Showing posts with label SReflect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SReflect. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

CoL 2020: Evaluation Of The Intervention/ My Changes To Practice

Changes to teaching practice over the last two years have seen significant shifts in my student's oral language acquisition, extremely pleasing progress in reading and surprisingly huge shifts in my student writing data (surprising because I had intended to gain shifts in reading). All within the craziness of teaching and learning with the challenges of Covid-19.

What did I do differently?

  • Two-week high-interest topics exposing the students to as much rich vocabulary within contexts that were outside of their day to day worlds or connected to wonderings about everyday phenomena that they didn't have the vocabulary to explain. Before this, we would teach whole school topics for the whole term. By making this change I saw the urgency in exposing students to as many different contexts as possible but still at a deep level. This also meant giving students hands-on engaging activities that they could connect new vocabulary to, and prior experiences and knowledge that they can build onto as they move through their schooling. Example Of Two Week Unit
  • Shifted my two-week high-interest topics to a digital platform. For this, I had to be mindful that my young students were mainly learning independently without parent help. I videoed me taking through hands-on activities, using resources they may have at home and explaining, using, reusing and recycling rich vocabulary. Video evidence showed students doing the activities and using the vocabulary at home which was exciting. I kept this going via our class site after lockdown for those students who still had not returned to school and to follow the Manaiakalani Pedagogy of learning being ubiquitous Learning At Home
  • Valued the use of students first language within the classroom. This allowed students to make connections to English through their heritage language. I created opportunities for students to learn in their first languages and share their language with others. I utilised the opportunity for families to help their children with their learning at home during lockdown by shifting to more culturally responsive teaching practices. I became aware that I needed to be cognitive about this as it was easy to slip into old habits, especially when faced with a different way of teaching and learning e.g. totally online teaching. A Shift To More Culturally Responsive Teaching

The Effects Of My Changed Practice/Intervention

Reading

Whole-Class Reading Graph Tracking Students From 0-120 Weeks At School



Target Student Reading Graphs For 0-120 weeks at school

Student 1

Student 2


Student 3


Student 4

Whole-Class Reading OTJ Data 




This data shows that those students that returned to school after lockdown made accelerated progress of expected progress. This surprised me as usually after time off school e.g. summer holidays their reading level drops back. Also, many of my students' families were going through difficult situations due to lockdown/covid and from my own experience, difficult situations at home can influence students learning at school. 
The Pie Graph shows that many of my students are still working below the expected level for their age but some of these students are just one colour wheel level of reaching the expected level. I, therefore, believe that with the continuation of this intervention they would quickly reach where they should be. 

Writing

EAsstle Results Term and Term 4 For Target Students

Results show where my target students sit against National Norm from Week 3 Term 4 EAsttle writing sample. Since this sample was taken my students started to make even greater progress, as shown on the below pie graphs.

Whole-Class Writing OTJ Data 


Their writing shows that they are now able to sequence their ideas. They have the vocabulary to express themselves and their sentence structures are becoming much more complete. Having engaging experiences to write about not only motivated them but they also had so much to share and the language to use that the writing became so much easier. They went from students who would say one or two-word utterances who found it difficult to say a sentence let alone write it....to students producing writing like the piece above. 

Next Step:
My next step is to support my team to implement the intervention across the Junior school. I know implementing change across a team can be challenging, especially gaining buy-in however I hope this data shows that a rich oral language acquisition programme makes a difference to student learning and has the capability to accelerate student progress. 

Saturday, November 28, 2020

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. 



Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Learning About The Water Cycle

When asked the question where does rain come from the only answer my students could give me was that it came from God or "I don't know", with a shrug of their shoulders.

Their amazement during our first activity of simply painting water pictures on the concrete and watching the water evaporate showed that this was a new experience and something they hadn't thought of. Because previous to the experiment we had talked about the sun heating up water and evaporating it, this language transferred easily. 

"Look the water is evaporating...it's going up to the clouds!"

