Exploring Qualitative and Quantitative Data...

Each slide below contains the comparative data gathered from time point 1 and time point 2. Underneath the graphs I have analysed the shifts in more detail. It is important to note here that I have only analysed the data gathered from the 15 students in my literacy group that present both data collection times.

 

What I noticed as a result of my intervention was that once the knowledge of simple rules and/or conventions of spelling was in place, the challenge element was lost. If I wanted the momentum to continue I quickly realised I needed to adapt and change my thinking and my approaches.

As mentioned in my previous post, the fear of spelling a word wrong or choosing a simpler word seemed to have been left behind as the desire to use the words was more powerful. The learning became about the words and not the hurdles that prevent them from being used. The more I used these words, the more my students used them. Being confident to use and apply more sophisticated vocabulary in context accurately became the norm. My expectations were clear and I noticed that as my student's confidence grew the higher my expectations became. The exciting part was the students took ownership of this challenge and regularly helped each other find the words to use to shift responses to the next level. Student created and driven tally charts evolved as a way of monitoring that everyone had used their word twice, with the others in their group prompting those who had not met daily challenge. 

An interesting observation with the word gifting strategy was when I physically gave my students a piece of paper with their word on it, the ownership and connection to that words was much stronger than when we used a randomiser wheel to select our words. I feel this was because the words on paper could be physically touched, seen and used. Making the gifted words digital made them more abstract. Maybe this was a step too far too quickly, as looking back we overlooked the consolidation step. 

Student voice gathered at both TP1 and TP2 and collated in the DLO above, allows for a comparison of student voice and attitudes towards spelling. To collect this data we used a Google Form survey to get to know our class as spellers. I have edited the original survey responses to reflect those only from my focus group who were present at both time points.

The comparison between the two timepoints (all analysed in the DLO above) shows there are some positive shifts happening in mindsets but when looking closely at how my learners see themselves I see we have a long way to go. This is possibly due to the historical belief that I can't spell it so I won't use it, ESOL obstacles and a fear of getting it wrong. This will definitely take more than a year for change to cement itself, but as we close our 2023 learning journey's deep dive into word consciousness, I feel confident we have laid some strong foundations to build on.

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

I will use this opportunity to introduce the group of students I will be working with on this inquiry this year. There are 19 students in this group of year 7/8 students (5 Year 7 girls, 3 Year 7 boys, 3 Year 8 girls and 8 Year 8 boys). When referring to the Writing and Spelling data, these students have been identified as our most able students. 

What I noticed when looking closely at their e-asTTle results was that our Year 8 students scored well in their vocabulary choices, possibly due to the increased levels of vocabulary they gained from actively participating in the Reading for Enjoyment and T-shaped literacy initiatives last year. The Year 7 students however, chose to play safe and use the words they knew how to spell. One example of this evident in a comparison of two of the Term 1 e-asTTle writing explanations on the same community facility. The Year 8 student referred to the facility as 'appealing' and 'affordable', whereas the Year 7 student explained that it was 'fun' and 'didn't cost much'. 

My next steps are to explore ways I can grow vocabulary, the knowledge of words and word meanings so that the words met on this journey are transferred from where they were found, to my learner's personal word banks. 

Timepoint 2 Testing - What the Data tells us...

When we began this inquiry both Dianne and I knew intrinsic motivation to want to read for enjoyment was something our learners wouldn't achieve on their own. We needed to develop a class culture where reading for enjoyment was seen as the norm. Influenced by the decision to build a class culture is why we chose to show student data from the whole class as selecting a target group wouldn't give us a true picture of the change. Due to absence and students transitioning in and out of our class over the year we are now sharing the data of the 26 students who were present at both timepoints.

The presentation below is an comparison of our time point 1 and time point 2 data and paints a clear picture of the shift that has occurred in attainment levels. I still believe that the last two years of disruptions to learning due to Covid and ongoing unexplained absences this year are still impacting some of our students learning opportunities, as connections made through continuity and consolidation have not been consistent.

Link to presentation

Analysis of PAT Reading data shows at TP1 27% of Year 7 students and 40% of Year 8 students were achieving at or above the norm. TP2 data shows shift in both year groups with Year 7 increasing by 46% to 73% and Year 8 increasing by 20% to 60% at or above the expected norms.

