Professional Development Updates...

During this current Level 4 Lockdown I have taken advantage of several online professional development opportunities that were offered. Distance learning in LS2 was about doing what we could to keep our learning going, so that's exactly what I did. 

Reading for meaning - Teaching comprehension strategies: Sheena Cameron

Focus: 

• To explore what good readers do
• To unpack the levels of comprehension
• To explore the role of executive skills
• To explore the importance of talk
• To explore a variety of reading strategies

This year LS2 has been working with Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey on their poetry focus. This in itself has been a really valuable and purposeful learning experience for both myself and my students. A few weeks ago Dianne, Linda and I were invited to take part in this workshop which was an amazing opportunity as the LS2 teaching team were able to all hear a shared message about Reading. The powerful part of this learning came from the conversation we had the following day. We now have a shared understanding, shared language of instruction and a shared vision (photo below) to implement so that we can help our students make connections and gain meaning when reading, regardless of level.

My Takeaways:

• Good readers use specific strategies to gain meaning from text by searching for connections, asking questions, making inferences, identifying important ideas, synthesising/summarising information (as new information emerges opinions change when meaning is made), monitoring understanding by (rereading, reading on and looking up words), and visualising ideas in the text. They have a purpose, know why they are do something and what they will need to do with that information. Students need to be explicit about the strategy they are using when self monitoring.
• 3 levels of comprehension - literal (stated in text, can point to it), inferential (use text information and prior knowledge by thinking about the author and me when searching for hidden ideas) , evaluative (justify opinion using information from the text to analyse and think critically).
• Comprehension processes depend on what you read and your purpose for reading.
• Executive skills - working memory (keep something in mind while doing something else), cognitive flexibility (able to shift attention form one activity to another), inhibition/self control (ability to stay focused on task).
• Talk is key for understanding as it promotes listening between other ideas to consolidate understanding. Talk prompts need to be visible!
• Short punchy lessons remind students of strategies already known.
• Teach strategies in shared reading (use DATS)
• Make strategy posters visible.
• If you understand the structure of the text type and language features comprehension is stronger. Preview text structure before reading help students organise information.
• Purpose must be explicit!
• Remind students to adjust speed of reading to match text demands
• Key words are the most important words in a text.
• teach comprehension strategies with the purpose of understanding how to use and how the strategy will help support increased comprehension.

• Activities I will be introducing:
• Dot to dot connections
• Y chart predictions using images
• Use key words to retell information in a text by creating sentences with those words.
• Visual summary
• 10 word summary
• Story map
• Character inferences using props
• Picture inference
• Explain the strategy you used and how it helped you make meaning

Fractions Toolkit: Donna Yates - Link to Donna's presentation

Focus: 

• To explore the progressions for Fractions through the levels
• To explore online materials to turbocharge the learning.
• To unpack the misconceptions students have with learning Fractions. 

Donna shared some key ideas for fractions and reminded us what knowledge is required at each stage for understanding to be consolidated and connections made. From this alone I can see that for many of my learners it is the gaps in their knowledge that prevent them from making strong connections to the learning. 

My Takeaways:

• Remember to provide equipment for students to manipulate
• Students need conceptual knowledge before they can progress
• Use words to get understanding before introducing number representations
• Explain the parts of a fraction
• Emphasise use of 'ths' code using language and words before using  numbers and symbols.
• Remember not to use 'out of' - this is not a fraction!
• Links to creativity tools
• Give your create tasks a purpose eg: Make sure your DLO can teach someone new knowledge

Jamboard Toolkit:  Vicki Archer - Link to Vicki's presentation

Focus: 

• To explore the functionality of Jamboard - a collaborative whiteboard space. 
• To explore the basics and some tips and tricks to get you started.

Jamboard is a collaborative online whiteboard. It gives students lots of creative work space. It can be opened inside a Google Meet (with the link being automatically shared in the chat) or created from your Google Drive. Both options allow you to save the Jamboard in your drive. 

