Create in Inquiry...

Once again with 'create' in mind I planned my Inquiry unit on Dinosaurs with these activities in mind. Pretty much I started at the end of each learning task and worked backwards. What I found throughout this unit of learning was the retention of facts was much more than usual. I know Dinosaurs is always a fun topic to unpack but this time around, student voice told me the activities we did to show our learning were fun and made the facts stick. 

We started by making our very own dinosaur eggs out of salt dough. Who knew an activity usually found in the junior classes would engage my Y7/8 learners so much!

We then hatched our eggs. This roughly translated to opening the eggs and placing them somewhere in the garden for photographing. After discovering our dinosaur fossils we used Adobe Express AI to reimagine our photos to reflect what a real ‘find’ might look like based on where our research of where similar fossils have been found in the past. These 'finds' gave each pair a focus dinosaur to do a deeper research on.

Our dinosaur eggs reimagined using Adobe Express

Kaleb shared an idea that I loved so I changed my planning. He suggested that we show some of our dinosaur research by creating a movie using AI. For this task we used  https://hailuoai.video. The learning here was in the prompts. 

Click here to watch Hasna's movie

Click here to watch Beniz's movie

Click here to watch Dito's movie

Responding to a question in exactly 50 words. A fun way to encourage students to be succinct in their responses and provides a great opportunity for rich discussion to evolve.

Brooke and Mareta's Google Vid to showcase their research on Mary Anning

Implementing Structured Literacy one step at a time: Step #3 - Reading

Using texts suggested in the Refreshed English Curriculum for Year 7-8 this term has allowed me to experiment with aligning my learning in structured literacy Reading with the curriculum. To be honest my years of Reading PLD has afforded me the luxury of making very few changes to my practice. I have had to make changes in a few areas like vocabulary and text structure, but for the most part not a lot has changed.

Rather than explaining how I teach reading I have decided to showcase how we capitalised on the create aspect of learn - create - share to strengthen my learner's connections to the content in the text and the learning that ran along side it. As you can see create opportunities are easy to include in a structured reading program. They don't need to be 'perfect' but they do need to provide opportunities for our tamariki to take ownership of the learning and make the connections they need to make sense of the wide variety of multimodal texts in a reading program.

All these lessons have been taught as a whole class. Some students have needed further opportunities to unpack the text and all follow up activities are done collaboratively in groups or pairs. At this stage working independently on follow up activities is something we are working towards. I find that collaboration makes new learning seem less scary and helps my learners take risks they would usually shy away from.

A focus on dialogue and the structure and purpose of graphic texts

A focus on rich discussion and forming an opinion by exploring both sides of a provocation

Group discussion and text responses captured on Adobe Podcast

AI generated posters using Adobe Express to showcase important quotes

Google Vid and Adobe Express to capture an illustrated DLO of my learners reading a poem 

You can see examples here in my learner's blogs, which have all been shared with permission.

• Loa
• Valencia
• Maania
• River
• Taisorn

Implementing Structured Literacy one step at a time: Step #2 - Writing

As I have said before I am on a mission this year to both successfully implement structured literacy and to keep the create opportunities alive. I jumped in with both feet. No delicate toes dipped in the water, just a giant splash! One way I have capitalised on the affordances of 'create' in writing was to start at the end and probelm solve our way to the start.

By this I mean instead of starting with the exemplars of what a text type looks like, unpacking the structure and language features and exploring the vocabulary needed I tapped into our Inquiry topic of Dinosaurs and challenged my learners to begin by constructing a prototype of the skeleton of their focus dinosaur. 

The prototype... Each pair was given a 1 sheet of coloured A3 paper, 2 sheets of newsprint, a vivid, a pencil, a ruler, a pair of scissors and access to the sellotape. I explained that apart of constructing their prototype I needed them to write down the steps they followed to create their model. This was hilarious to watch! The conversation was rich and purposeful as work arounds for dilemmas were suggested. The outcome, slightly wonky models with some very creatively written steps. 

The teaching... To demonstrate the need for clarity and simplicity in the instructions I asked to use one of the sets of instructions that they would be happy to let me follow in front of the class. My learners had so much fun with this task I ended up having to put names in a randomiser to choose. Everyone wanted their instructions followed. To be fair I let everyone have 15 minutes to fine tune their set of instructions before I started. As always to prove a point I needed to over exaggerate what I was being asked to do. Once again we had so much fun! I did manage to construct a model that resembled a dinosaur but as I had no accurate measurements it looked nothing like the one I was trying to replicate.

The learning... We need to be specific. We need to be clear and our steps need to be written so that they can be followed accurately. We explored the 'bossy' verbs and made our adaptations. All learning that would have taken place had I taken a more formal approach, but wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. Connections to the task were made all round. I need to mention here that this was a whole class lesson for 54 students. I did have Dianne, my buddy teacher and Mat our wonderful TA as well but I led the learning. No extra scaffolding, no simplified work, just pitched at the right level because I know my learners. We used the power of collaboration and the power visual and tactile opportunities provide. Everyone regardless of ability understood the purpose of the task and knew what they needed to do. I noticed at each step of this challenge that my learners were helping each other too.  

