WFRC #12

Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices or intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these...

Explain the reflections and tweaks you have made along the way and the reasons why you made these changes. Share your evidence for these decisions...

Previous posts that link to this question and describe the some of the tweaks in my practice can be found here:

• Critical Friend Observations
• Current Events with a Difference
• Spring into Maths Reflection
• Phonics with Y7/8

What do my learners think?

Often when I ask my students a question about their learning or my teaching they will try their best to give me the answer they think I want to hear. This often involves wanting to do well or learning something so they can go to university, especially when asked about the purpose of the lesson. This is despite me having unpacked and continuing to unpack learning intentions on a regular basis. To see if their responses would differ if asked by someone else I asked Donna Ryan to ask my inquiry group the same questions I ask at the end of each term. Donna is well known to my class so my learners were confident and happy when talking to her about their learning. Student G4 was away overseas for the last three weeks of Term 3 so has been excluded from this snapshot to keep the data clean.

                           

Link to Spreadsheet

What the data linked to my inquiry shows:

• 7/7 students enjoyed being in LS2 this term.
• 1/7 identified Maths as being their favourite learning area at both time points
• 3/7 identified Maths as being their favourite learning area when talking to Donna
• 1/7 responses to what they liked about Reading aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses aligned with the learning focus at the time. 
• 1/7 responses to what they needed help with in Reading aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses were detailed and specific so as a result I have been able to adapt my current term planning to address these needs.
• 2/7 responses to what they liked about Maths aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses aligned with the learning focus at the time. I can also see from this data that the Spring Into Maths programme is popular. This is good to know as student buy-in is vital to the success of the intervention.
• 2/7 responses to what they needed help with in Maths aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses reflected the common thread of times tables, larger numbers, strategies and fractions. What is needed now is more opportunities to practise the learning in a variety of contexts. Recalling quick responses is addressed through maths games.
• 5/7 responses reflect they feel they have improved in Maths and/or Reading at both time points. A possible reason for this is that we have celebrated successes throughout the year so my learners know when and how they have achieved the learning intentions.

What does this tell me?

The responses show that the student perceived successes and gaps in learning are quite specific (although at times link to the current area of focus at the time the questions were asked). That tells me that connections have been made, and learning intentions and lesson purposes have been unpacked successfully. I will be adapting my planning to meet the 'gaps' as that will show my learners that I value their opinions. I can see what learning they like as well. This is a bonus as I now have a toolkit of learning that resonates with these students. I will feed the gaps into the Spring into Maths and Phonics sessions so that they will have the opportunity to experience the learning in guided teaching time with me and during intervention time with Linda. 

Important to note:

Our end of term evaluation is given to the whole class and is much more detailed than the responses I have analysed below. I use the student voice to inform my planning and welcome the opportunities to make adaptations that will help meet the specific learning needs of my students across all curriculum areas. A section I always include in our end of term evaluations but have not shared as I need to respect privacy, is the sentence starter... 'I want Mrs Anderson to know...' This is very powerful as it allows me an insight to changes in friendship circles and home environments etc. Often something our older students tend to keep close to their chests but can definitely help to explain changes in work habits, connections to learning and behaviour. Mind you it is not all doom and gloom. My students also use this section to share successes and milestones, or thank me for specific help I have given them during the term.

Critical Friend Observations...

When carrying out an inquiry into your own teaching practice it is really helpful to have a critical friend who can see your practice from a different perspective. Their feedback and feed forward helps you to adapt your practice to continue to meet the learning needs of the students in your classroom. As I mentioned in a previous post, for me this person is Donna Ryan. I know what I think I do/say when I am teaching, but having Donna observe me taking a phonics session, and record exactly what she saw me do, was a valuable learning opportunity.

This is what I did/said to help my learners make the connections they needed to make sense of the learning:

• Recap learning from last session
• Check in to see if understanding is in place
• Co-construct the learning intention (LI) and goals for the lesson
• Asked the students "What do you need to do today to achieve this?"
• Gave students control of the learning by giving them the opportunity to choose the follow up activity
• Asked "Why are we doing this?" to recap on the purpose of the learning
• Reinforced the focus/goal as a reminder
• Modelled the learning
• Guided/scaffolded students towards next step
• Checked in to make sure understanding was in place
• Identified where they had met the LI
• Reaffirmed "I like the way you have used the commas correctly, we learnt that yesterday and this shows me you were listening carefully"
• Asked "Can you remind me what we were focussing on today?"

