (meaning the light bounces off it), or block (if the object is opaque). Students ten experiment to see what happens. 

5. Explore making rainbows. students say and do as they 

Say And Do Activity

Students say and do as they

• Fill up a glass of water.
• Put the glass of water at the edge of a table.
• Balance it slightly over the edge of the table.
• Put a piece of paper on the floor next to the table.
• Shine the light through the water to make a rainbow.

The students then write what they have learnt about light.

Evidence of student learning:

The hand-on activities allowed students to use the new vocabulary in context. Me modelling simple and correct sentence structures using new vocabulary resulted in students themselves copying these structures. For some this was challenging and took effort, however all achieved this. The amount of talking during these sessions was awesome. There were questions being asked and problem solving (critical thinking) happening everywhere you looked.

The student's writing showed the increased fluency due to having 'lots to say' and engagement. Sequencing of ideas and use of new vocabulary. I have also noticed a marked improvement of sentence structures. 

Critically Thinking About Text

Here are two activities that I used with my students to get them thinking critically about texts.

The first introduces to the art of debating, taking a point of view as the reader based on your own personal experiences, values and connecting these to the information in the text.

The second uses both information in the story and creativity to change the ending of the fairytale.

My students found both activities extremely motivating and the activities created brilliant opportunities to talk and listen to the viewpoint of others. 

Debating; What Should Jack Do?

1. What is a debate? We talked about the election and how the different parties had to tell the people of New Zealand why they should vote for them. We discussed that in a debate you share your point of view and give a reason. 

2. I then asked if the students thought that Jake should give the cow to the man in exchange for the magic bean or take the cow to the market like his mother asked?

3. I got the students to sit at opposite sides of the mat depending on whether they were 'for' giving the cow to the man, or 'against'. Those students undecided sat in the middle with me.

4. I then told the children it was their job to get me and the other students to move to their side of the mat by giving their argument with justification. I also gave the expectation that they would need to take turns to talk.

5. The debate went backwards and forwards, students listened to each other and even added on to what others were saying and responding to others on the opposing team. 

6. Once all students had their turn at sharing their arguments. I said that I was still undecided as everyone's arguments were fantastic. I then asked them to write at least two different arguments for or against and that I would then choose the winner.

Talk about motivated learners!!!! This was the most animated, vocal and excited I have ever seen them during literacy. The oral language, turn-taking and listening were incredible as was their creative and critical ideas.

I think Jack should listen to his mum because the man must be lying. That bean is fake! It must be fake because he (the man) just wants the cow to eat it.

By Rakeena

I think Jack should give the cow to the man because it (the bean) looks like a plant and it is green (referring to a picture of the beanstalk later in the book)! I think he can sell the bean to customers at the market and the customers can give the money to Jack and he could go home and give the money to mum.

By Virginia in response to Rakeena's argument.

Change The Ending To This Fairytale

Using the sentence starter the students had to write a different ending to the story.

1. I began by reading the big book to the class, stopping at this page. The children had read this text many times over the week so the students were very familiar with the plot. 

2. What if we changed the ending to this story. What if something different happened next? Turn and talk, if you could change the story what would happen?

3. The students then went off to write their endings using the story starter ... 'He crept inside the castle...'.

Jack crept inside the castle and saw a giant sleeping with a goose. The goose laid a gold egg. Inside the egg was a dragon in the egg. Jack went to get the goose and the egg. he went down and down the beanstalk. He went to the market and sold the goose and the egg. Jack got some money. he went to the shop and got some food. he went back home.

By Toko

Learning Vocabulary Through Creating A Beebot World

Below is an example of the two-week topic that I used with my class. 

As I worked through the unit my focus was on vocabulary and giving multiple opportunities for students to use and reuse through hands-on experiences, and opportunities to talk with peers using that vocabulary. This is now always at the forefront of my mind as I teach. At the beginning of my inquiry, I found this was more of an effort....with practice it has now become automatic and something that has come through on observations of my practice. 

