Sharing our learning...

This week I took a group of year 7/8 students to Tamaki College to share their learning with some of the Tamaki College students. These boys did such an amazing job of sharing their google draw skills. As their teacher I was so incredibly proud to see them shining as they lead the learning and explained the instructions so clearly and confidently. A huge thank you to Mrs Pameka and Ms Apelu for giving us this opportunity, and to Mrs Hamer for inviting us into her classroom and for joining in the lesson.

Here are the links to the boys blog posts: Jack Sanujan Alex

 Jack explaining the skills he was teaching

Sanujan helping Mrs Hamer

  Jack explaining sharing some of his work with Mrs Pameka and Ms Apelu

  Alex explaining the skills he was teaching

Engaged learners

Team photo

Impact Bursts 2018

Last week the Manaiakalani COL teachers shared the impact of their 2018 Teaching as Inquiry as impact bursts in a panel setting. Here is my journey...

I chose to focus my inquiry around our hardest to shift writers in Year 8. All boys who didn’t think they were good at writing, and more affronting to me, didn’t think I thought they were good at writing. Instead of taking risks and trying the new, they opted for the safety of falling back on the known, or employed the go to work avoidance techniques they had mastered over time.

What I noticed happening with my learners was the default of quiet compliance and procrastination was replaced with purposeful chat, as word knowledge and confidence needed to join in the learning conversations, evolved. The quantity of work increased, with the students writing more than they ever have before. Alongside this, the quality of the content also improved when student participation in the learning moved from passive, to active.

I know this because of the changes in attitude and demeanour - what I mean by that is, I went from looking at a group of students who slouched at the tables, avoided eye contact and utilised every strategy known to them to avoid work; to a group of students who smiled, raised their hands and confidently shared their thinking. The shifts this group made are on my blog so I would like to use this time to tell you about the student I am most proud of. He was formerly our most reluctant writer who came to us with the historical lack of self belief that continued failure brings. This year he shifted from <2B to 2B for the first time ever!  

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To make this happen I lived by the idea of 'Repetition without boring' which when unpacked, means repurposing, revisiting and tapping into the known to help access the unknown. In other words repeat, repeat, repeat, but do it in a creative way! I used the same lesson format, regardless of text type. Began each lesson by co-constructing the success criteria and revisiting the available scaffolds and exemplars created by our group. Talk was actively planned for to front-load the vocabulary needed to unpack the topic in context, and the language of instruction personalised and explicit

Moving forward I will continue to actively plan time for front-loading, time for planning and time for talk in my lessons, but most importantly, I will try really hard to make sure my learners not only think that they’re good at writing but also think I think they’re good at writing.

Analysing the data (November) and Reflecting on my Inquiry...

This year I have been looking at ways stronger connections to content specific vocabulary can help overcome hindered student self efficacy in writing. In February I collated the data from the e-asTTle attitude domains for writing as a way of measuring student self efficacy in writing. My February data 'shows that my learners don't like writing at school, they don't believe they are good at writing and worryingly, most think I don't think they are very good at writing.' 

Comparative data collected in November (refer to presentation below) shows that there have been some notable changes between the time one and time two data. Most significantly is that everyone now sees themselves at being better at writing, with 3/8 students seeing being a 'good writer' as something that is 'very like me'. 7/8 students now like writing at school more and 6/8 students now believe I think they are 'good at writing'. Writing out of school is not something these students enjoy, a shift possibly influenced by age and a change in outside interests and influences. When looking using this tool as a way of measuring student self efficacy in writing I can see the shifts are positive. Additionally I know that in the classroom engagement has increased, work completion rates have increased and confidence levels have increased. 

To reflect student achievement (refer to the graphs below) I chose to show the shifts in each of the e-asTTle writing domains using the R scores as this allows me to see where the shifts were strongest. I am aware these levels are subjective, but have been assessed by the same person and moderated for validity. This is a powerful reflection tool as I can see where the strongest connections to my instruction were made. 