Such simple everyday phenomena brought such amazement and when given the words my students could put these words to an experience that although they had witnessed many times before had never contemplated or understood. 

The second activity we learned about condensation by making a water cycle in a bag. Here the students could see the condensation on the side of the bag as the water heated up and then turned to water vapour and then cooled. We made lots of connections to steam around their house and why the mirror was wet after a shower. We gifted and gifted and gifted more vocabulary!


The third activity was creating a cloud in a jar to show what happens when clouds become heavy with water droplets. This was incredibly exciting and a great way for the students to see what happens. Explaining what words mean is a norm within our classroom therefore if the students didn't know what a word I used meant they would ask. I would take my time to explain the word sometimes using pictures, diagrams as I talked or role play.

The last activity was creating a water filter to understand what happens to water as it runs off the land into our streams and lakes. They were then able to make connections to our drinking water and water conservation that we had touched on earlier on in the year. 

The discussions and writing that resulted from this topic were incredible. All students understood the basics of the water cycle and concepts of evaporation, condensation and precipitation. They loved using the terms and extremely easily explained how their water filters worked.

To collect comparative data I compared an EASTTle writing sample recounting doing one of the experiments to writing about something they did in the weekend. Nearly all the students in my class wrote better quality recounts about doing the experiments than their weekend experiences (bearing in mind it was Halloween). In particular, the organisation of their writing and ideas noticeably improved. I feel this is because they had a lot to say and their ideas flowed naturally in a clear sequence. 

Earlier in the year many of my students struggled to put anything onto paper so this change is huge.

I also believe that these concepts and experiences are now able to be built on throughout their schooling. When my students come across content related to water they will be able to draw on these experiences and have the foundational knowledge that can be built upon. We may not see the benefits of building oral language now but I believe that results will be seen further in their schooling.


Evidence of Student Achievement


In the water cycle, the sun heats the water to do evaporation. It goes up to the cloud to be condensation and if the cloud gets too much water it's going to rain. That's called precipitation. 

By Elijah


The Unit Plan

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Bilingual Approaches Open Linguistic Spaces

Below is an article published in the Education Gazette featuring Room 2's teaching and learning through a bilingual approach in an open linguistic space.

Incorporating the PELP programme into my everyday teaching practice is something I have been exploring as part of my CoL Inquiry into developing an intensive oral language acquisition programme to raise student achievement in literacy. The below whānau and student voice describes the effectiveness of the PELP programme for my learners.

Bilingual Approaches Open Linguistic Spaces



Tamaki Primary School whānau kōrero

Tamariki Q&A

Q: What do you like the most about reading stories in your first language?

A: Because it is my language. I have to speak more so I can be a Tongan person and know people that have passed away. It makes me happy to read books. It is hard to think about the story if you get stuck on it in English. Toko, 7

A: They make me smart. The books have stories and pictures, some are easy and some are hard. Virginia, 7

Q: What do you like the most about speaking your own language at school?

A: You get to teach people different languages and you get to see if anyone else knows your language. I don’t really know much about Niuean and I get to learn about it. Saryah, 6

A: I can teach the teachers how to speak in Tongan. I can speak in Tongan to my friends. Epalahame, 7

Whānau Q&A

Q: Has the Pasifika Early Literacy Project (PELP) helped your child?

A: YES, it has helped my child learn more about our language and culture and it has encouraged our family to speak more of our language at home.

Q: What do you like the most about the dual-language books?

A: The fact that the books have both English and Tongan versions; that way our children can understand what they are reading about and make connections to their culture.

Q: What difference does it make for you (and your child) that they can do some classroom learning in their own language?

A: It makes a huge difference, especially in today’s world. My children are encouraged in the classroom to use their language and it’s amazing for me as a mother, to hear them speak and understand. My child has also taken on the role of sharing and helping other students and teachers to speak our language and he shows great pride in sharing our Lea-fakatonga.

Q: Why do you think this is important?