The outcome... We made the tweaks to our instructions and repeated the process. This time there was more attention paid to precision and detail. Wording of instructions were road tested on another pair, and more refined models constructed. We then formalised our learning using a scaffold for a procedural text which allowed me to reinforce the structure and language needed to be successful. To add a fun element we then had a go at creating a different dinosaur model following a set of instructions created by another pair.

The process illustrated...

                                                        

          

Implementing Structured Literacy one step at a time: Step #1 - Handwriting...

With the challenge of keeping the 'create' aspect alive in our kura, I made the conscious decision to lead by example. Last term we began our structured literacy journey. The first three PLD sessions were huge! The cognitive overload was real. I am a teacher with many years classroom experience both in Aotearoa and in the UK and I found making sense of all the new learning a genuine challenge. I found myself quickly realising why the 'create' component of our learning was pushed to the back. 

The big message behind everything is that the learning should be taking place at a 'perky pace'. That's doable once you have made your own connection but when I first attempted a structured literacy handwriting lesson it took 35 minutes! Not 35 minutes because my learners were off task or because I didn't understand the goal of the lesson, but 35 minutes because my learners were focusing of being meticulously neat. No one wanted to make  an error, no one wanted messy work. I genuinely ran out of motivating phrases to say! As for the spelling, well lets just say that was another time consuming disaster. My experience told me I needed something to change and it had to be fast. The first thing I changed was to ditch the preplanned resources and use my own. I needed to make my connection through my ownership of the learning. So how did I do this?

• I co-constructed a handwriting resource with my learners by giving them each a letter and asking them to come up with the practise sentence to accompany the letter formation learning.

• I introduced the digital timer. What a life saver this turned out to be. It added a fun challenge element that kept us all on our toes and helped us meet the brief of having a 'perky pace'. We vary times now from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. This allows the person keeping time to randomly challenge the pace of fluency. I do need to remind people here that Year 7/8 students in the main do not need to be taught letter formation so that removes one of the challenges our junior team have.

• As I said earlier we needed an element of ownership in the learning. I wanted my students to monitor their own progress and set their own goals. We did this by creating a marking sticker. My learners now evaluate their own work by considering the size, shape, slope, speed and space. It allows them to easily see where they have been successful and what areas they need to focus on. This has now evolved to our very own stamp thanks to the awesome design skills of April Song, who helped me bring my idea to life. We use a buddy system to share our successes and our next steps at the end of each handwriting session and at the start of the next one. This also helps me see at a glance what it is I am looking for when I am roving around the room giving feedback or when I'm starting a lesson and need a focus point.

                                           

• We alternate handwriting lessons with keyboard lessons to build keyboard fluency. Doing this has been a huge hit with my learners. We use this site for the keyboard challenges.

To remind myself why we need a handwriting focus I have added this last part from notes I made during one of our initial training days (source unknown). Fluency in handwriting helps to enhance critical thinking. Writing fluency encourages students to think critically about their ideas and how to present them, ultimately deepening their understanding of the subject matter.

Hanga - Create: TOD Presentation by Dorthy Burt

Dorthy Burt reminded us at our cluster-wide TOD that 'creativity empowers learning and digital technologies empower creativity'. This is my summary of the notes I took from her presentation and much of it was either a direct copy or a paraphrase of Dorothy's message.

Create is designed as a hook for our learners to motivate our learners to ENGAGE with the curriculum. Teachers are navigating a new curriculum and many are feeling the pressure that comes with delivery. This means the idea of empowering our learners to create falls directly into the 'too hard, too much' basket. O’Connor pointed out that when 'Aotearoa New Zealand led the world in literacy in the 1970s, the curriculum contained a heavy diet of the arts, especially at primary school level'...  “We chucked the arts out, and what we've done is continue to focus on these literacy and numeracy projects, which have got absolutely nowhere,”  

The creation process requires students to actively manipulate information rather than passively receive it. Our learners need to be the creators of content, not just the consumers who swipe to view content that is created by others. We need to provide learning opportunities that allow our tamariki to reorganise information in new ways, make decisions about what is included or excluded by being able to explain their thinking. Create is about engagement. It is about hooking our learners into learning so they benefit from what we teach and the way we teach it explicitly.

Providing opportunities for our learners to create allows for learning environments that foster engagement, motivation and curiosity so that new learning may be applied in meaningful ways by capitalising on opportunities for conversation and collaboration.

In Manaiakalani we have powerful create tools that are easily accessed by every learner. It is our job to harness these to help ourselves and our learners make sense of the new learning  Te Mātaiaho present us with.

Research 1: Why 'create' so important...

To explore the importance of creativity in education I asked Gemini to carry out a deep research for me based on the prompts I gave it. The findings below are my words but are based on what Gemini generated. Sites I retrieved information from have been linked but this summary of my reading does not reflect all the sites I visited as a result of my initial search.

