Notes From Appraisal Connector PLD Session - Teaching as Inquiry

Noticing

Qualitative data

I wonder what my learners are noticing about my teaching practice? (learner voice)

I wonder what my colleagues are noticing about my teaching practice? (lesson observation feedback)

What am I noticing about my teaching practice and impact on learning?

Quantitative Data- Traditional (if you just use this we get blinded)

Student achievement data

How are you going to change how you teach?

Investigating

The data from noticing points you in the right direction e.g. slowing down.

Collaborative sensemaking

Take the data back to the learners and talk about it to clarify and develop a deeper understanding.

Prioritising to take action

Inquiry plan on Appraisal Connector

• What 
• How
• Measuring Success
• Who

Execute on your action plan!

Looking through the lens of the Johari Window Model

Be open to minimising your blind spots.

This can be done through collecting data:

• Learner's voice 
• Collegial feedback
• Self-evaluation
• Student achievement data
• Observations of other’s teaching practice

This allows you to develop insight. However, what you choose to do with that is up to you.

Opening up through talking, revealing vulnerability. Having the courage to share things that we have been hiding, having critical conversations.

Relationships of respect and challenge.

What do relationships of respect look like?

Respect, challenge, and support

Reframing our relationships

As a leader what do I need to do upstream to foster these relationships?

This is your chance to connect on a psychological level

Learning and learner-centric relationship

• Personal and emotional needs aside and put the learner and learning at the heart. I will support you if you do this.
• If you are unable to this you will see me as a threat and appraisal won't work. 
• I’m standing by doing this. 

People speaking truthfully and honestly with each other- Whiri te Tangata Robert Fritz & Bruce Bodaken (2006)

Advocate for the learner with a learner learning centric conversation.

As leaders, we need to be the ones to make these changes.  How am I going to modify my leadership to be an agent of change in this respect?

Joseph Grenny- crucial conversations

How do make feedback feel normal?

Frequency instead of focusing on improving delivery.

Apply changed practice.

Why have I identified this as an important focus for me?

What initial steps forward am I going to commit to and why have I identified these as my first steps?

How, will focusing on this contribute to, and influence, Student Achievement Outcomes?

Who may need support and assistance from and what might that look like as I look ahead to achieving success? Interlead Appraisal Connector

Monitoring and Evaluating

Informally e.g. weekly/daily

E.g. hands up or using solo symbols

Let them know they are giving you feedback.

Grow the culture of a growth mindset, e.g being in the learning pit, who needs more help, self-directed learner.

Allows learners to find their voice- teachers have to come out of hiding themselves, look at themselves

Challenges teachers that feel like they the font of all knowledge. It becomes a collaborate learning conversation that becomes sharp and focused.

High Expectation Teaching - A Reflection on Flexible Groupings, Literacy

"within-class ability grouping has several disadvantages related to the differentiation of learning opportunities, potential for negative effects on student self-esteem for both high and low achievers, and the creation of a hierarchy in which students perceive those in higher-ability groups as being more valued by the teacher. ( Rubie-Davies, 2015, p133)"

One of the learning highlights for me this year has been having the privilege of attending The University of Auckland's Leaders Influencing Teachers' High Expectations (LITHE) course lead by Christine Rubie-Davies.

The above quote from Rubie-Davies book Becoming a High Expectation Teacher-Raising the Bar, struck such a chord with me. Maybe, this is because I am someone that went through an ability streamed high school in a low ability grouping, a have felt first hand the effects of this.

This course challenged my beliefs and practices in a profound way. It made me look at my own expectations of students, especially those that you are not always aware of, and question why I teach the way I do.

A question that was raised was why we use the ability 'reading group teaching' that is entrenched in New Zealand Junior classrooms. Teachers take groups of students based on the level they reading at on the colour wheel, their groups are displayed for classroom management purposes, students read books at that level and are taught the skills related to working at that level. Although some students shift groups as they progress (or drop behind), the groupings are fairly fixed year to year. This is something us Junior teachers have taken pride in for decades. However, is this working for all our students, especially the context of our Manaiakalani Schools? Is there a better way?