A: It is significant that my children learn our Lea-fakatonga and to do that in the classroom is amazing. This is a part of their identity as a person and I believe that all our tamariki need to have access to learn their language and about their culture in order for our culture to thrive. This will also teach them how sacred all cultures are no matter the differences and beliefs; we are fortunate to live in Aotearoa as a country that encourages diversity. Jade Fonua



Monday, October 19, 2020

CoL 2021

 There are two areas I would like to focus my work on next year, one being my own inquiry focus and the other being affecting change across my school to better meet our students' needs.

 

For my own inquiry I’m wanting to continue to focus on literacy across the curriculum, that is my passion and area of expertise. I know that was my focus in my last inquiry, however, there have been surprises that have emerged which I feel need exploring, for example using drama and storytelling, and the effect my solid phonics programme has had on both reading and writing, both Elena - using drama within literacy, and Clarelle’s wonderings about phonics have inspired this thinking. 

I also want to further my understanding of culturally responsive teaching.

 

Raising literacy achievement especially in reading is a school-wide focus moving into next year and although I have experienced success in my own classroom through change of practice… I have yet to see this change of pedagogy spread across my team (which is something I had hoped for). The Manaiakalani findings through our junior data collection and the research into students starting school highlight the importance of accelerating our students within the first few years at school, building the foundations of early literacy and oral language acquisition. These findings are what challenge me and make me change my teaching to strive to be the best teacher I can be.

 


How would I like to be supported in 2021?

I would like to be supported by the new leadership within my school, and the experience of leaders across Manaiakalani to affect change of practice across school. I would love to investigate the 'how' of change. I want to learn more about change and how to inspire other teachers to change their pedagogy to better meet students' needs and to continue to help them, themselves, learn, create and share through inquiry. The uptake of teaching as inquiry across our school has been my biggest area of reflection, point of frustration and point of littlest success in my current inquiry (all of which tells me that it is the perfect area of learning for me as a leader). I have been aspiring to inspire teachers to do teaching as inquiry, I have explored using staff meetings, collaborative inquiries and sharing effective practise and PLD with some success but I still feel I have a long way to go. I’m excited about the new management within our school and the possible opportunity to make TAI something that we all do. TIA  is such a powerful change agent. I would love to work with my colleagues more on their inquiries within my school and across Manaiakalani. 

 

As well, I would like to align my inquiry with the vision of my new principal to support them in the leadership of the school providing data through my inquiry to help drive changes they envision for our school.

 


Friday, March 6, 2020

TAI2020 How might my inquiry make a powerful contribution to school wide goals and cluster goals?

Collaboration With Senior Management and Colleagues 

Main Points

1) Is my current inquiry still relevant and current in regards to school-wide goals and cluster goals?


  • Yes, it aligns with our school-wide focus of developing students oral language across the Junior school and across our school.
  • Yes, it fits within our localised curriculum focus on oral language acquisition to address the needs of our school community.
2) How might it make a powerful contribution to these goals?

  • Students acquiring oral language within their early schooling will create foundations to build on as they move through their schooling.
  • We may not see expected results within their first few years as students acquire oral language but it is hoped that putting in the mahi at this level will show better results in student achievement as students move through their schooling.
3) Other points of discussion

  • The inquiry needs to be shared more effectively across the school. Feedback from senior school teachers was that better communication of changes in our curriculum and teacher practice is needed so that effective practice can be better shared across the whole school.

Sunday, March 1, 2020

TAI2020 Stocktake Of My Inquiry

As I move into the second year of my CoL inquiry into creating an intensive oral language acquisition programme across our Junior school, my first task is to do a stocktake of my inquiry so far.

Aspects of inquiry
What worked well
Challenges 
Additional support that would be helpful
Utilising the student's strengths in their first language, working in bilingual and multilingual ways, creating Talanoa, and working in partnership with families will help build students English language and literacy.
Taking part in the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme (PELP) has changed my own practice as well as my teams practice in how to teach in culturally responsive ways.
Students are extremely engaged and empowered when we use heritage languages within the classroom.
-Continuing to develop an understanding of the diverse Pasifika cultures within our classrooms.
-Connecting with Pasifika families to create strong home-school partnerships
Connecting with Pasifika teachers within our CoL to gain a stronger understanding of the Pasifika cultures of our students.