Creativity is a core building block in education. It affects how students think and turns learning from simply remembering facts into a fluid connection to the learning. When looking at it through the lens of school, creativity means a student's ability to come up with new and valuable ideas, solutions, or tasks. This often involves thinking outside the box, using their imagination, and being willing to take risks and try new things. It empowers students to think differently, look at problems from all perspectives, and create original answers that strengthen their connections to the learning. 

Image retrieved from here

Creativity helps prepare students for the future. In our ever-changing world, the ability to adapt, innovate, and solve problems creatively is essential if the students we teach today are going to find success tomorrow. Creativity improves learning outcomes when the learning is engaging, meaningful, and relevant. This is the catalyst to keeping our students motivated as it provides the opportunities needed to deepen their connections to the new learning.

In the past, literacy was seen as a foundational set of reading, writing, and counting skills. The 21st century has transformed this thinking to meet the demands of an increasingly digital, interconnected, and information-rich world. UNESCO defines literacy as a continuous process of learning and proficiency in reading, writing, and using numbers throughout life. This encompasses the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, and communicate information effectively in a rapidly changing global environment. This leads to a deeper comprehension than simply processing words and phrases at a linguistic level.

The article 'What is creativity in education?' by Tim Patston, retrieved from the The Education Hub, states that 'Creativity is producing something new, relevant and useful to the person or people who created the product within their own social context.... Something that is very creative to a Year One student – for example, the discovery that a greater incline on a ramp causes objects to roll faster – would not be considered creative in a university student.... Creativity is valuable in education because it builds cognitive complexity... it relies on having deep knowledge and being able to use it .... with an existing set of knowledge or skills... to increase both knowledge and skills. It develops over time and is more successful if the creative process begins at a point where people have at least some knowledge and skills'. The sentence in bold is the one that resonates most with me when I apply it to my structured literacy context. I refer back to my previous post where I explain how we are using creativity to build on the known.

Nicole Krueger's ISTE blog post from 2022 states that creativity motivates kids to learn because 'when students are focused on a creative goal, they become more absorbed in their learning and more driven to acquire the skills they need to accomplish it'. This post reaffirms my initial thinking that we need to continue to harness the digital affordances a 1:1 chromebook class has to offer as we navigate our structured literacy journey by stating that 'teachers who frequently assign classwork involving creativity are more likely to observe higher-order cognitive skills — problem solving, critical thinking, making connections between subjects — in their students. And when teachers combine creativity with transformative technology use, they see even better outcomes'.

This deep research has allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of my topic. I will be continuing my journey to explore the importance of creativity in learning in my next post. 

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Stocktake of my Inquiry...

We are half way through the year and I realise when taking stock of my inquiry that the PLD start delay has impacted my inquiry significantly. I haven't really been able to begin until now as we have only had 4 structured literacy PLD sessions so far. My inquiry a school leader is not just a personal one, but also a team one. The positives to date are that we have been keeping the status quo in literacy so I do know we are currently all on the same page as far as planning is concerned. We are all on the same page as far as DLO scaffolds are concerned and our current shared language of instruction is alive and well. 

Moving forward this term sees us starting to implement structured literacy practises. What is a huge plus for us is that the changes are not big ones. Our current planning is structured. It unpacks the text and explores text structures, themes and vocabulary. What we do need to do is approach the tweaks we need to make to the vocabulary instruction at our own pace. What I mean by that is we are a team with a varied range of teaching experience which ranges from 6 months to over 30 years. If we change too much too soon I can see everything unravelling quickly. The point of PLD is to build on what we know to strengthen our practice not to throw everything out and start again.

Before I think about how I can support my team I need to put my own oxygen mask on first. By that I mean I need to jump into structured literacy approaches boots and all. I know I still need to capture student voice and will do this when term 3 begins. I needed to look closely at how I will adapt and tweak my current planning. I have done that by looking at the planning exemplar provided on the structured literacy platform we are using and have then made a few changes in what I already had in place. 

The end goal was to keep a 'create' aspect which I have done. I wanted to make sure I was covering what was suggested but I also know I can do this without folding back to using the worksheets I cut my teeth on as a beginning teacher. The first screenshot below is what is suggested on our PLD provider platform. The way I have interpreted this is to use the perspective DLOs I already have in place but add a creative aspect to this by using ADOBE podcast to capture the conversation behind the end product. (The discussion and summarising aspects are covered in the guided planning.) We do have planning scaffolds that we use but the way my learners show their perspective is totally up to them. I am also making use of text sets and my learning T-shaped literacy gave me. What I have added is a skill drill game that I created using Gemini. These multi-choice tasks have been a game changer in our class. They allow for quick recall and application of new learning. Examples of these challenges can be found here.

As I said earlier I, along with my team, are very much at the start of our structured literacy journey. Ours made slightly more challenging by the year groups being separated into PLD for Y4-6 and PLD for Y7-8. What is helping keep us all aligned is the planning framework and the conversations we have as a team.