Digital Fluency Intensive... Day # 1

Learn, create share is the pedagogy we follow as part of the Manaiakalani cluster so it is important that as teachers we not only model this process, but also remember to give our learners time to share their work.

Link to doc

The infographic (our skills challenge to make using only a google doc) above reflects the takeaways from todays session that I will be taking back and ensuring my learners are able to use. In addition to this I will be using these words when we open new documents in G Suite. "Locate your folder - open a new doc/presentation etc - write your name followed by the learning title." Starting a new doc in folder helps to ensure all work is shared with the teacher. If Chrome and Drive are to be effective they need to be set up well.

• Comments tool/Assign to: A great tool for encouraging student led reading comprehension by assigning questions and responding to assigned questions.
• Voice Typing: A great tool to help learners of all ability levels. 
• Scavenger Hunt: A fun way to practise skills.
• Explore Tool: Enables web, image and drive access within Google docs.
• Table of Contents: Provides visual links to headings and subtitles in a doc.
• Overview: Save page 'real estate' by adding links to headings and subtitles on the side of the doc.
• Shortcuts: Time savers... command + shift + B (opens bookmarks bar), command + shift + T (opens a new tab), command + Z (adds a doc to your Drive without making a copy), command + shift + v (pastes without formatting). Command for Mac/Control for Chromebooks

My teacher takeaway from today is the zoom feature. Being able to enlarge the words or images I want my learners to focus on while I'm talking to them will be so much more effective than asking them to focus on the cursor. The pathway to unlock this feature is:

System preferences - Accessibility - Zoom (my settings look like this...)

DFI Cohort 2 2019

Update:

Today (4/6/19) I challenged my students to create their DLOs using only Google Docs. I noticed that my instructions were a lot more detailed and specific following my day at DFI. It was interesting that this challenge was met with 'Why can't we just use Google Draw?'.... I explained that I wanted to introduce them to the explore tool so we set about creating our DLOs following the same set of challenges that we had at our DFI session. This was a huge success with one group choosing to use the draw tool to create their images, and several powerful conversations taking place as to which definition best suited the purpose of the task. What I noticed most about my instruction was that it was explicit and I was able to problem solve quickly which meant that momentum was not lost. 

The image below was my instructional exemplar that was created so that I could model how to use the explore tool. 

 

Here are a few examples of our completed DLOs:

Our next challenge was to use the voice to text tool to write our information reports. I set this as the challenge component of our collaborative writing task and judging by the feedback was very well received due to the novelty factor, as well as how it helped my learners notice where punctation was needed. Mele and Marieta's example below reflects what we did in this lesson. Click here for the link to Mele's blog post. 

I also used this tool with my phonics group so they could dictate their sentences, taking away the hard part and allowing them to show their real understanding of the learning.

Unpacking Tapasa #1

Last night our staff worked with Jeremiah Tauti to unpack the aims of the Tapasa Cultural Competencies Framework. Unpacking a document together means we gain a shared understanding as we implement the best practise suggestions. Enhancing teacher perspectives so that students of all cultures feel recognised and valued in their learning environment will help us to avoid the cultural dissonance many Pasifika students may have experienced, regardless of where they are in their learning journey. Strengthening connections with families through Talanoa will help us to be culturally responsive practitioners.

Link to the online version here

Our homework is to reflect on our own understandings of the following questions

1. How does your classroom reflect your student body?
2. How do you involve family?
3. How do you create space for difficult conversations about current events and culture?
4 . How do you help students develop a positive cultural identity?
5. Where are the gaps in my knowledge and practise in terms of cultural responsiveness?

Collaborating and Creating...

This week are capitalising on the power being able to 'create' can bring to our learning. For the last few weeks I have used my guided reading sessions to help my groups strengthen their connections to our inquiry focus of Space. To do this we have explored new vocabulary in context, identified the main ideas in the text, summarised the key points, searched for information, made connections between ourselves, other texts and the wider world, formed opinions and made evaluations. In addition to this I encouraged my more able learners to participate in dialogic learning conversations to help move their understanding to the next level. All strategies that are embedded into our reading program and help us make sense of new learning.

