TAI 2020 WFRC #5: Nature and Extent of the Student Challenge...

Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding.

The challenge for my students this year is to continue to make shifts in the learning areas of Maths, Reading and Writing. My initial focus was linked to our school wide professional development of Maths, however lockdown and postponements in PD delivery has meant I have now widened my scope to include Reading and Writing as well. 

Last year as a school we noticed it was a lack of content vocabulary that seemed to limit assessed student achievement. In many cases what we observed in the classroom was not replicated at testing time. As a school we want students to see that learning used in one area can be transferred to another - linked to vocabulary, instruction and strategy, as this was not happening. End of year (2019) and beginning of year (2020) data is evidence of this as class based work and achievement results support this theory. Refer here to the historical data pathway I created to show my target student's achievement since Year 5.

I know from observations in my class, and other classes across our school, if students are asked to have a ‘learning conversation’ they will confidently carry out a conversation using content specific language and learning intentions to give their partner (or group) feedback and feed forward connected to a completed task. However across our school in the Summer Learning Journey it was highlighted that very few of our students were practising this when replying to blog comments. Often comments were met simply with a thank you, or not responded to. The evidence to support this statement is woven throughout the SLJ comments on my class blogs. I am unable to put specific links here as this would disregard anonymity and would identify these students.

Having looked closely at the blog posts and comments on my target student's blogs I noticed that learning intentions are often omitted and explanations of tasks (blurbs) are often reduced to 'Today we had to...', or 'Here is my my DLO of...'. The detailed content and purpsoe for learning is often actually missing from the initial post and has prompted questions like this one I was asked by one of my target students, 'Mrs Anderson how can I comment on the learning if I don't know what they were learning?'.

The challenge for my learners this year is to create comment threads on blogs to help strengthen their connections to the learning. I want my learners to refer to the learning intention and confidently use content specific language when giving feedback and feed forward. I want them to ask questions that provide opportunities for those receiving the comments to justify their thinking, and I want them to understand that giving and receiving blog comments is an important part of our learning. However if before that can take place I need to make sure that my learners are creating quality blog posts that clearly identify the purpose of the learning, a detailed explanation of the task and a personal statement linked to something they found interesting or where they feel they did something well.