An observation both Dianne and I made during the TP2 testing was the increase in confidence across the board. The TP2 tests took longer to complete than the TP1 test, perhaps because this time responses were informed and linked to the text rather than randomly 'guessed' as we suspected happened during the TP1 testing. Probe running record results reflect a shift that aligns with the rest of our data. RFE opportunities have increased our learner's reading mileage and exposed them to a wider range of vocabulary. Current data shows at least 60% of our students in both Year 7 and Year 8 who were present at both testing timepoints are reading at or above their chronological age, with the most significant shift belonging to our Year 8 learners. When looking at the vocabulary section of the e-asTTle writing the data between the reading ages and vocabulary scores shows that 60% of our Year 7 learners have shifted from 'below' to 'at' or 'above'.

The shifts evident in the data show that there has been an increase student self efficacy and capability in Reading. However, alongside our Reading for Enjoyment focus our active participation in the T-Shaped Literacy and Extended Discussion PD have complimented and strengthened all reading opportunities in our learning space. Reading a wide variety of texts has allowed our learners to move beyond the literal by considering and discussing mood, atmosphere, characterisation, narrators and point of view. The connections to these focus areas has enriched our discussion and have enhanced all reading opportunities, both in class and when reading for enjoyment. All three interventions have given us the opportunity to help our learners strengthen their connections between the written word and their comprehension.

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

Developing an intrinsic motivation to want to read for enjoyment is not something my learners will achieve on their own. To do this successfully we need to develop a class culture where reading for enjoyment is seen as the norm. Because of this, I have chosen to show a snapshot of whole class of the student data. To select only a small group wouldn't give me a true picture of the change I hope to facilitate. The presentation below is an analysis of our time point 1 data and paints a clear picture where we are at now.

Click here to access the presentation

From this analysis I am now aware that 29% of my Year 7 students are reading at 1.5 years + below their chronological ages, and 49% students 2.5 years + reading below chronological age. Historical data shows me there are no surprises with the Year 8 data. I do believe that the last two years of disruptions to learning due to Covid is one of the main reasons these students are continuing to struggle with reading. Many of these students did not engage with online learning and for some, continued absences this year are proving to be having an impact on their learning.

When looking at the vocabulary section of the e-asTTle writing the data between the reading ages and vocab scores in Year 8 aligns. These students are not being exposed to a wider range of vocabulary as they are not engaging in reading outside of the instructional lessons in class. I am surprised at the Year 7 results as the data shows 85% of our Year 7 students are below the expected level in vocabulary.

Sometimes the starting point is harsh to look at, however looking forward, a focus on reading for enjoyment will hopefully become a catalyst in effecting the changes in these levels I hope to see.

Qu 6: How I will use the data...

Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

Time point one data (shared and analysed in this blog post) was captured through:

• Informal teacher observation
• Student voice
• Assessment (IKAN, PAT Maths, GLoSS)
• Formal observation by a colleague to identify teacher talk time vs student talk time, strategies I use, purpose for talk (teacher/student)

This year I have moved away from comparing historical data with current data as the picture painted does not relate to my inquiry question. I feel however, the methods of data collection used at time point 1 will be able to be easily replicated when I am gathering data at the end of the year and will allow me to make clear comparisons.

The comparative data I am most excited to see is the data from the formal observations as this is not subjective. It is real and will allow me to see very quickly if there have been shifts in student confidence levels, teacher/student talk time and the amount of scaffolding I am needing to provide to get the maths talk going.

Student voice comparisons will allow me to see if there has been any shifts in attitude, use of content specific vocabulary and efficacy. Assessment shifts will allow me to see if the language we use when actively participating in Talk Moves conversations is helping to make the connections to the learning needed to show that understanding is being transferred and applied independently. Finally the informal observations will show if there has been any change in participation levels.

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

My focus group are made up of a mix of Year 7 and Year 8 students. Four students I taught last year and two who are new to LS2 this year. These students are the students who prefer to sit silently in maths time. They work hard and listen carefully but all become anxious if they are asked to share their thinking during instructional teaching times. With my inquiry in mind I stepped back and watched how they interact with others when working in maths thinking groups. The information below indicates what I observed on this occasion.

