At Panmure Bridge School we decided as a school and before our students returned in February, that our initial inquiry focus would centre around student engagement by establishing foundations to go forward with formal learning. To support this at a school wide level we have started with syndicate discussions using the questions the COL teachers discussed at our first meeting.
This will then followed up with a blog post that encourages everyone to think about what it is they have been doing to engage their students and keep them engaged in class and online. We learn best we we learn from each other and in our current situation, this will be such a powerful resource to have at the end of the term because each and everyone of us is constantly changing and adapting what we are doing in our rooms.
Thinking ahead to Term 2 we will be using our data to form the basis of our individual teacher inquiries. As a school we will have an overarching focus on Reading, but at teacher and class level this picture will look quite different. Having an idea of the way forward allows teachers to start thinking about the direction they will take. As always having an overarching focus allows for the conversations to flow as we bounce ideas off one another.
Kia ora Robyn
ReplyDeleteLike you, I am especially interested in learner engagement, not only because it is such an important focus to have with ongoing Covid associated disruptions, but also in relation to our many reading challenges. As you so rightly point out Robyn, engagement is a foundational element to any learning and a crucial place to start any collective planning for success. With my reading hat on, what’s been on top for me recently in relation to engagement and reading is:
- How do/could we systematically inquire into learners’ reading dispositions and interests? I include here their self-beliefs,genre preferences and recreational reading profiles (which would have to of course, include access to books). I am also interested in what we do with this data, individually, collectively and even between year levels? How do we track this over time? Would it be worthwhile to do, if it isn’t more deliberately tracked? Of course, motivation is intrinsically related to engagement, so perhaps knowing more informatively how successful we are at cultivating and nurturing reading motivation, could also pay real (better?) dividends; ones that include reading achievement outcomes?
- Relatedly, I am also wondering how we can better involve whānau/aiga in the above? A colleague of mine recently shared an inspirational story about a learner whose family acted on dispositional information and between the teacher and dad, a young man who was not a reader transformed into a passionate one!
I wholeheartedly agree with you that following up with blog posts “that encourages everyone to think about what it is they have been doing to engage their students” is, as you say, a “powerful resource” to keep up with the changing landscape of our classrooms. I would be particularly interested in following up on any of the ways you found engagement to be fostered through motivation including reader interests, dispositions and home-school collaborations.
Thanks, as always, for sharing (and inspiring) through your thinking and mahi!
Nga mihi nui
Naomi