So, I took a risk.

I had stopped displaying lists of reading groups years ago, however still grouped according to colour wheel levels.

Last Term this ended. I knew at what level my students were working at but didn't group them accordingly. I used this knowledge to deliver direct acts of teaching for the individual within a mixed ability grouping session.

• We dove deeper into the comprehension of the text, exposing lower level readers to comprehension strategies that could have possibly only have been taught to higher ability groups.
• Used elements of the text to explicitly teach skills and knowledge, through teachable moments, to those students with lower reading levels e.g. phonics, chunking. 
• I reinforced decoding strategies that all students need reminding of like rereading the sentence.
• Made sure the use of mixed media provided on the class site, and classroom activities supported all students to access and make meaning of the text e.g. audio available, shared reading with the big book, language experience activities related to the text, vocabulary work, explain everything supporting activities that were suitable for targeting individual learning needs.
• Students had a choice about texts they wanted to read, which group they wanted to work in.
• Whole class teaching was used as well as workshops and guided reading sessions.

The observations I made in class were:

• The increase in motivation.
• Students choosing to read more difficult texts.
• Lots of talk, students helping each other, and discussions about their learning.
• A transfer of communication skills and explanation of thinking from DIMC to Literacy.
• A love of working independently, and excitement about accessing the class site for resources.

But did this reflect the end of Term data?

So what this data shows is, yes for students that were below or just below the expected level. For these students,  'what I had been doing up until this point wasn't working for them.' Therefore I am really pleased with this result in having changed practice my practice.

However, it was interesting that my students at Purple and Gold Level had plateaued. To some degree, this often happens at gold level after rapidly picking up decoding strategies, and then focusing on the deeper comprehension strategies. I am not settling for this though and plan to focus on accelerating their learning this Term by integrating Inquiry throughout Literacy.

Also, the data of those students that finished reading recovery, students with additional needs, and those that have truancy issues, indicated that more specific instruction needs to be done for these learners. These students have become my focus group for Term 4.

Overall, I am more than pleased with the shifts in data for the majority of my students as well as the observations and classroom culture I am seeing. I will keep on using the LITHE model, however, I will also focus on an ALL programme for those students that are well below the expected level. Also, it is important that those students that are above the expected level are extended.

References:

Rubie-Davies, C. (2015) Becoming A High Expectation Teacher, Raising The Bar. Routledge, Oxon.

The Frustration of Learning to Fish

Life Is About Learning

As a single girl who gets frustrated with not yet having learned some skills related to 'traditional male activities', and with a slightly stubborn side to her nature, the idea of teaching myself how to fish both terrified and challenged me.

Initially aiming big, in order to be able to fish, I envisioned myself buying a boat and teaching myself how to drive it, however thankfully I decided that buying a fishing kayak may be a better place to start.

Next came buying the fishing gear. Walking into the hunting and fishing shop was like walking into unknown territory..... it became very apparent that I (excuse the pun) was a fish out of water and I didn't know the first thing about fishing.

I asked for advice on what to buy, and how to care for the gear. I was very kindly told to wash it down after every use and to bring it in to be serviced once a year.

It took 3 months to get the courage to go out..... I managed to catch and kill my first fish. It was trial and error, I learned to tie knots via YouTube clips whilst floating on my kayak.... just in time learning.
You tube in fact taught me everything.

 I loved it...

Winter came and I diligently took my reel in to be serviced.

The men pulled it apart and said "This has been submerged, everyone knows salt water is going to corrode your gear."
.... of course it had,... I had rolled the kayak a couple of times coming into the beach... cleaned it after and thought it was all good....
The reel was stuffed, and my frustration was huge.... why hadn't I had this vital piece of information when I brought it... I felt daft for not knowing. It was an expensive lesson to learn but a mistake I won't make again.

All I could think of was the fact that life is about learning.... this is the challenge that children face every day with their learning. Why did I continue to perceive with fishing? Because of the thrill of success, for the feeling of catching the fish, of learning to tie a knot and it holding.

