Analysing the data (November) and Reflecting on my Inquiry...

This year I have been looking at ways stronger connections to content specific vocabulary can help overcome hindered student self efficacy in writing. In February I collated the data from the e-asTTle attitude domains for writing as a way of measuring student self efficacy in writing. My February data 'shows that my learners don't like writing at school, they don't believe they are good at writing and worryingly, most think I don't think they are very good at writing.' 

Comparative data collected in November (refer to presentation below) shows that there have been some notable changes between the time one and time two data. Most significantly is that everyone now sees themselves at being better at writing, with 3/8 students seeing being a 'good writer' as something that is 'very like me'. 7/8 students now like writing at school more and 6/8 students now believe I think they are 'good at writing'. Writing out of school is not something these students enjoy, a shift possibly influenced by age and a change in outside interests and influences. When looking using this tool as a way of measuring student self efficacy in writing I can see the shifts are positive. Additionally I know that in the classroom engagement has increased, work completion rates have increased and confidence levels have increased. 

To reflect student achievement (refer to the graphs below) I chose to show the shifts in each of the e-asTTle writing domains using the R scores as this allows me to see where the shifts were strongest. I am aware these levels are subjective, but have been assessed by the same person and moderated for validity. This is a powerful reflection tool as I can see where the strongest connections to my instruction were made. 

The biggest shifts are in structure and language, sentence structure, punctuation and in organisation. When I looked back on my long term planning I see that this ties in with the adaptations I made to dedicate more time to the oral language component of front-loading the vocabulary and more time to talk and use their words in context when planning. There was an increased expectation that all work would be completed and the format of each lesson the same except for the added daily challenge, something determined by peer led feedback and decided by my students. 

When analysing the writing samples I noticed the consistency with co-constructing the success criteria linked to structure, language, punctuation, sentence structure and organisation at the start of each lesson was replicated in the writing plans. Possibly because these students understood what they needed to do to improve their learning. Analysis of ideas and vocabulary show these areas have remained consistent with minimal movement, perhaps due to the fact the writing assessment does not allow time for front-loading and talk when planning. 

What this data does not show however, is the change in the quantity of the content nor the confidence that my learners approached this task with. It does not show that everyone wrote for the full allotted time and when asked to move onto editing, each student used the time to try their best to check their work for accuracy. A sneaky look at the revision history showed me the latter. 

Reflecting on my professional learning through this inquiry cycle...

In our focus on achievement we often overlook the power that positive reinforcement and self belief have on outcome. Strong healthy classroom relationships mean that student engagement  interwoven benefits. The best part is that the adaptations made in writing created a knock on effect across several other learning areas for many of our students.

My inquiry goal this year was to grow self efficacy in my reluctant writers, something I have tried very hard to do. Learning from Jannie, Rebecca, Aaron and Russell in our CoL meetings has played a huge part in my growth and the growth in my students this year as I come away from each meeting with a ‘takeaway’ that I tweaked to meet the learning needs of my students. Although initially challenging to do I found being asked to backward map a causal chain the most useful tool in keeping my inquiry focused. I have referred back to this many times and is something I will definitely create in my next inquiry.

Adapting Cynthia Greenleaf’s research into student self efficacy in reading to writing in my classroom has given me an increased empathy towards my reluctant writers. These students are not simply disengaged or disruptive, they are, in many cases masking their perceived historical failures by seeking negative attention. 'I always muck around cos then you won't ask me anything cos you'll think I haven't done my work. I always do that every year Miss.' (Boy 8, June 2018) This was the response I got after I had purposely ignored his behaviour for a period of time and focused on strengthening my rapport with him. From then on I made a point of asking for his input. In turn I noticed over time that he had become far more engaged in the learning, he was happy to share his thinking (as long as I didn't ask him first), and from mid way through term 3 took pride in letting me know his finished work was on his blog. Russell reminded us in one of our CoL meetings that success comes with completing a task, something I have seen first hand is vital if we are looking to grow student self efficacy, and one of the most successful adaptations I have made across all my teaching this year.