My Takeaways:

• Use to add visuals alongside a task explanation
• Sticky notes can be used to collate student responses
• Remember to click on the select tool to use another feature or move shapes etc.

E-Tap

Focus: 

• To walk through the features E-TAP offers as a student management tool

Qu 8: How another lockdown period may impact the learners in your focus group?

How another lockdown period may impact the learners in your focus group? 

Will you need to make any changes to your Inquiry?

How might your intervention look different if you continue through this period?

• Do any of your intervention plans work via distance learning?
• Is there any information about implementation of your changed practices/intervention you could collect during this time?

As mentioned in an earlier post Alert Level 4 has pretty much seen my 2021 teacher inquiry come to a grinding halt. I do not have the authentic opportunities a face to face learning environment provides so I have needed to adapt what I am doing to encourage my students to keep the 'talk' going in Maths. 

Building on the 'familiar' by strengthening the language and vocabulary foundations already in place was how I thought we would move forward, but this has not happened in the ways I thought it would. With only my target students in mind, Google Meet attendance is an ever changing picture, making it quite challenging to get a whole group snapshot of where these students are at now. I have tried a variety of ways to try and organise a whole group Meet, but this hasn't panned out, with low level engagement being the barrier for two of these students.

Adapt and Try #5 asked my learners to write 3 maths questions linked to the topic of online gaming each using a different skill (eg: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, decimals, algebra…). Solve them incorrectly, then share the questions with a friend and challenge them to find, explain and fix the error.

The examples in the DLO show varied levels of understanding and I can see that these students are falling back on the known in their choice of number operation. Follow up conversations identified that these students chose to buddy up and collaborate for each part of this task, so my original idea did not work. Unfortunately, hindsight tells me that the real and rich conversations that took place were not captured. However in saying this, the interactions that evolved from my feedback in the comments tool showed me the depth of the thinking behind the co-construction of these responses.

Keeping the talk going in a distance learning environment is really challenging. This is an inquiry focus that is definitely best suited to a face to face environment. From the tasks I have set over the last few weeks I can see that 50% my target students are able to use maths language effectively to explain their thinking, 25% understand what it is they need to do but have not yet developed the vocabulary and language to allow them to do this, and 25% did not engage in this task. 

What has worked over the last few weeks, is that all my target group have engaged in the 'skill drill' type activities we have set. I have no idea why the buy-in for this type of learning is so high, but I'm taking this as a win. These students may not be physically talking about the strategies they are using, but they are using this time to strengthen their connections to the number knowledge foundations they need to have in place before connections to new learning can be built.

Being back in a face to face environment isn't going to automatically make my inquiry a success. I need to continue to reflect on my teaching and explore ways I can adapt and change my practice if I want to effect change and keep the 'talk' going in maths.

Distance learning: The dilemma of keeping our Year 7/8 learners engaged...

One of the most challenging aspects of Distance Learning is keeping out tamariki engaged. Having experienced lockdowns previously with a shared class, Dianne and I know the importance of having systems in place that have been revisited regularly so that should another lockdown occur, everyone in our class knows what it is they need to do to keep their learning going from home. Our students know to check their email every morning and know to look at the Distance Learning page on our class site to access their work. We have practised signing into and participating in a Google Meet, and know that all our students are able to do this.

Each day we were asking our learners to join in a Google Meet to make sure they stay connected with us, and with their classmates. Unlike previous lockdowns, this one seems to be the hardest to keep our learners engaged. Initially, a large number of our students saw the break from the classroom as a bonus holiday, which meant we had just over half the class taking part. During our time at Level 4 we have made a number of changes that have helped us to establish connections with a much larger number of our students, however each day who we are connecting with has become an ever changing picture.