The biggest shifts are in structure and language, sentence structure, punctuation and in organisation. When I looked back on my long term planning I see that this ties in with the adaptations I made to dedicate more time to the oral language component of front-loading the vocabulary and more time to talk and use their words in context when planning. There was an increased expectation that all work would be completed and the format of each lesson the same except for the added daily challenge, something determined by peer led feedback and decided by my students. 

When analysing the writing samples I noticed the consistency with co-constructing the success criteria linked to structure, language, punctuation, sentence structure and organisation at the start of each lesson was replicated in the writing plans. Possibly because these students understood what they needed to do to improve their learning. Analysis of ideas and vocabulary show these areas have remained consistent with minimal movement, perhaps due to the fact the writing assessment does not allow time for front-loading and talk when planning. 

What this data does not show however, is the change in the quantity of the content nor the confidence that my learners approached this task with. It does not show that everyone wrote for the full allotted time and when asked to move onto editing, each student used the time to try their best to check their work for accuracy. A sneaky look at the revision history showed me the latter. 

Reflecting on my professional learning through this inquiry cycle...

In our focus on achievement we often overlook the power that positive reinforcement and self belief have on outcome. Strong healthy classroom relationships mean that student engagement  interwoven benefits. The best part is that the adaptations made in writing created a knock on effect across several other learning areas for many of our students.

My inquiry goal this year was to grow self efficacy in my reluctant writers, something I have tried very hard to do. Learning from Jannie, Rebecca, Aaron and Russell in our CoL meetings has played a huge part in my growth and the growth in my students this year as I come away from each meeting with a ‘takeaway’ that I tweaked to meet the learning needs of my students. Although initially challenging to do I found being asked to backward map a causal chain the most useful tool in keeping my inquiry focused. I have referred back to this many times and is something I will definitely create in my next inquiry.

Adapting Cynthia Greenleaf’s research into student self efficacy in reading to writing in my classroom has given me an increased empathy towards my reluctant writers. These students are not simply disengaged or disruptive, they are, in many cases masking their perceived historical failures by seeking negative attention. 'I always muck around cos then you won't ask me anything cos you'll think I haven't done my work. I always do that every year Miss.' (Boy 8, June 2018) This was the response I got after I had purposely ignored his behaviour for a period of time and focused on strengthening my rapport with him. From then on I made a point of asking for his input. In turn I noticed over time that he had become far more engaged in the learning, he was happy to share his thinking (as long as I didn't ask him first), and from mid way through term 3 took pride in letting me know his finished work was on his blog. Russell reminded us in one of our CoL meetings that success comes with completing a task, something I have seen first hand is vital if we are looking to grow student self efficacy, and one of the most successful adaptations I have made across all my teaching this year.

I can see that the way forward for me is to replicate the changes in how I deliver my instruction as it has given these students the knowledge to approach writing with confidence. 'Repetition without boring' allows key learning points to be revisited so that stronger connections can be made. Planning time for talk and front-loading means new learning is unpacked and new vocabulary used in context. I noticed that the students who said the words used the language. This required a lot of teacher modeling, think alouds and scaffolding initially but allowing my learners the time to process the new, meant I was able to build in challenges that promoted the risk taking I was after. Ignoring behaviour, praising success and setting the expectation that all work will be finished helped to change 'This is boring!' into 'Miss, can you check my work?'.

Adding in the 'fun' factor...

Last week one of our writing tasks was to create Kahoot quizzes with a buddy that would challenge others to recall the deeper and surface features found in an explanation. A learning task that quickly engaged all my learners. As I mentioned earlier, they were working in pairs so there was a lot of collaborative chatter as the thinking evolved. The best part of this was seeing many of the teaching scaffolds and the feedback comments that linked to their own explanation examples being used as reference tools as I had not prompted any of this. 

With the quizzes underway I took the time to step back and observe. Self efficacy was definitely alive in this lesson as my usually shy group had morphed into confident and active participants who were trying hard to recall the answers in the fastest time. No one was reluctant to share their quiz as everyone had the tools and knowledge to complete the challenge successfully. It was great to see the celebrations and praise they were bestowing on each other for making it onto the response podium. What excited me the most however, were the deep conversations that were taking place as my learners were noticing and discussing why their responses were correct or incorrect.