During our Level 4 lockdown I wanted to get some traction in regards to my inquiry so I began by capturing a picture of my student's attitudes and understandings linked blog commenting. What I found was that the picture I captured was quite different to the one I captured today (refer to the above DLO). There had been no face to face lead into our discussion and I could see that my inquiry group were trying to give me the responses they thought I wanted to hear. Fast forward to today and the picture looks quite different. The responses are linked to the learning and are informed (slide 3 and slide 5 of the DLO above). I believe that the student comments in the DLO above will allow me to make realistic comparisons at the end of the year.
When I captured my first picture of student voice I had initially thought of using historical blog post and comment data from their blogs, however when I looked more closely at this the numbers painted a negative picture and the disparity in numbers were too big to work with. This would not have been a great source of motivation for myself or my learners so I simply captured what was being brought to the table. This time around I used data that my learners helped me gather from their blog posts, blog comments and replies to comments in May and June. We added the data to a table which can be found on slide 7 of the DLO above. Afterwards I asked "What does this information tell us?" Their responses can be found on slide 8.
I'm always looking for ways to continue to motivate my students so on this occasion I asked our top blogger and blog commenter (Student X) to join our discussion group as I know this group respond well to the element of competition. We talked to her about what motivates her to comment on others blogs and to reply to every comment she receives. Hearing her responses that were all linked to the learning resonated with my group. It made sense because they had all experienced the same learning. I noticed when she spoke about how having learning conversations with others by asking and answering questions linked to their blog posts, had helped her strengthen her connections to her peers (she is new to our school) and to the learning, heads were nodding. It made sense!
Moving forward and with a bit of inspiration from Student X, we have decided to run a quality blog commenting competition within this group with extra points being given for replies and comment threads. I'm looking forward to seeing if this student derived idea can help these students become more motivated and feel more confident when creating comment threads linked to the learning on each others blogs.
Your students are always so articulate about their learning, this is a real skill that you foster with your class. I look forward to seeing how the commenting competition goes, especially as the idea came from the students. A great example of student agency taken to the real world application level. This should be a authentic motivator for your students.
ReplyDeleteKia ora Robyn,
ReplyDeleteI also noticed how articulate your learners are, and so self-aware! I was really impressed to see the students come up with a potential solution, which will make it more meaningful and engaging for them. This is definitely something that I could do more of with my learners as well - I think they'd agree with the statement one of your students said, about not taking it very seriously. I look forward to hearing about your intervention next!
Hi, Robyn
ReplyDeleteSuch a great idea to get students to analyse their own blogs posts and comments, and empower students to develop a solution (competition) to their learning. I took a look at the questions that you asked for collecting student voice data at the two time points, and I found that the questions were different. I suppose it was because the purposes were different. You mentioned in May that you want to see whether there will be “shifts in attitude, understanding and the quality of content of their commenting skills” in the end. I wonder what questions you will ask at the end of the year. Will you ask the same or similar questions as you asked in the last two discussions? Look forward to seeing how you will do it.
Allen