I can see that the way forward for me is to replicate the changes in how I deliver my instruction as it has given these students the knowledge to approach writing with confidence. 'Repetition without boring' allows key learning points to be revisited so that stronger connections can be made. Planning time for talk and front-loading means new learning is unpacked and new vocabulary used in context. I noticed that the students who said the words used the language. This required a lot of teacher modeling, think alouds and scaffolding initially but allowing my learners the time to process the new, meant I was able to build in challenges that promoted the risk taking I was after. Ignoring behaviour, praising success and setting the expectation that all work will be finished helped to change 'This is boring!' into 'Miss, can you check my work?'.

Building the foundations of self efficacy...

                      

Building self efficacy with learners who have more disconnections than connections to a learning area is a challenging task. Having decided that this is the direction I will be following this year I have spent a lot of time analysing the way I deliver writing instruction. I could see from an earlier analysis of the e-asTTle attitude responses that 62.5% of my focus group do not like writing at school. None of these learners feel that they are good at writing, and more sobering from my perspective, is the fact that 75% of this group believe that I don't think they are good at writing. All statistics that need to be changed if connections are to be strengthened and shift to be accelerated. 

Positive learning conversations, or simply affirming 'talk' is the way forward. I used the content from the writing samples in my class to help my learners notice all the aspects of explanation writing that they had mastered, and to help them identify the 'gaps' that will become our areas we need to learn. The DLO I used to reinforce the vocabulary is embedded at the top of this post. All the content is specific to my class and the content of their writing samples. This lesson only focused on structure. I chose to word the questions as 'Do you have...' or 'Did you...' so that it was easier for my students to see their success and gaps in a positive light. To make this more accessible I reminded them that the areas we know how to use will become the skills we will practise, and the parts we didn't include or get right will become our learning. In doing this I drew on a strategy I learnt many years ago when I trained as a dyslexia support teacher in the UK. 

We were shown how using a flexible times-table square will allow students to see the tables they already know and highlight the ones they need to learn. Once connections had been made (ie: if you could answer 2 x 5 then you knew the answer to 5 x 2). Once the tables that have been mastered are folded over the smaller grid left (the outlined square on the image) shows students the tricky ones. This square is a lot smaller than the whole grid and gives them confidence as they can visualise the challenge ahead is now more manageable.

Image sourced from here

When applied in our context I knew everyone had included a title and had an introduction in their explanations. This meant that we were all able to put a tick beside the T and the I of the TIIC (Title, Introduction, Information, Conclusion) acronym (borrowed this from Rob Wiseman's Class on Air lesson from 2017). There were definitely smiles all round as my learners could see they had used some components of the structure of an explanation correctly. These are now our 'practise' areas. Our gaps were definitely evident in the 'information' and 'conclusion' parts of the structure. Rather than having a mountain to climb my learners saw that they 'only had two parts of the structure to master', however the reality is that we definitely have our work cut out here.

To help build connections to the vocabulary needed to understand how to structure and write an explanation I used a grid of content words. To help fill our knowledge baskets we had races in pairs to say these words, and share which ones we already knew. This is on slide 4 of the DLO. It also provided an opportunity to identify the words we didn't know or understand. I will be able to revisit and repurpose this slide as the year progresses.

+Karen Ferguson observed this lesson so I was in the lucky position of being able to reflect on the lesson through two sets of eyes. The link to Karen's blogpost is here. My takeaway in my quest to build student self efficacy is to remember not to assume I can identify the owners of the work I am sharing. Despite having permission to share one student's introduction, I was unaware he looked embarrassed while I was sharing his example of great work. My plan now is to find out ahead of time if the owner of the work I am sharing is happy for me to identify them, or if they would be prefer their work to be shared anonymously.

Collegial Observations... 2018

Last week +Karen Ferguson and I were talking about ways we could help our learners access and connect to the content language they need to be able to find success in their learning. Today Karen came to observe a literacy lesson in my class. The link to Karen's blogpost is here. 

I am currently exploring new ways I can help my learners see, hear and use the content vocabulary they need to strengthen their connections to the learning, so it was great to see what my lesson looked like through another person's eyes. I look forward to seeing how her takeaways from today are applied with older students and plan to reciprocate the visit to see this in action. On my part sharing the thinking behind the strategies I used was very powerful as it encouraged me to reflect on my practise at a deeper level. Thank you Karen.

Image courtesy of +Karen Ferguson