Some students have attended every Google Meet and have completed all work set, some have opted in and out of the Google Meets but have continued to share completed work, whilst others have attended no Google Meets but regularly share completed work. On the other side of the coin there are those who have not been able to establish an online learning routine. These are the students who have attended one or two Google Meets but have completed none of the work set. In reality for some of our learners participating in a Google Meet is a step too far out of their comfort zone. What I have appreciated is getting one or two emails from our learners who find many aspects of learning a challenge in class. For many of these students online engagement has been a struggle, but they want to say hi and let us know they're ok. Finally, we have the students who appear to have completely dropped off our radar. The students who have not responded to any emails, participated in any Google Meets or completed any work.

This is not a time time for us to judge or put pressure on anyone. In reality we do not know or understand what their home situation looks like. There are many other factors that contribute here but the main one for all of us being that lockdowns are challenging and that it is incredibly hard to stay motivated. 

What we did...

Google Meets: 

• We changed from whole class meetings everyday, with Fridays set aside for Tech, to whole class meetings only on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are now opt in meetings for anyone who would like to ask questions, have something explained in more detail or simply just say hi, and Fridays remain set aside for Tech. By doing this we noticed that some students sign in every day, some on Mondays and Wednesdays and others only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We are not only reaching a wider range of students by doing this but also finding that the amount of work completed has increased significantly.

Student Voice: 

• One of the most powerful tools we have is the ability to listen. Our students simply do not see working from home as an opportunity to continue doing the work we do at school. I have seen many posts on social media from other teachers sharing how their learners simply adapt, but in our case ours don't, so we have needed to be really creative. We asked our learners what topics they would like us to cover and made our purpose for learning fit those themes. For us this has meant saying goodbye to our term focus of Hauora and hello to Anime/Manga, Online Gaming, Events in History and Famous People. By doing this we have been able to keep our learning going by keeping learner engagement in place. 

• The one that stands out the most to me is our theme from last week of 'Online Gaming'. Not playing the games (we had disclaimers in place on the very first teaching slide), but instead creating characters, graphing character emotions, justifying reasoning, writing character descriptions, describing settings, exploring vocabulary and using these words to summarise main ideas, writing paragraphs, creating and solving theme based written maths questions, taking a deep dive into coordinates in maths, reading maps, exploring direction and most of all having fun. The engagement and effort that went into the detail in the tasks completed was amazing, with a high percentage of our students completing all the work that was set. 

• Our students prefer tasks where the finish line is in sight and can be completed in any order. We very quickly adapted to this style of learning and find that the elements of choice we provide keeps more people motivated. It is a real challenge to cater for the huge variety of learning styles during distance learning, so developing learning challenges where students have the option to choose to collaborate, or complete independently, has been one of the keys to our success in helping our learners keep their learning going from home.

Purpose:

• Having a real purpose behind the learning has been one of the important messages we have shared with our students. As with anything you do, knowing why you're doing it, is what motivates you to participate actively. 

Feedback: 

• Dianne and I have made a point of giving feedback on every piece of work that has been shared with us. The comments tool in G Suite has allowed us to give affirmations and identify where tweaks (or if needed, specific guidance) can be made to increase the detail and accuracy of responses. This has proven to be a really valuable way to connect with our students on an individual level as the protocol in our class is to reply to any comment received. They can see by acknowledging their work we are valuing the efforts they are putting in.

• Linda (our amazing TA) is a highly valued member of our LS2 distance learning journey team. She actively takes part in all our Google Meets and comments on every blog post. By doing this Linda has not only maintained the extremely important connections she makes in class every day, but has used her online presence to provide our class with an authentic online audience.

As I said at the start of this post, this lockdown seems so much harder than previous ones to firstly capture, and secondly keep, our students engaged online. Our purpose in general has been to keep our learning going from home. Many of our students have been able to do this, but for some, the face to face learning opportunities that come with a move to Alert Level 2 will be their time to revisit and strengthen the connections they had made to their learning before Alert Level 4 restrictions were announced. It will once again be our time to tweak, change and adapt our program again to make sure we all end our 2021 learning journey positively with everyone having found an opportunity to celebrate the learning successes they have had this year.