• 6/6 students look at the person speaking and nod their heads in a way that looks to others like they agree with what is being shared.
• 1/6 students offered to act as scribe.
• 4/6 students turned down the opportunity to act as scribe.
• 6/6 students did not share an alternative strategy (their book work showed a variety of different strategies had in fact been used)
• 4/6 students did not volunteer to speak first during sharing time.
• 6/6 students enjoyed the group success when their group's strategy was successfully shared with the class.
• 1/6 students offered to act as spokesperson.

Student Voice

The best way to see how my students feel about contributing their ideas when working in thinking groups or commenting on a maths blog post is to gain their perspective. I used Google forms to capture this data as it allowed my learners to share their thinking with me without being influenced by the ideas of others.

Focus Group Baseline Data

Baseline Observation 

To enable me to measure time point one data with time point 2 data I took Kiri Kirkpatrick up on her offer to observe my learners and I in a guided lesson and record the talk that took place in that lesson. After the observation Kiri showed me how to analyse the amount of student talk compared to the amount of teacher talk in the lesson, so that when we repeat the process later in the year I will be able to see if my intervention has helped to change these percentages. 

For anyone wanting to replicate this, you need to listen to the audio and record the timings of who is speaking and for how long. I will unpack this further in a future blog post. Analysing the audio takes a while but gives you also gives you so much more information about your own practice that you can reflect on. For example, I noticed that I use a wide variety of deliberate acts of teaching (DATs) to scaffold the learning and help my learners strengthen their connections to the task ahead. 

I used modelling to clarify and let my learners see what they needed to do. I realise that I prompted to encourage talk and the use of the content specific vocabulary. I used questioning throughout the lesson to encourage my learners to add detail to their responses. Without realising, I heard that my feedback to affirm, inform and guide was ongoing, informal and when needed. There were several opportunities where telling and explaining was used to help clarify confusions, and I directed my learners towards the success criteria, questions stems, new content specific vocabulary and the teaching DLO slides when specific instructions were given so the purpose of the task was made clearer. I could also see that I need to allow a longer period of wait time with the students who prefer to listen rather than contribute. On two occasions I feel I stepped in too early which meant the students who were less confident with sharing actually weren't given a true opportunity to take a risk and share their thinking.

The lesson captured was an honest one. I did not do anything I don't normally do because someone was observing me because I wanted real and purposeful feedback. Additionally this group had not worked together before so confidence levels were altered. 

TAI 2020 WFRC #6: How I will use the data...

Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

By creating a Historical Data Pathway that reflects student achievement in the three main assessment areas of our cluster wide standardised testing, I have been able to form a clear picture of my target student's learning achievement for the last three years. What I found interesting here was that whilst many students have continued to progress upwards, a few seemed to peak in Year 5 but have not maintained this level. Possibly because there are disconnects between what they are being asked to do and their confidence in using their knowledge of content specific language that they bring to the challenge. The end of year data will give me the opportunity to look closely at the shifts between the two time points to see if increased opportunities to use and transfer content specific language has made an impact on student achievement. 

When I analysed the blog comments over the last 2 years I noticed that most students were not replying to comments received. I wanted to explore this further so I met with my target group on Google Meet. We had an open and honest discussion, and used this collaborative DLO to capture time point 1 student voice and establish the group's understanding of how to write a quality blog comment. I will repurpose this DLO at the end of the year to see if there have been shifts in attitude, understanding and the quality of content of their commenting skills.

TAI 2020 WFRC #4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

This year I will be working with a group of six Year 7 students. My thinking is that if I set these students up for success this year, they will be able to maintain this as they move into Year 8 next year. By choosing Year 7 students as target students, we will hopefully have an exemplar group who can, in their capacity of being our future school leaders, become role models for our younger bloggers. 

After analysing my data last term I was in the process of identifying my target students when we went into Alert Level 4 lockdown. Whilst for many reasons this has been a challenging journey, when looking only through my 'teacher as inquirer' eyes this has been an opportunity I have been able to use to my advantage. 