Developing oral language through short high-interest topics and real-life experiences, with a focus on intensive oral language acquisition, will create an environment of language in abundance.
-Do and say oral language activities, using and reusing new vocabulary.
-Recycling vocabulary many times and across contexts over a few days.
-Insisting students try, and creating an environment where talking is cherished and important.
-Students that participated in this programme, as well as PELP, showed increased progress compared to peers that only did PELP.

-Students ability to listen, many students don't have the self-regulation skills to listen and this affects their ability to uptake new vocabulary.
-Funding for trips to experience opportunities outside of their daily world.

ENGAGE Programme

Active listening activities
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.
-Growing professional practice across my team instead of only within my classroom.
-Working through the inquiry process together has allowed them to better understand the teaching as inquiry process. 
-Staff changeover
-Beginning Teachers within the team who are learning the foundation skills of teaching may have felt overwhelmed by the PLD.
-Team members different levels of uptake.
-Ensuring the whole school is aware of the inquiry taking place and sharing of new learning across the school. 
-More staff meetings to share inquiry
-Planning time with Teacher Aides to collaboratively plan our practice.







Monday, December 16, 2019

CoL: Evaluation Of My Intervention After The First Year


This Evaluation looks at the different parts of our inquiry into creating a culturally responsive intensive oral language programme across the Junior School. It reflects on the three hypotheses developed at the beginning of this inquiry. 


Utilising the student's strengths in their first language, working in bilingual and multilingual ways, creating Talanoa, and working in partnership with families will help build students English language and literacy.

Developing oral language through short high-interest topics and real-life experiences, with a focus on intensive oral language acquisition, will create an environment of language in abundance.

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.



Student Voice

Student voice shows that there has been a shift in students feeling comfortable using their first language at school and that the target students see their heritage language as a way to communicate effectively with their peers and family and value themselves as experts when it comes to teaching their teachers their first language. Whereas previously the target students said that they just spoke their first language at home and with friends. They also see changes in my teaching practice such as collaborative learning opportunities, turn taking when talking and using language acquisition activities as ways in which they learn best.

Comparison of student voice survey Term 1-4 


Pasifika Early Intervention Programme (PELP)

After one Term of the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme (PELP) our Target Students made significant progress in the number of words spoken during the PELP oral language assessment, with the exception of Student 3 who already had a higher English oral language level than the other students. Student 4 didn't speak their heritage language at home which accounts for there low level of heritage language pre and post intervention.

This data shows the increase of students confidence speaking their first language at school alongside the increased acquisition of English within that one term.

The above graph shows the average amount of words spoken during the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme language test pre PELP intervention and post intervention (one school term).

The graph indicates that on average Junior students increased their oral language after one term of PELP. During this time we changed our teaching practice to incorporate students first language into our teaching programmes, encouraged students to use their first language, used dual language books in class and at home, and connected with families about the importance of students using and learning their first language.

The graph also shows that those students who were also in the Target Group, participating in small group oral language acquisition activities  (Dr Jannie Van Hees) went from having a below average oral language level below level to an above average level. These students participated in all Dr Van Hees modelling sessions and classroom sessions lead by the teachers exploring hands on oral language activities, insisting on use of new oral language, picture talk and shared writing sessions using new vocabulary. This shift is far greater than those students not participating in the programme.

It is therefore my conclusion that although we would probably see shift in students oral language through the use of PELP alone we see a far greater shift when we combine this programme with the teaching strategies that make up the Oral Language Intervention Programme designed by Dr Jannie Van Hees.


Combilist Data

The Combilist was used to measure language development factors of all students within my class.
Factors important in language development are rated below using the scale Yes/Sometimes/No.