We need to help students gain the information and skill they need for success and support them to keep going when mistakes are made and they feel like giving up, to help them learn from mistakes... but celebrating success is so very important as that is what will keep driving them forward.

....and now I think nothing of paddling my kayak out into the water and pulling up a few snapper.....even the big ones.

Embedding Slides Into A Blog Post

Todays DFI tip
This is how you embed slides onto your blog.

1. Click file
2. Go to publish to web
3. Click embed
4. Choose small
5. Copy
6. Click HTML
7. Paste link

Our Last DFI Day

What an amazing learning opportunity this has been.

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Cohort 2 2018

Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive has not only given me the skills to work in a digital learning community but the Manaikalani kaupapa has inspired my pedagogy.

Learning alongside a beautiful bunch of educators, who share their fears, frustrations, successes and aha moments have been equally as special.   

There are many aspects I need to revisit such as sheets, google keep, and google calendar but I'm well on my way.

Thank you to the DFI Cohort 2 2018 for a wonderful 9 weeks.

And....... I passed the Google Educator Level 1 exam!

The Digital Curriculum

Reflecting back on my Manaiakalani DFI learning journey I think one of the most memorable sessions was with the OMG Tech Team.

Unpacking the New Digital Curricula

I'm one of these people that likes to know the 'why' behind things. The new digital curriculum does just that. It takes the teachers away from just teaching technology as a tool, to teaching students 'the theory of how technology works and how they can use that knowledge to solve problems'.This is the guts of technology, the knowledge that will have our students immersed in the digital world at a much deeper level. This is the knowledge that will hopefully allow our students to get innovative jobs involving technology in the future, allow them to keep up with technological change and develop some student's passion for technology.

The digital curriculum is broken into three categories 

• Technological Practice - The How
• Technological Knowledge - The What
• Nature of Technology - The Why

There are two key areas; computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes. 

During the day we also explored:

Binary

I can now say that I have a little more knowledge about binary, hexadecimal number systems and data representation.... and I kinda liked it. The seemingly foreign language actually began to make a little sense. 

Off-Line Sorting Network

Possibilities galore for the use of this in maths. We used it for sorting numbers from smallest to largest. A fun physical activity that the students will love.

Coding

Scratch

Create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

Hello Ruby

A fun way to learn about computers, technology, and programming.

Cybersmart

Last week in the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive Dorothy talked about cybersmart weaving throughout the curriculum, built on each year as the students move through our schools.

Manaiakalani Cybersmart

We compliment those children listening during mat time, focus on positive behavior in our classrooms and playgrounds,  knowing that this has far better results than highlighting the negative. Yet with Cybersmart we are often focused on the things that could go wrong, the big scary world that students can be exposed to.... are we almost dangling a carrot under their noses?

I must say this is something I hadn't contemplated until now.

This article ISTE- Empowering Student Voice Through Digital Citizenship  discusses turning the focus of digital citizenship around from what students shouldn't be doing online to what they should be doing. This turns Digital citizenship into a positive instead of a negative.

As LeeAnn Linsey (ISTE) points out as citizens within a digital world we have 'rights, privileges, and duties'.  Focusing on the opportunities that the digital world offers we can empower students to navigate through the digital world developing healthy interactions, a positive digital footprint and increased learning opportunities. Teaching digital citizenship in a positive manner allows students to be empowered. Technology and an online presence can amplify student voice and give students digital tools to make a difference in their communities in the physical world and online.

So what does this mean for my practice?

I will:

• See cybersmart as positive, and empowering and transfer this belief to my students.
• Make sure that once a week I take a lesson on cybersmart (thanks Manaiakalani for the resource bank of lessons), and make sure cybersmart is entwined within our daily curriculum. 
• Allow students the opportunities to share their voice online through blogging and commenting on the blogs of others, using communication opportunities to learn from the global community as resources, and give feedback to each other and me through online tools. 
• Students can not only use technology to create but to share their ideas and learning with the world.

Empowering Students Through Listening To Student Voice

Reflecting on my Inquiry

Inquiring into how I can develop students oracy so they can express themselves and their learning.

What is now happening as a result of my improvement actions?

