CoL Teaching as Inquiry- Testing Each Hypothesis and the Evidence That Will Support It

Developing Inquiry Hypotheses

The hypotheses were formed through a process of exploring possibilities into why the data looks as it does and possible changes of practice that could take place. Below I discuss the reading, discussions and learning opportunities that lead to the development of hypotheses.

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.

Collective capacity building to develop a common knowledge and skill base across the learning community is a powerful learning opportunity. Social capital, the quality of the group is more powerful than human capital, the qualifications of individuals (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012; Fullan & Quinn, 2016). This approach to professional development replaces fragmented traditional professional development programmes, workshops or presentations that aim to fix the individual. As collective capacity builds, it increases momentum involving more people and reinforces the strategy for change towards a collective purpose. However, it is important to be aware that a supportive climate is needed to ensure teachers feel safe to take risks and build capacity through learning from each other (Fullan & Quinn, 2016). As Hargreaves (1994) points out, in a collaborative culture teacher’s values and purposes, failures and doubts are shared, discussed and disagreed over. This exposure of vulnerabilities should take place in a supportive environment.

Hypothesis 2: 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. 

In order to find an appropriate tool to measure oral assessment, I sought out the help and expertise of Dr Jannie Van Hees. Jannie came and talked to the team about the use of the combilist and value of creating an intensive oral language literacy programme that focused around high-interest topics and experiences.

Hypothesis 3: 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.

PELP focuses on working in partnership with Pasifika families, building on the strengths of the students first language, culture and identity through bilingual and multilingual teaching practices and the use of bilingual resources. Having the opportunity for our teachers to learn through participating in this project will embed cultural responsiveness within the inquiry.

CoL Teaching as Inquiry: Tools, Measures and Approaches To Gain An Accurate Profile Of My Students Learning

To gain a more detailed and accurate profile of my our student's learning in relation to Learning Challenge 2; Lifting the achievement for boys' writing Years 1-10, I am using a range of tools, measures and approaches.


The Combilist- Dr Jannie Van Hees (2013)

For students entering school oral language is measured using JOST, in which our school data shows our students entering school with low levels of oral language. However, I wanted to a tool to delve deeper into the specifics of oral language development of students in Year 1-3, and that could also measure progress in the development of oral language to support my inquiry. The Combilist (2013) developed and used by Dr Jannie Van Hees measures significant factors involved in language development.

These include:

• Willingness to communicate
• Communication with teacher/adults
• Participation in discourse
• Contribution to the discussion or discourse
• Benefits from feedback

This tool can be used as a measure when taken prior to intervention, during the intervention and post-intervention.

All teachers across Years 1-3 will use the tool to measure individual students language development.


Pasifika Early Literacy Project (PELP) Assessment Data

Tamaki Primary is lucky enough to be participating in PELP. The PELP Project supports teachers to utilise dual language books and bilingual approaches in primary schools. It supports teachers working in bilingual and multilingual ways to open up the learning opportunities for our students.

A requirement of the project is to measure student progress to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching in linguistically and culturally responsive ways.

The data that is collected through the Pasifika Early Literacy Project (PELP) will also be useful indicators of the effectiveness of changed practice through Teaching as Inquiry. This data will add a deeper level.

PELP requires us to collect data through three methods:
Running Records (June and October)
Record of oral vocabulary- one on one, 2 minutes in English 2 minutes in the student's first language
Record of written vocabulary completed as a whole class, 5mins, per language.

Although PELP requires us to just assess Pasifika students, the assessment we will include Maori boys as they are target students within our inquiry.

Collecting Data Through Connecting With Whanau; 
Finding Out About Students Language, Culture and Identity.

Are the records we have at school a true representation of home language and culture. My hunch is that they are not. Far too often we use this data to inform our teaching without having conversations with whanau to better understand their cultures and identities. Genuinely connecting with the whanau, getting to know our families, as opposed to superficially, would give us a better understanding of how best to meet the needs of our students. The box on etap that indicates the students first language is filled in at school entry and may or may not be a true representation of the diversity of language used outside of school. Secondly, what other information other than the first language option indicated on etap records, do we need to teach in culturally diverse ways? Fono with families will help us to gain information about students language, culture and identity, the information vitally needed for linguistically and culturally responsive teaching practice to take place.

Student Voice

A sample group of students will be used to collect the student's voice. Who better to ask about students' learning than the students themselves. Gathering student voice will help me to build rich knowledge of the learner and an understanding of how to make learning accessible to them. It gives students a chance to say what school is like for them and will enable me to take their views into consideration when implementing change.

The questions/prompts asked will relate to students oral language, progress in literacy and student/teacher relationships

I am good at reading/ writing - yes/sometimes/no?

When I can't do something it is easy to ask my teacher for help- yes/sometimes/no?

My teacher makes it easy to understand things- yes/sometimes/no?

My teacher listens to my ideas - yes/sometimes/no?

Do you like talking about your ideas? Why or Why not?

What makes learning hard/ easy at school?

What makes learning hard/ easy at home?

Do you feel okay to talk in your own language at school? Why or why not?