The result is that the students are talking more using the new vocab through multiple opportunities and the vocabulary and concepts attached to that vocabulary is coming through in their writing.

Monitoring, Recording and Tweaking During Lockdown

What did I plan to do?

My aim going into lockdown was to create culturally responsive, online learning opportunities utilising student's heritage languages. It was also to continue with the intensive oral language programme through high-interest topics outside of their daily worlds, hands-on experiences and exposing students to new vocabulary and using, and reusing this vocabulary.

What did I actually do?

• Sent home dual language books, a writing book and a pen.
• Created culturally responsive online learning activities to go with the dual language books.

• Created videos that took students outside of their daily lockdown worlds, using topics that were high interest. I knew my students loved learning about nature and our native creatures. I used these videos to introduce new vocabulary in context. I hoped they would then use these words in their writing.

•  

• Used hands-on activities related to the text we were reading, I was aware from the last lockdown of the limited resources that our students have available at home. So I tried to think of activities that they would have resources for. I was also aware that these activities really worked for some of our students last time.

• Used google hangouts as an opportunity to get the students writing.
• Used a facebook post to encourage whānau to help their child to write a story and read a book each day.

How did I monitor my implementation and student progress?

It was harder to monitor the implementation of changes of practice and to know whether it has had an impact on learning. for the main two factors. 

1. A third of my students came to hangouts and it was difficult to know if the other students were engaging with the learning activities at home. I will have a clearer picture of the home learning that has taken place once we are back to school next week.
2. I was difficult to see student's work as most have yet to master uploading learning to google drive.

However, here is a description of what I have noticed from my observations.

Different activities and learning resources appeal and are used by different students. What works for one family doesn't necessarily work for another. Having a range of learning opportunities, resources and multimodel options allows all students to access their learning in different ways. Having a writing book, pen and ready to read reading books including dual language books, in a learning pack meant that all families were able to connect to learning at home. The uptake of this we will find out next week when back at school. More of the students that connected were reading and writing each day using these resources than the first lockdown. Was this because I clearly set the expectation this time using my facebook message, and were having writing sessions each day online?

The writing response and quality of writing from the videos I made were fantastic. All students were able to write facts. They were writing with fluency and were able to clearly articulate what they wanted to write and had lots to say. The vocabulary they used was directly from the videos. This showed uptake of the new language.

Having whānau helping was really effective and a great way to build that home/school partnership and whānau involvement in their learning. Some whānau that were not connecting during the last lockdown were joining in every day this time. I want to put out a survey for parents to find out whānau voice and how they experienced online learning. 

Student voice told me the hands-on activities were a hit with some students. It will be interesting to see learning outcomes next week when back at school, as I currently don't have work samples of this.

Below is a sample of an on-line writing session. It shows Cohen sounding out his words and the increased amount of writing these students have been doing, and the engagement of the students.

It was hard to monitor the effect of culturally responsive activities and resources. Return to school next week will hopefully give me a clearer picture of the effectiveness of this change of practice.

Next Steps:

• Send out a survey for whanau to record their experiences with on-line learning and to gain whānau voice regarding the effectiveness of my change of practice and how it impacted student learning at home.
• Gather and assess work samples from students returning to school to gain a better understanding of the impact of the implementation of changes of practice during the lockdown.

Changes To My Teaching Practice During Lockdown

Although I feel I effectively created online lessons that mirrored the intensive oral language programme I was delivering at school, Self-analysis of my teaching practice showed how easy it was to revert back to old teaching habits during difficult and busy times like during the last lockdown. I noticed how I reverting to how I used to teach before I gained a greater understanding of cultural responsiveness and the power of placing immense value on students heritage language and culture.

Looking back at my slides from the previous lockdown I observed

What Worked Well

I was using the learning I had gained from the intensive oral language programme to created online, digital versions of the types of oral language lessons I would have previously taught in class.