What excited me were the connections made during our visit to the Stardome. The conversations around the displays were rich, and the curiosities sparked during our reading time, explored further through the many rich questions that were asked of the experts. Luckily for us the Stardome educators were very happy to engage in these conversations over and over again, especially the ones that took place around the display of Yuri Gargarin parachuting onto the farmland. 

When I saw how much knowledge and content vocabulary my students were recalling and using without any prompting from me, I saw an opportunity to build on this further by providing an equally rich platform of opportunity to create DLOs that would enable them to share their new knowledge in an authentic way. So with that in mind, our literacy sessions this week are affording us the time to do this. 

We began today by recalling facts, skimming and scanning to find the information in our texts that supported our opinions, planning our storyboards (most groups have chosen to create an animation or an explainer movie), collaboratively writing scripts and purposefully using the content vocabulary needed to make connections to the learning in our inquiry lessons. The best part... every student was focused, engaged and on task! I can't wait to see the finished products.

Update: Here is an example of one of our finished DLOs...

Link to Sakina's blog post

Accessing our Across School COL Teachers...

This week my class and I have welcomed both Nicola Wells and Donna Ryan, two of our Manaiakalani Across School COL teachers, into our learning space. 

Last term Nicola helped me to plan my science unit and not only shared her expertise, but also offered to come in and take a group of students through an experiment. The group of students working with Nicola were not only excited to take part in her lesson, but were also able to transfer their newly learnt knowledge and vocabulary to their inquiry sessions later in the week. 

Today Donna and I had a professional catch up. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to get her feedback about how I was supporting my high needs learners. She helped me to adapt my phonics program so that it is age appropriate for my year 7/8 students. Phonics is something my high needs learners need, but as they are eleven and twelve, using junior based resources is not the best choice to make. My teacher aid and I had already added our own twist to these lessons, and as we both had the opportunity to speak with Donna, have been able to build onto this. The best piece of feedback I got today was that our inclusive learning environment meant identifying these students was not something Donna was able to do immediately. 

I am now looking forward to seeing my learners work through the stages of carrying out a science investigation with Nicola, and to implementing the suggestions Donna made to help us meet the individual learning needs in our phonics program. A huge thank you to both Nicola and Donna for their professional support.

WFRC #8: For each of your hypotheses, explain how you will test it and what evidence would support (or refute) that hypothesis...

Hypothesis 1:

Am I accessing my whole teaching kete or just using the recently added ideas and strategies nearest the top?

Creating a table to explore which strategies I used last term, am currently using, and have planned to use this term will challenge me to see if I am tapping into a wide range of strategies or if I’m relying on a small number of tried and tested go-to’s. To measure this I will need to repeat the process at the end of this term when I am planning for Term 3 and again when I am planning for Term 4.

Hypothesis 2/Hypothesis 4/Hypothesis 5:

• Is my instruction really explicit or do I just think it is?
• Is my expectation of my students high enough or am I scaffolding my students too much?
• Am I helping my students to see the connections how the strategies we use to make meaning in reading can be used to make meaning in maths and writing?

To measure these hypotheses I will use our school observation process. A pre-observation focus conversation is held to discuss what focus the observer should be looking for in the teaching and learning, this is linked explicitly to our inquiry. Then an observation is undertaken with notes being made about the explicit acts of teaching being observed. The students were then interviewed and asked questions linked to the focus and the learning and how the teacher had ‘helped’ them in the session. This is followed up with a collegial conversation about the teaching and learning, why particular strategies were used, and what the intended outcome for students would be following on from this. Also, what next steps could be implemented, and how the school could support this. Kiri’s suggestion following on from observation one is that next time we video the session to strengthen our opportunities to focus and notice, on teaching strategies used. 

This will give me multiple data points as our observation timetable means we are observed once a term.


Hypothesis 3:
What am I doing to grow my student’s self efficacy?

This will continue to be measured at the end of each term when I capture student voice through our term evaluations. My blog previous blog post reflects the term 1 data that will allow for comparisons to be made as the year progresses.

WFRC #7: Explain the hypotheses about teaching that you decided were MOST worth testing, and why...

