Comprehension strategies and learning conversations... Will this keep the talk going?

When putting together learning opportunities for Term 3, I not only had to think how I could capture and maintain my learner's interest but also how I could delve deeper into my teaching inquiry. I looked through a wealth of texts before selecting one I will call my anchor text, that would link to and help my learners strengthen their connections to the upcoming elections. 


I plan to capitalize on our established routines and groups to open the doors of familiarity. It is my hunch that by using the peer to peer rapport in place, alongside well practised learning frameworks, the initial shyness that often inhibits my learners will dissipate far quicker than it has previously. 

I refer once again back to Jason Borland's thinking in our 2015 Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher's PLG where he stated that "You can't help yourself if you can't see yourself." This thinking resonated with me when I first heard it, and after following Jason's inquiry I have often repurposed this idea to meet the learning needs of my students. 

My idea is that if I record (with student permission and knowledge of purpose), our learning conversations, we can look back at our own contributions and notice when we were active participants and how we could possibly make changes to become more active participants. In my case it will help me see what changes I need to make to my teaching to help my learners understand how to become more active participants. 

I realise it is sometimes the suggestions of our peers that can help us move our learning to the next level. With this being and already established routine in our class, I hope my learners will be able to strengthen their connections and understandings to the content by through talking about their reasoning for the comprehension strategies used. 

Here is the link to our reading challenges for the start of this term. 

The power of silence...

Today I set my learners the task of creating a shared response to the question, 'What can we do about the litter problem in schools?' We used my twist on the ESOL strategy consensus to help us do this. My learners were asked to draw their shapes then add their own response to the question in the portion directly in front of them. Once this was done they used their very creative ways to decide how they would formulate their shared response as my twist was that they were not allowed to speak to each other. 

I observed ticks appearing to show agreement, a 1/2 mark to show some agreement, question marks to show uncertainty, crosses to show disagreement, circle joined with lines to highlight repetition, hand signals, crossing out, arrows and even signatures to denote agreed and disagreed points. Shared responses were then co-constructed alongside pats on the back, smiles and lots of thumbs up. This was an extremely powerful learning opportunity as it showed first hand why we need to be able to have our Learning Space 2 (LS2) famous learning conversations.

During our sharing time I asked for feedback on the task. One usually quiet participant told me it would have been much easier if they were allowed to use our talking frames because it would have helped him know he was using the right words to show he disagreed with some of the opinions in his group. Another student pointed out that they used the summary strategy to identify the important words, then from there, use those words to write their shared opinion. The feedback was fantastic and showed real connections had been made to why talking about our learning is so important.

Perspectives and Negotiations...

Having spent the last three weeks preparing for camp, going on camp and celebrating camp I knew I had been given a 'fresh' and informed start when thinking about my reading program. I started as I mean to go on by actively planning opportunities for talk to take place.

We began by unpacking the word perspective by exploring provocations that I knew needed a point of view to be chosen about issues linked to our current cluster wide Te Taiao o Tamaki Inquiry. This allowed my learners a chance to state their opinion and use the texts in front of them to justify their thinking. Once we had two opposing sides I physically moved my students to different sides of the table then gave them time to share their thinking with those who held a similar opinion. No one was being asked to take a personal risk that might leave them feeling vulnerable. The 'team' approach meant their was confidence in numbers and the discussion flowed as each team endeavoured to persuade the other. I knew that by seeing what a guided dialogic discussion looked like I would be able to set a task that capitalised on this learning experience.

We used a task shared by Aaron Wilson from Wolf Fisher to help us identify the three most vital ideas in a text. To get to this point my learners began by individually identifying ideas they saw as important. These were recorded on post-it notes and placed in the 'Important Ideas' column on the table we were using. The next step was to discuss each point as a group and use their negotiating skills to decide which points they would move to the 'Important Ideas' column or the 'Vital Ideas' column using the evidence in the text and their own connections to the content to support their reasoning. Apart from moving between the groups and prompting through provocation the only scaffold I provided was the word 'because'.   

 

To complete the task we shared our informed perspectives as a class. I then asked my students find a critical friend and tell them about one opinion they agreed or disagreed with when they were negotiating. Finally I asked my learners to think about their own contributions and each critical friend was asked to co-construct a next step goal that would help their buddy take a step forward along our dialogic learning pathway.

Baseline Data Analysis

To gauge my learner's perspectives on how actively involved in the lessons they feel they are I asked them to complete Matrix 4 on the Evaluation Associates 'Student Capabilities Matrix': Promoting Further Learning. 

This paints an interesting picture as I have been able to see that all 5 students see their timing as being at the early stages as far as seeking feedback is concerned, but are spread across the matrix when thinking about when they implement feedback. When considering student initiation and involvement, 3/5 students identify as sometimes initiating or leading feedback that supports current learning and identifies next learning steps. 2/5 students seek explanation in a timely manner to take their learning further, with the remainder admitting that this may or may not happen. Pleasing to see is that 3/5 students are intrinsically motivated towards learning and feel confident enough to express their next learning steps.

I chose to use this method to measure levels of discussion as I believe if my learners can seek and respond to feedback from their peers they will realise that they don't always agree with opposing perspectives. Tapping into this is how I see the language of arguing developing in LS2. As motivation in the main is intrinsic, I am hopeful that personal connections to texts will become stronger as our learning journey evolves in a scaffolded and safe environment. My hunch is that if I actively plan opportunities for my learners to practise stating and justifying opinions in guided reading sessions, they will realise it is ok to see something through different eyes and will become confident dialogic learners who know when and how to share their own perspectives when working independently.

Room 9's Journey to become Dialogic Learners

Yvette and Kapri created this movie to show Room 9's journey to become dialogic learners. It highlights our 'learn-create-share' process in Reading.

Proud Teacher

An example of where my intervention is taking my students:

The feedback below shows an example of how dialogic interaction between learners helps encourage justification of responses. I am so proud of my students as this level of thinking is completely independent of any teacher input.