C1-2 indicates willingness to communicate
C3-4 indicates communication with teacher/adults
C5-9 indicates participation in discourse
C10-13 indicates contribution to the discussion or discourse
C14-16 indicates benefits from feedback


Areas that target students made the most gains where: 

C2 Keen to express meaningfully and well.
C4 Expresses responses as clearly as he/she can.
C5 Takes the opportunity to speak.
C8 Gives elaborate responses to open-ended questions from the teacher/adult
C9 Reacts and responds spontaneously and on own initiative to teacher.
C12 Thinks before he/she speaks so as to express at a higher cognitive level.
C14 Continues his/her meaning and intentions, and picks up and uses teacher examples and models later.

Areas for continued development are:

C10 Sustains expression of his/her meaning, ideas and intentions.
C15 Meanings and ideas logically developed and expressed.


The rest of the class still struggle with giving elaborate responses and thinking before they speak to express at a higher cognitive level. The gains the target group made in this areas I feel is reflective of my change in practice, pushing students to use more words, new vocabulary, modelling responses and to think before they speak. The graphs show that those students that were 'No' in many categories all shifted to 'Sometimes'. This was not the case for many of the other students within the class that made comparatively little gain in these areas.

These results show that Dr Jannie Van Hees programme does have a substantial impact on oral language acquisition and using Dr Van Hees teaching strategies across the Junior school would benefit all students.


Transference Into Reading

The below graphs show the little progress students made within their first year at school (40 weeks). The graph also shows the progress that was made during the last 20 weeks of which these interventions took place. Although three of the students are working well below the expected level, all have made progress. However, it is hard to say whether this progress would have been made due to changed oral language programme or whether it is due to the normal classroom reading programme.  
Student 1



Student 2

Student 3
Student 4

Collaborative Inquiry Into Changed Practice Across The Junior School

The collaborative nature of this inquiry is harder to evaluate however a survey completed by the Junior teachers showed that they all had a clear understanding of the 'why' behind the change in practice and held a shared vision. As a team, we have undertaken a vast amount of PLD this year with DR Jannie Van Hees, the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme and ENGAGE, and shared our new learning with the rest of the school Staff meeting slide deck

We soon realised that creating changed practice across the Junior school would take longer than anticipated and extended the length of the inquiry from 1 year to 2 years, dedicating the first year to professional development and exploring changes in teaching practice. Teachers were at differing stages of uptake of this new learning due to two teachers being beginning teachers and experiencing all the new learning that comes with teaching your first class. What was important to me was the openness all teachers had to the PLD and that all teachers tried some of the teaching strategies learned.

We began collecting data on all junior students but then realised that it would be more significant to focus on a target group that would participate in all small group intensive oral language activities  (Dr Van Hees), PELP and ENGAGE taught by me. Next year as we all implement the new learning we will take data across the Junior School.

During the second year,  the aim is for all Junior teachers to fully implement the changes to practice, creating a Junior curriculum that focuses on a culturally responsive intensive oral language acquisition programme.


The Introduction Of ENGAGE

One of the factors that became apparent throughout the inquiry was the impact students low levels of regulation had on students ability to uptake new oral language. 

ENGAGE seemed to be the missing piece and when offered the opportunity to participate in the programme starting Term 4 we as a team jumped at the chance. 

It is hoped that through the games based programme students will develop self-regulation skills that will help them to uptake new learning. 

Data will be used from this programme to support our inquiry moving into its second year. 





Sunday, December 15, 2019

Comparison of Student Voice Responses Term 1-Term 4

In order to get a deeper understanding of how students perceived both themselves as learners and the effectiveness of my teaching practice. I conducted a student voice survey in Term 1 and Term 4.

Term 1 Responses
Term 2 Responses
Reflection
I am good at reading/ writing - yes/sometimes/no?
S3- ”Sometimes I don’t do well because I'm tired.”
S1-” I’m good I write on the word.”
S4 - "I write my sister’s names.”
S1- “I can write it good, my pirate one. I could write so many words.”
S4- “I need the word card.”