My intended inquiry focus this year was to find out if 'strengthening connections to Smart Relationships will help our tamariki to understand and use maths language and vocabulary in context', however with the current situation of distance learning I have decided to alter my focus to match our wider school focus, to find out if 'strengthening connections to Smart Relationships will help our tamariki to understand and use content specific language and vocabulary in context'. Basically this means I have widened my scope to capture a bigger picture of the curriculum as a whole. My reason for doing this is that my class have been blogging a wide variety of tasks linked to our distance learning. The group I have chosen to focus on are all connecting to different curriculum areas, so, as my strategy is to use our blog comments to promote dialogical discussion and strengthen learning, I need to adapt my thinking.

To establish a starting point for this inquiry I looked back through my target group's blogs. I noticed was that 6/6 students have a similar amount of blog posts, and post regularly as per the chart below. My plan was to make a similar visual representation so I looked back at the last post of each month of 2018, 2019 and 2020 (to date) as way of gathering a snapshot of data. What has opened my eyes is that only a very small number of these posts on 6/6 students blogs, have comments. Where there are comments I can see that these are being mostly generated as a result of participation in the SLJ. I do however, want to reiterate that this observation was made based solely on the last post of each month and does not include any other posts.

Student voice gathered through a google form tells me:

• 6/6 students understand how to write a quality blog comment but have not yet made the connections to the purpose of receiving a quality blog comment. 
• 6/6 students do not make time in their own time to read blog comments
• 6/6 students reply when given class time and prompted by a teacher.
• 6/6 students (prior to lockdown) most often reply with 'Thank you for commenting on my post.'
• 6/6 students (during lockdown) are replying by responding to the questions asked in a comment when prompted by me in our online meetings.
• 2/6 students (during lockdown) are replying by responding to the questions asked in a comment independently.
• 4/6 students understand what is needed in a quality blog post.
• 2/6 students are still at the stage of writing 'Here is my DLO of....' or 'Today we had to...'.
• 6/6 students replied 'I forget' when asked why comments are often overlooked.

Evidence gathered from a baseline task:

• To enable me to measure time point one data with time point 2 data I set a task that required my learners (whole class) to write a blog post that would share the information found in the Manaiakalani Quality Blog Commenting poster. I will give them the same task at the end of the year to allow me to make comparisons. To make it authentic I got creative in a Google Draw as this gave me the added opportunity to leave a visible feedback/feed forward trail in the comments section. 

• 3/6 students included a learning intention.
• 2/6 students used an explanation structure with three paragraphs to express their understanding and elaborate with little or no punctuation errors.
• 1/6 students wrote 'This DLO explains what a quality blog comment is. Read it for yourself to understand how to do this.'
• 3/6 students wrote a paragraph to describe the contents of the poster but did not elaborate. 
• 6/6 students used the content specific vocabulary found within the poster.

The evidence I have gained so far tells me that I need to revisit how to write a quality blog comment and how to write a quality blog post. In addition I need to make this visible in my classroom and embed time to do this in our timetable to ensure my learners are able to apply this knowledge in context. We need to be able to walk the walk not simply talk the talk.

Term 2 evidence and data update (links to WRFC #1,2 and 5)...

In Term 1 I collected the data and evidence I needed to give me my baseline data that reflected both academic achievement and self efficacy levels. At the end of Term 2 I carried out a similar process with my reading and maths data which met the requirements of our school-wide standardised testing cycle. This data collection gave me an insight to the data shifts (or not) in reading ages and maths strategy use. As we do not test strategy levels in Term 1 I used the historical data gathered in Term 4, 2018.

Link to Google Draw

This paints a very positive picture in both learning areas. When looking at reading ages I can see that 3/5 of my Year 8 students have made shift. 2/5 show a shift of 6 months which aligns with time at school this year and 1/5 has made a 12 month shift. 2/5 remained at the same level. Student G1 panics during any assessment situation and tends to overthink her responses which leads to disconnects, and B3 has a pattern of irregular attendance which results in disconnects that affect his confidence in his own ability. 