 

What Was Lacking in My Teaching Practice

A flip back to non-culturally responsive teaching was evident in the content I was delivering online. I wasn't harnessing the opportunities for students to learn at home in their first language with whānau. I wasn't providing them with the resources to do this or making the content culturally responsive.

The 2nd Lockdown

Going into Lockdown a second time has given me the opportunity to do things differently. I created learning activities that can be completed in the student's heritage language and that provide opportunities for whānau to share stories and culture. My hope is that having the reading resources in the student's heritage languages allows parents to help them with their learning during this time and allow for students to make connections between the languages they speak at home and English. It is my hypothesis that this will help their language acquisition in both their first language and English.  

TAI2020 'Say And Do Activities' In An Online Learning Environment

How does 'saying and doing' look learning online?

My inquiry over the last two years has been to grow student's oral language through an intensive oral language programme implemented across our junior school. 

One of the main changes to our teaching has been 'hands-on tasks' whereby the students talk about what they are doing as they do it, using vocabulary and phrases modelled by the teacher.

Moving into lockdown has made me and my team think about how this could look using a digital platform.

Some other challenges we were facing:

• Engaging students in their learning, with feedback from parents that they were finding it hard to get their children to focus on their learning at home.  
• The age of the students as they are too young to follow written instructions, we needed learning activities to be easy for them to understand, independently, without needing help from an adult.
• Not knowing if students were connecting with the leaning site at home as it has been hard to contact some families.

Evidence of Learning

• Videos shared with me via email, often through older siblings show engagement and connecting with learning online.
• Videos show children talking about what they are doing.
• They have understood the instructions and learning about concepts and contexts outside of their daily worlds.
• Use of correct sentence structures as they teach others how to do the activity.

Here are some examples of moving our intensive oral language acquisition programme online...

ENGAGE

ENGAGE is a programme designed to teach self-regulation skills through games. After mastering the game of Simon Says we extended it by playing the game in Tongan. Students soon realised that watching and thinking was an important part of listening so they could understand the instruction. 'Simon' pointed to the parts of his body as he said the instruction in his first language so non-Tongan speakers could understand. This extension raised the cognitive level, the challenge and engagement.



ENGAGE has been the missing piece in our Inquiry into creating an intensive oral language programme for our Juniors.

We were struggling implementing changed practice due to many students low levels of self-regulation. Unable to slow their bodies and minds down and engage with what was being said by the teacher and peers it made uptake of new oral language difficult.

ENGAGE uses common language taught through games e.g. when playing 'Silence' where children complete a challenge in 'Silence' the teacher says "It is important that you listen carefully to the instructions so you know what to do." This phrase is then repeated by the teacher in other areas of the curriculum or parts of the day when students are needing to use the same skills in a different context.

Initially students find the games challenging, this was something we had not anticipated as they seem like simple games. However sticking with the same game over a few weeks the children do gain the skills needed and the game can then be extended to up the challenge and sharpen their self-regulation skills.

Being strategic about implementing the skills and common language across the curriculum has already shown itself to be working. It is giving student cues to use the needed skills and has helped them to get themselves ready for learning.

Next year we will be fully implementing this programme across the Junior school from day one of the Term and sharing the programme with parents at the start of the year.

COL - Teaching Chunks Of Words

Articles, determiners and quantifies precede and modify nouns and pronouns replace nouns.  These are often used incorrectly or omitted in my Student's oral language which of course is then reflected in their writing.

What have I learned from the Pacific Early Literacy Project (PELP) and My Work With Dr Jannie Van Hees regarding the use of structural words?

• Instead of teaching bilingual learners individual words, teach words in meaningful chunks by teaching the words within the other words surrounding it. Bilingual students may understand lexical words but don't know the structural words that go with them such as pronouns and articles. Therefore, build these structural words into oracy programmes. Instead of using nouns in mind maps and think pair share activities build both the nouns and the articles that proceed them. Display the words within meaningful chunks for students to see and revisit.
• Insisting students use correct sentences through listening, thinking about what they are going to say, copying and repeating is a way of practising using the structural words surrounding new vocabulary e.g. say and do- "I am placing the tuatara on top of the log." "I am tieing an apron around his waist." 