From this I can see that I share control of the learning with my students, continually check that connections are being made, scaffold through questioning and teacher modelling, and reaffirm to ensure self efficacy and confidence continues to grow.

WFRC #10 and #11...

WFRC #10: Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

WFRC #11: Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way

When I began this inquiry my initial question was whether increased emphasis on reading comprehension instruction can lead to better subject achievement in reading, maths and writing. After talking my inquiry through with Fiona Grant last week I realised that I had already narrowed this from 'increased emphasis on reading comprehension instruction' to 'increased emphasis on the reading comprehension strategy of inference'. We all need an overarching umbrella question to guide our inquiries whilst giving us room to veer off and explore, but I now realise I had an overarching marquee! My question was too broad and without refining would have meant valuable stones were left unturned.

Why had I made this change?'

Firstly the data that identified the gaps in comprehension across my focus group, reflected none of them were able to respond accurately to questions that were asking them to infer. Secondly, my reading and conversations with colleagues identified that often it is the inferential component in a written maths question that causes the disconnects. Finally, it was the fact I took the time to step back to watch and listen to the interactions taking place during learning time that helped me realise which direction I needed to go in.

I have been collecting data at the end of each term linked to self efficacy and Probe running records and in-class maths assessments (both formal and informal). After listening to the advice from Hana and Aaron (WFRC) at the last CoL meeting I have looked at how I can use the ARBs in both reading and maths, to monitor the connections that have been made to inference on a more regular basis. Whilst I had been monitoring this informally, I hadn't been recording this data.

What am I doing differently in class?

• Consciously using think alouds to model explicit use of content language and/or the strategy I am teaching in all subject areas.
• Seek and embrace feedback and suggestions from expert colleagues.
• Use discussion and follow up tasks to give my learners the opportunity to use and apply the vocabulary and strategies in context.
• Provide recorded models so my learners can make visual connections to the learning
• Have implemented an oral language/phonics programme that has an inferential component, aimed at Y7/8 students with the support of Donna Ryan.
• Make time to listen to and implement student feedback

How will I record this?

• Use the phonics recording sheets, observations and the ARBs to have a more up to date, and ongoing record of micro-shifts that can inform my planning rather than waiting for end of term data.
• Use video footage to capture my dialogue and record it.
• Use a Google Form to ask my learners which words or strategies I use that help them connect to the learning.
• Continue to capture and reflect on the end of term self efficacy and achievement data.

Critical friends are awesome!...

Last term I videoed myself taking the maths lesson I blogged about in my previous post. The purpose behind this lesson was help my students to grow their maths language, and the purpose for my video was so I could see the explicit teaching strategies I use in a maths lesson. It's always a challenge to critique your own practice as there is no opportunity for the conversations that can affect change through both affirmation and guidance. I invited Donna Ryan, one of our Across School CoL teachers, to be my critical friend. Together we reviewed this lesson and identified the strategies I use to help my learners strengthen their connections to and make sense of our learning.

When introducing new learning valuing the power of front loading helps our learners avoid disconnects between what they already know and what they are about to learn. I captured 14 minutes 36 seconds of footage, with 6 minutes 55 seconds at the start given to helping my learners make the very important personal connections to the content they need if they are to be able to draw on and use their prior knowledge to help them make sense of new learning.

During this time we noticed I:

• use teacher think alouds to capture interest and evoke curiosity
• provide opportunities for paired discussion to make connections to the known, reflect on responses given, use the language in context and problem solve
• value and accept all responses
• share my own knowledge gaps and how I might fill these
• value students as experts
• ask questions
• use teacher tell opportunities when scaffolding with materials and images
• share the purpose of task
• remind/prompt known scaffold opportunities
• question
• give feedback
• initiate opportunities for negotiation
• remind students to value their own thinking
• revisit the same content in a variety of ways
• invite my learners to take risks in a supportive and collaborative environment
• give clear explanations
• use content vocabulary in context

On reflection I am quite surprised how many ways I find opportunities to help a wide variety of students make connections within a lesson. This was really affirming as it proves I know my learners, something that is vital to effective teaching, as one size really does not fit all.

Going forward I will definitely be making use of Donna's suggestion to include more opportunities for my focus group to practise using and hearing maths language in other learning areas to help them see that maths is not just something we do at maths time. I have asked Donna to come back later in the term to repeat this process so we can see if I have been successful in providing opportunities for practical challenges that bring maths language and learning into our Reading and STEAM lessons. 

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.