When looking at the Year 7 data I am really excited as 3/4 students are showing shift, with 1 student moving off the colour wheel and onto the Probe tests. The really exciting part was she asked me if she could do the same test as her friends, so we tried, and it was a success! Our discussion after was a celebration of the strategies she knew how to use to make sense of the story without looking at any pictures. This was such a boost to her self efficacy as she now sees herself as just like everyone else and not someone who needs help. In reality she still needs teacher or teacher aid support but she is now much more willing to embrace and try new learning. 1/5 show a shift of 6 months which aligns with time at school this year and 1/5 has made a 12 month shift. Ironically the student with the 12 month shift tells me on a regular basis 'reading is not her thing' but she is also the student who in our term evaluation, identified as reading at home.

When looking at the collective maths data 8/9 students have made shift with 1/9 remaining at the same strategy stage they were at in 2018. This student also has an irregular attendance pattern and is often late, meaning his disconnects to the learning are increasing. 

Link to Google Draw

Why is there shift in these two snapshots of data? Possibly because I know I'm paying more attention to asking my learners during our maths and reading lessons to tell me 'how they know', 'where they found' or 'how they got their answers'. I encourage the use of content vocabulary and make a point of identifying the comprehension strategies that could be used. In both learning areas my learners know they need to be prepared to show me the evidence they used to support their thinking. My focus students tend to shy away from sharing their thinking in front of others so I move around the room asking them in a 1:1 situation. Collaboration and talk, or learning conversations as we call them, continue to play a huge part in all learning situations as it provides the scaffold that these students need to help them continue to take risks.

Link to Google Draw

When I look at my previous summary of what I notice during learning time I can see that many of my initial observations have become my current observations. There are however a few significant changes. Conversation levels are now much louder as a much higher percentage of students are actively engaging in the conversations and only two of my focus group fall back on the known coping strategy of waiting for reassurance before beginning work when the learning is new. My next step is to analyse the similarities and differences between the time 1/time 2 self efficacy responses. At a quick glance I can see that responses in the Term 2 evaluation are more detailed and specific than Term 1's responses. What is interesting is that my class are given free rein when it comes to telling me what they feel they have improved in, and I can see that in both terms maths and reading remain in the forefront. 

WFRC #5: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

After this term's assessment week I created a blog post that reflected both current data and this group's historical learning pathways.

Following on from this I asked all my learners to complete our LS2 T1 evaluation questionnaire. Gathering student voice is something I feel is really important as it gives you a clear picture from your learners perspective alongside giving your students ownership of their learning. I have bullet pointed the responses from my target group that will help guide my hunch that some issues with my students’ math achievement are related to issues they have with reading instructions and tasks. (Two students were absent so I will update the information when I have their responses).

Link to Google Draw

Link to Google Draw

What is interesting here is only 1/7 students felt they had improved in maths. When I reflect back on our learning this term I know I have identified individual successes in all three curriculum areas in my feedback (both written and oral) to these students. What I now realise is that I only tapped into the power of peer led feedback in literacy. This is definitely something I need to embed into our maths lessons too. Could this is why most of this group do not see maths as an area they achieved success in?

Another piece of evidence that affirms my hunch was observed during a guided maths lesson. I asked my target students if we could we use the language and strategies we learn in reading and writing, in maths. 9/9 students saw reading as what we do during reading time, writing as what we do during writing time and maths as what we do during maths time. I needed them to understand that what we learn in one subject can be used to help us in another, so I used a maths problem solving exercise to help them see how this works.

As a collective group we were able to rise to the challenge of reading and interpreting the language of instruction and translating the word problem into a number problem. However, when I asked them to try another question independently this was not something they could do. Seeing this in a negative light would have been detrimental to the self efficacy that I had been trying to build, so I encouraged them to work collaboratively. Independently 8/9 students did not demonstrate resilience when faced with a challenge, but when able to have the learning conversations that come with working collaboratively, no one gave up. Some students were more active participants but no one disengaged. I now also realise that I need to help this group develop confidence when applying learning independently.

Punctuation Questionnaire

The MIT group devised this questionnaire to see where our class was at with their own understanding of punctuation. They sat with each student to support them with their responses. This decision was made after a group discussion revealed that maybe not everyone would feel confident answering questions if it wasn't explained properly. The group wanted this to be seen as an anonymous questionnaire so they created it on my devise and only I could see who has sent the responses. I printed this out (minus the names) and gave it to them to collate the data.

Our decision: We need to add DLO's that support and scaffold the learning to our rubric so that everyone can access and use it.