What am I doing differently in my practice?

• I'm insisting on the correct use of pronouns and articles, I am doing this through modelling and gifting correct use and I give them multiple opportunities to practice. This can be done through hands-on 'say and do' activities like exploring floating and sinking I am picking up the stick and placing it on top of the water."  or "These objects float and those objects sink.
• Using mind maps that include the pronouns and articles that go with nouns.

How is it going?

It sure isn't easy for the students to use these words and this can seem laborious, but students amaze me with their perseverance working hard at correct speech. We talk a lot about how talking and listening are helping our brains grow.  One thing that I have noticed is the children finding it difficult to calm their bodies and minds down so that they are able to listen to others talking including me modelling the correct speech.  

What am I noticing?

The four students I'm tracking are all using correct sentence structure after repeating these correct structures a few times. They are using words such as they, that, these more often and when asked to think about what they are going to say are able to use a greater amount of words. However, they still all revert to short word-groups or one or two-word responses when they are talking naturally. I feel that significant changes to their everyday speech patterns may take time and that the hard work students are putting into their speech in the above learning situations will eventually transfer into their day to day speech. The challenge of students gaining the self-regulation needed to calm themselves down enough to listen during oral language work is something I need to look into further as I feel that this is a barrier at the moment.

CoL Teaching As Inquiry; The importance of a shared vision focusing on change

Hypothesis 1: A collaborative inquiry across the junior school (Years 1-3) will grow professional capital across the school. The shared inquiry will allow all students across the junior school to benefit from the effectiveness of changed practice and allow teachers to learn from and with each other. It will hopefully also enable an effective changed practice to become sustainable.

The importance of a shared vision focusing on change

One of my first questions is how do I get our Junior team to paddle this waka with me so that all our students benefit from changed practice, change is sustainable and effective practice is shared?

Teachers need a desire to change their practice (Hargreaves, 1994), desire being "the basis of creativity, change, commitment and engagement (Hargreaves, 1994, p12)". A desire to change connects teachers to their practice. This desire drives 'exceptional and creative teachers' towards excellence in their practice and strong relationships with students. Pink (2009) talks about being able to see the purpose underpinning the learning and giving value to it in order to surpass the bare minimum of what is required. Hattie (2012) acknowledges that expert teachers are passionately engaged in teaching and learning, both inspired by student learning and inspiring students to learn. Teachers need to be intrinsically motivated through autonomy, mastery and purpose to change their pedagogical ideas.

In order for cohesive change to occur all participants, including families and students, need to be connected and committed to a shared moral purpose. Teachers need to align their beliefs with a shared vision, building capacity through working together in a purposeful doing, within a supportive change climate. (Fullan & Quinn, 2016).

Therefore, teachers need to understand the need to change. Assessment information highlights this need along with the data gathered from Welcome To School: A Study of Conditions of Disadvantage on Entry to School in the Manaiakalani Kahui Ako (2017). It is important that we look at this data together during the 'Learn Stage' of the inquiry to understand the status quo and to release the need to change our practice to accelerate student learning. 

Teachers need to see and value the purpose underpinning the learning in order to be intrinsically motivated to change their pedagogical practice. The 'Why' behind the change becomes incredibly important. Teachers need to understand and value the theory and 'why' behind pedagogical interventions to see the purpose underpinning the learning. If this doesn't happen will teachers being intrinsically motivated to change their practice? 

For the cohesive change to occur we need to be paddling the same waka. Successfully conducting a collaborate inquiry will mean aligning our beliefs with a shared vision, having a shared understanding of pedagogical interventions and working together in purposeful doing supporting each other along the way.