“Effective teachers inquire into the relationship between what they do and what happens for students (outcomes). But effective teachers do more than simply inquire (or reflect) – they take action to improve the outcomes for students and continue to inquire into the value of these interventions.” (Aitken, 2010) If I am to effect change, I need to not only listen to feedback suggestions from my learners, observations and research findings, but need to also act upon them.

Hypothesis 1:

Am I accessing my whole teaching kete or just using the recently added ideas and strategies nearest the top?
I have taken part in a wealth of professional development that has allowed me to continually adapt and evolve my teaching practice. However, what I think I’m doing is overlooking the power of some of this learning. I need to look closely at the ideas and strategies that are embedded in my instruction and make sure I’m not relying on‘same-same’.

Hypothesis 2:

Is my instruction really explicit or do I just think it is?

This is a difficult idea to explore alone as you see and hear what you want to so will definitely be something I need to tap into the power the eyes of a ‘critical friend’ can bring. If I want an honest picture I need to make sure that when I’m being observed by my critical friend, (our Deputy Principal, Kiri Kirkpatrick), I am working with my target group, and not a group I know will paint the ‘right’ picture.

Hypothesis 3:

What am I doing to grow my student’s self efficacy?

I asked my students for honest reflections via google form in our end of term evaluation. From this I can see I need to make sure we celebrate the small successes often.

Hypothesis 4:

Is my expectation of my students high enough or am I scaffolding my students too much?

This is going to be really challenging. My target group are all students who have the learned behaviour of relying on others (teacher, teacher aid, peers) to support their learning rather than taking the risks that might not bring success. To try and build independence I have created many scaffolding frameworks, but even though I know I need to reduce the amount of scaffolding I am always worried that if I take these away too early I might impact negatively of their self efficacy.

Hypothesis 5:

Am I helping my students to see the connections how the strategies we use to make meaning in reading can be used to make meaning in maths and writing?

I know from conversations that all of my students see reading as a separate entity to maths and writing. If I want my students to see that the strategies we are developing and strengthening to help us make meaning in reading are the same skills that we use to make meaning in other curriculum areas I need to first make these links in my planning so that I remember to model this in my guided teaching. An example of this happened this week. We were using skimming and scanning skills to find information quickly and to check we had the right information in our guided reading session. To help them see how this could be used in maths I asked them to use their skimming and scanning skills
to find the maths in a written maths question.

WFRC #6: Describe your process for developing hypotheses...

When developing the hunch for my inquiry that some issues with my students’ math achievement could be related to issues they have with reading instructions and tasks, I reflected on their achievement data and the learning behaviours I observed. Explained in this post. After our last COL meeting we were challenged by Dr Aaron Wilson to think about the patterns in our teaching that could be changed to more effectively address the student learning focus. It’s quite challenging to take a forensic look at yourself but if I am going to help my students find success as a result of my inquiry, I need to reflect on my own planning and practice to ensure my students have the opportunities they need to confidently and independently dive deeply into their learning.

Talking to colleagues, listening to my students, following blogs, participating in professional development, making time for professional reading and observing others help me to ensure my teaching is continually evolving. One idea identified by Woolf Fisher’s research into our teaching inquiries is that new knowledge is needed in an area to effect change. This was the statement that helped me to think about where and how I could make changes in my own teaching practice because if I am to effect change, I need to not only listen to feedback suggestions from observations and research findings, but need to also act upon them.

Professional Reading:

Learning to Learn in a Second Language - Pauline Gibbons

Scaffolding Language Scaffolding Learning - Pauline Gibbons

Reading: The Four Resource Model Freebody and Luke (1990) - Literacy practises in subject areas

Teaching Reading Comprehension (2nd edition) - Alison Davis

Building Comprehension Strategies - Alison Davis

Effective Teaching: What’s happening in my Child’s Classroom

https://www.ero.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Effective-Teaching.pdf

10 Effective Ways of Improving Reading Comprehension in your Learners

https://www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/10-ways-improving-reading-comprehension

Why Reading Comprehension in the Content Areas is so Important

https://schoolleadership20.com/forum/topics/why-reading-comprehension-in-the-content-areas-is-so-important-by

What research tells us about Reading, Comprehension and Comprehension Instruction

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-research-tells-us-about-reading-comprehension-and-comprehension-instruction

Conversations:
Kiri Kirkpatrick
Donna Ryan