At the start of DIMC Maths Problem Solving sessions, I noticed heightened student interest in knowing which group would be working with me. I initially thought it was because they wanted to take part in the sessions, however, the opposite was true.

I thought this was the perfect opportunity to find out why.

The students sat in a circle and openly discussed their feeling about the sessions.

This showed me that my students are able to openly discuss how they feel about learning tasks and able to explain why they feel that way. They agree and disagree with each other with justification. This is done in a respectful and supportive way.

They are beginning to hold free-flowing conversations, listening to each other and interjecting naturally without having to put their hands up to share. They also offer alternative suggestions to learning tasks.

How has this impacted on my learners? 

The students have grown in confidence in sharing their thinking. They support each other and make connections with each other, by agreeing or disagreeing and offering differing opinions and justifications. This creates a solidarity and polarity among the students. This also shows them that people are entitled to their own opinions and that their opinions may not be the same as others.

Students are not just passive learners, they have a say in shaping their learning environment and learning opportunities. Hopefully, this raises student engagement. Also, it allows for conversations about the learning process and how it feels to be a learner.

One student stated that she didn't like Maths Problem Solving because it was hard, this sparked another student who said that he found it frustrating because he knew the answer but had to explain it to others which he found difficult. We were then able as a group to talk about how it felt to be in the dip, at the uni-structural or multi-structural level, as well as teaching someone else involved higher order thinking and skills.

What further adjustments might be worth considering?

Those students that did enjoy the sessions were less vocal. I would like to revisit it tomorrow by doing a PMI as a class to evaluate it. This I will use to reshape my delivery of the sessions.

I will also feedback to them the changes that I am going to make to my practice. This is empowering them as learners.

My initial thoughts following this discussion are:

-Shortening the sessions, with far less teacher talk, so students don't get bored.

-To think harder about the type of problems I'm giving them. Maybe they are too challenging. This is something that I have discussed with the facilitators and colleagues. I think the careful planning of the problem may be the key.

-More contextualized real-life problems may spark more interest?


Do they feel like their voice will be/was listened to? I will make sure I check in with them to see if they perceive this to be true.

Moving forward from here, does the voicing of their ideas about their learning have an impact on my practice? In reality, do I follow through with their ideas? I need to ensure I do. What is the impact of this?

DFI sharing of learning

Well, I am still a bit of an uncoordinated digital explorer as this screencast illustrates but I'm slowly developing my capabilities in the world of Google.

Here is my screencast on how to make buttons for a Google Site. 

How To Make Buttons For A Site

I choose to show this because developing a google site for my learners, that would link to their learning activities on slide decks and sites within sites, was a massive accomplishment achieved through the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive.

I may be slow, but I can do it!

The Creation of a Class Site to Enable Ubiquitous, Empowered, Visible, Learning and Connected

Enough of my own excuses of being swamped down by the busyness of classroom life and thanks to the motivation and push from last weeks Manaikalani Digital Fluency Intensive session.... it was time to pull my head out of the sand and finish creating the class site that I had great plans for at the start of the year.
Although not pages of the site a finished, it is up and away.

And here it is...

https://sites.google.com/tamakiprimary.school.nz/jgrm3/kia-kaha-2018

The opportunity for learning to be Ubiquitous, Empowered, Visible and Connected strikes such a strong cord. I love that I am developing the skills to be able to make this happen digitally. Thank you Manaiakalani!

Thoughts while creating it

• A functional portal for students to access learning opportunities related to inquiry topics, and resources used in class.
• Stepping away from ability groups to mixed ability groups for reading meant removing slide decks for individual ability groupings and replacing it with a slide deck with learning experiences and resources for multiple entry levels and different learning needs. 
• Making it visually appealing (a vast improvement of my make-do links randomly placed on a blank sheet) 

Feedback from parents has been that it will be good for their children to access learning taking place at school when homesick.
They were also excited about the opportunity to see what their children are learning about at school. 


This week I'm going to step up my class blog, connecting our blog to our class site, and getting the children to take ownership. Also connecting our site to the school site for students at home.