What do you want your teachers to know about you and how you learn best?

These questions will hopefully give me valuable insight into students perspectives.

The CoL Hypothesis/Agreement; Getting in behind the problem

In this post, I want to discuss the CoL Hypothesis/Agreement and how this fits with Tamaki and Manaiakalani Data and in forming a related Inquiry.

CoL Hypothesis/Agreement

Getting in behind the problem

Language acquisition, development, sustaining & transfer

Learning Design including

• Formative practice
• Progressional understanding
• Effective planning for learning

Focusing on Language acquisition, development, sustaining and transfer will hopefully give us the biggest bang of our buck not only in raising student achievement in writing in the Junior years but across the curriculum. Not only this but it creates wonderings of the effects this will have on students achievement as they progress through their schooling, building on the foundations that have been acquired early on.

Welcome To School: A Study of Conditions of Disadvantage on Entry to School in the Manaiakalani Kahui Ako (2017) shows

"Most children in Tamaki start school at a developmental level of 3-4 years: i.e. without the developmental and communication skills needed to achieve at expected levels. This is reflected in the achievement data for this community from school entry and beyond. The gap between expected and actual achievement expands as children progress throughout school" (Burt & Leversha, 2017)

This is evident in our Junior classrooms as students struggle to communicate their ideas. Students use silence, one, two word utterances, gestures, lack understanding of plurals and prepositions and understanding of syntax and semantics. Sentences are often short and tangled and consist of simple vocabulary.

When trying to verbalise your ideas is difficult, writing can then be even harder.

For me, addressing Achievement Challenge 2: Lifting the achievement for boys' writing Years 1-10, and getting in behind the problem at a Junior Level means focusing my teaching practice intensively on oral language acquisition. If we can raise achievement in this area, transference into writing will not only be seen but also transference across the curriculum where communication is equally important. 

Manaiakalani Achievement Challenge #2

Manaiakalani Achievement Challenge #2 

Lifting the achievement for boys' writing Years 1-10.

At the end of 2018 after 2 years at school, 80% of our Male students were working within beginning level 1 in Writing. This is lower than the "At Level 1' expected after 2 Years at school.

Furthermore, when you look at the data collected by Manaiakalani you can see the disparity between girls achievement and boys. 

Graph 1 and Graph 2

There is a large disparity between Year 2 Female Students who are progressing at a comparable rate to the norm and at a higher level than the norm, and Year 2 Male Students progressing at a slower rate and at a level well below the norm. Why is there such disparity? What has been working for girls within their first two years of schooling and not working for boys?

The second graph breaks down this data further into ethnic groupings.

This shows a large disparity between Year 2 Maori and Asian Students progressing at a comparable rate to the norm and at a slightly higher level and Year 2 Pasifika Students who are progressing at a slower rate at a level well below the norm.

Manaiakalani across school data also shows that Male Students are achieving at a lower level than expected. However, our school data is significantly lower than the across school data.

This is why I have chosen to focus on Lifting The Achievement For Boys' Writing In Years 1-10. With the specific focus on lifting the achievement of boys' writing in Years 1-3. 

The Beginning of Te Waipuna ō Tamaki

Te Waipuna ō Tamaki

As a teacher that has experienced working in both single cell classrooms and shared learning spaces, and conducting research on working within newly opened ILEs, I can acknowledge both the affordances and challenges of both learning environments for teachers and students.

It is with an open mind and awareness of the need to adapt our practice to meet the needs of our learners, that my wonderful colleague Laadan Jalili and I negotiate our way in our exciting new shared learning space Te Waipuna ō Tamaki.

Honesty and a fail fast approach have already begun to guide us through our first term as we quickly find out what works and what doesn't, changing things as we go.

This blog is a space to share the journey with others interested in or working within a shared space. It is not a 'how to' as anyone working within a shared space will now that what may work for one set of learners and teachers may very well not work for another. But it may provide ideas that can be adapted or a sharing of experiences others can relate to or offer advice on.

So far this is what has worked for us establishing our shared learning space:

• Acknowledgement of each other's strengths, allowing each other to take the lead in these areas whether it be in the organisation of resources, the teaching of a specific area of the curriculum, or sharing of ideas.
• The flexibility of changing what isn't working. This has been on a near daily basis in the form of groupings of students, routines that haven't worked or needed adapting, and timetabling. 
• Learning from each other as we watch each other teach.
• Developing a respectful and honest working relationship.
• Constant discussions regarding students needs and learning.

Current challenges we are facing are:

• Students attempting and succeeding in gaining attention from each other through inappropriate behaviour within a larger audience. This can quickly escalate and management of behaviour takes teaching time away from other students. To manage this we have decided to separate the students into two mixed level groups for the afternoon which is when this behaviour is mostly happening, give student choice through Daily Five to motivate them to stay on task and focus on praising these students when they are doing the right thing giving attention to positive behaviour.
• Everything on mass including paperwork. We need to ensure the workload is spread evenly and that we support each other so we don't feel overloaded.

Any advice and ideas would be appreciated.

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

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