S4- "No I don't write properly and then I fix it. My sister helps me. 
S1- "Yes I'm good. I know all the words."
S4- "Yes I sound out the words."
S2- "No I suck, I don't know how to spell ...my family say it."

This tells me that some of my target students have low self-esteem when it comes to writing. This is something I need to address within my teaching moving forward.
When I can't do something it is easy to ask my teacher for help- yes/sometimes/no?
S1- “Ask 3 people before the teacher, ask your friend then you go ask the teacher.”
“Ask your friend (repeated by all 4)”

S1- "No you have to ask 3 people before you."
Is my classroom management system of students asking 3 peers for help before approaching the teacher while she is taking a small group impacting them feeling they are able to gain the help they needed at other times of the day? I will need to explore this further as it is interesting they gave the same response twice. 

My teacher listens to my ideas - yes/sometimes/no?
S2- “Everyone always talking, she picks the people who are listening, who get to talking.”

S4- “Yes”
S1- “Yes:
S2- "No, you don't listen during mat time." 

This child constantly calls out during mat time and talks over other students. Interesting to see that he feels like he isn't being listened to.  How can I address this issue so that he feels that he has a voice and that he is listened to?
Do you feel okay to talk in your own language at school? Why or why not?
S2- “No I want to practice my language at home, I have to learn it from my mum. It is hard to write in Tongan. I would like to talk more in Tongan at school.”
S1-"No because people are Maori. People keep saying Maori to me.”
S3- “I speak Samoan with my friends.”

S2- “Yes, so teachers can speak in Tongan. She (pointing to me and laughing to his friends) is a bit good. The Tongan kids are her teachers.”
S1- “I like to talk, yes. All the Tongan students can listen and my Dad.”
It’s cool speaking at school. When I speak to H (a Tongan girl from the class) she talks to me in Tongan. We play together. 
This was a significant shift in students responses from not feeling like they could speak their first language at school to feeling comfortable speaking it. They talk of teaching their teachers and of being able to communicate with friends and family. These responses show the success of having a more culturally responsive classroom and using PELP to change teacher practice.
What do you want your teachers to know about you and how you learn best?
S2- “Tell my teacher about at writing, about pirates”
S4- “I like maths, soccer, cooking.”
S3- "Bikes”
S1- "I like to cut coconuts.”

S2- :I can go outside and speak in Tongan.”
S4- “We both take turns to talk”.
S3- I work with my buddy- say the sentence and write it.”
S1- I like the Tongan game putting the words with the pictures. I do it at home.”
This time students could articulate the emphasis they put on working collaboratively as well as the importance of learning in their first language. S1 is referring to a sequencing game whereby they had to sequence the pictures from a dual language book and match it to the text. This was an activity they got to take home to do with their families.

This data shows the areas I still need to work on, evident within the responses to the first three questions. These will help to guide changes to my teaching practice moving forward from here.
  • developing students self efficacy in writing.
  • ensuring all students can gain the help they need from me when they need it, being clearer about using terms like 'see 3 before me' during small group teaching, so that they don't interpret that as being all times of the day. 
  • finding ways to ensure that all students are listened to while at the same time helping them develop turn taking while speaking. 
This data shows strengths in the areas of
  • creating a culturally responsive learning environment whereby students feel confident using their first language.
  • the use of collaborative learning, students taking turns to speak and students working with buddies. 
  • The use of resources that encourage literacy in students first language, and the power of having these resources available to go home with the students for home learning with families.

These three areas I see as evidence of the effectiveness of changed practice moving from relatively non-culturally responsive teaching practice to a creating a culturally responsive classroom that embraces the use of student's first languages so they can learn in their first language and make connections between their first language and English. Collaborative learning and students turn-taking when talking are mentioned as ways students learn best, therefore me changing my practice to incorporate these aspects into my teaching has had a positive influence on student learning. 

Our Happy Place

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