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.

Adapt and Try Alert Level 4 version...

With the move to Alert Level 4 last week my teacher inquiry pretty much came to an immediate standstill. The hardest part being for me to get my head around is that I now know all the momentum we have built so far this year will take a giant step backwards, however having been in this position once before I realised quite quickly that adapt and try was the only option available to me. So with that in mind earlier this week I set my learners the familiar maths challenge to 'find the error, explain the error and fix the error', something I unpacked earlier in this post.

Unfortunately I don't have online engagement with all my focus group at this stage. However for those who are engaging this was the challenge set ( - refer to DLO below). I noticed some students preferred to work collaboratively and others independently. I have no problem with the option they choose. There are a number of ways forward for me including a small group Google Meet and making use of applications like Screencastify, but for now this allows me to once again widen my focus to my whole maths group. 

The responses on slides 2 and 3 (above) are varied in detail and use of content specific vocabulary but as with everything we do, it is about knowing your learners and understanding how they think and speak/write. What I take from these examples is that these students understand how to add decimals and understand the concept of BEDMAS, with the part that I'm get the most information from, being the explanations of the errors. In the example above I mentioned that any errors or misunderstandings can be easily ironed out in a Google Meet or through the comments tool using Mote or by written feedback. 

I need to find ways to keep the 'talk' going in Maths. However, at this stage my priority is to maintain and build on my student's maths vocabulary and strategy knowledge by continuing to provide authentic and purposeful opportunities for my students to use and apply this knowledge. Going forward we will use this time to build on the 'familiar' by strengthening the foundations already in place. 

Implement and Try #3...

During the holiday break I took some time to reflect on my teacher inquiry so far. Wanting to build on the foundations of what I have in place I started looking at ways other teachers get the talk going in maths lessons. One blog I found highlighted the reasons why we talk about maths. The bullet points below are the main takeaway I took from this post.

• Talking about maths allows us to share our thoughts.
• Talking about maths helps us clarify our own thoughts.
• Talking about maths helps us understand what we do and do not understand.
• Talking about maths prepares us for the future.

I know I've talked about this with my students but I now need to check that they understand these reasons. Talking about maths allows us to think about our own understanding of a concept or strategy. It allows us to use our own connections to agree or disagree with an idea. The power here comes from being able to justify our thinking by using maths language and strategies to show others why we think the way we do. Additionally being able to see how someone else's thinking is a more efficient way to find the answer helps to close gaps in knowledge. 

This week I introduced another idea I saw online. Instead of setting a challenge with an unknown answer I gave my students an incorrectly solved addition problem and challenged them to find, explain and fix the error. To help the talk flow I used the prompt 'How can you prove your answer is correct?' After solving the mystery the groups naturally moved around the room, eager to see if the others had found the error. 

I stepped back and listened  through the excited chatter to what was being said and heard that the LS2 Moves prompts we had been using, with absolutely no prompting from me, were being used to guide the conversations. The slide below shows the student voice collected. It was done very quickly but told me this style of facilitating conversation was a success.

I sourced this initial activity from Teachers Pay Teachers. My next steps will be to look at how I can incorporate and adapt some of the ideas in this resource to align with the content of our maths lessons. 

This is early days but I can't wait to see where this type of maths challenge takes us.

Implement and Try #2...

Today I worked with my focus students to practise using our LS2 oral language framework in context. This is the process we followed:

1. Write a question on the board that linked directly to the strategy of long multiplication that we have been learning this week. 
2. Students then answer the question using the known strategy on whiteboards to give them a visual reference for sharing time.
3. Use the LS2 oral language framework to explain the steps they followed to find their answer.
4. Reflect on which question/s we found most useful and unpack thinking.
5. Share what we found 'hard'.
6. Repeat the process

One student shared that they weren't able to share their strategy confidently because they didn't have the maths words to explain the steps they followed, so after some quick thinking on my part, I wrote a list of the maths words on the board. (Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of this.) The image below is an example of what we did. The focus here was on the strategy, not on identifying the maths in a written question. 

With the vocabulary list visible the students felt their conversations became more detailed. Afterwards we discussed the difference between the information shared without the vocabulary scaffold and with the vocabulary scaffold. 8/8 students felt they were able to make stronger connections to their partner's strategy. 

Student G83 shared that she 'felt more confident when it was my time to share as I had the words that I was missing before. This time I kind of knew what to say.'

The next change to my practice will be to co-construct a strategy specific vocabulary list during my guided teaching sessions. 

Implement and Try #1...

After realising neither myself nor my students had made a strong connection to the language used in theTalk Moves framework we changed the speaking frames to incorporate the language we use. I explained why we were making these changes, then embraced the changes my students suggested. 

Today we carried out our usual thinking group challenge, something we have been doing all year. This means that as we move into the latter part of term 2, the students are all familiar with each other and have developed the confidence needed to participate actively within these groups. We began the lesson by unpacking our adapted speaking framework. This meant that anything that needed further explanation was broken down so that connections could be made. I asked each group to choose a leader and that the leader could be anyone who wanted to have a turn to lead the learning conversation. 4/6 groups had a student from my focus group step up as the leader.

The photos in this slideshow capture a snapshot of the whole lesson to preserve the anonymity of the students in my focus group.

The difference today was once the initial independent problem solving challenge had been completed, the academically productive conversation flowed. I think this may be due to the fact I introduced the updated speaking frame as our own. Each group had a least one student who had participated in the process of changing Talk Moves into LS2 Moves so the ownership and connections were in place. The photos above show the level of engagement. 

At the end of the lesson I asked for group feedback linked specifically to the wording of our questions:

• 'Who has a different strategy? let students avoid self doubt if they had no strategy to share'. 
• 'My group feel that Who has a different strategy? and What other strategies could we use? are the same so maybe we could choose the one that helps us share our thinking more confidently.' 
• Can you tell me what you said? and Do you mean… are asking the same information. 

We discussed this feedback and decided that we need to clarify the purpose of the questions in context to help strengthen connections further.

Focus group feedback at the end of the lesson:

TAI 2021: Where am I at?...

Last week I was writing some blog posts linked to my 2021 Inquiry and realised I had 'lost' my direction and focus. Having been the in-school COL teacher since 2017, I was initially thrown by this realisation as I know that I know how to carry out an in depth inquiry. Rather than find excuses for not being on top of my game I decided to find out why so I began by reading the posts that captured my journey so far this year. I then looked back over pervious inquiries and realised there were two important parts missing. An actual inquiry question and a causal chain. I was actually quite shocked that even though I had an inquiry underway I had somehow overlooked writing the actual question.

Step one was to amend this immediately, however it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I was trying to fit too much information into a very small space. Fortunately Dr Jannie Van Hees came to the rescue and helped me put into words everything I was trying to say. This wasn't a planned meeting but was definitely a very worthwhile conversation. Dr Jannie reminded me that my question needed to be succinct and through questioning helped me 'drill down' to what it was I actually wanted to focus on which is, 'Will using Talk Moves in maths accelerate student confidence and capability to use spoken and written maths vocabulary and language?'

Step two was to put my causal chain together. I found this so much easier once I had a succinct question to guide me. I have used a causal chain for a number of years and is one of the ways I help the PBS teachers put their inquiries together. Causal chains help to plan steps forward (ie: a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect - A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D) by working backwards to create a chain of events that unpack the logic of the actions of the inquiry. Once I had done this I had more clarity but still felt a bit lost so I asked for help. I feel that highlighting the fact I asked for help this is important because so many of us overlook this step, preferring to muddle our way through rather than reaching out. It takes a village and within the Manaiakalani cluster we have many people who can and willingly give support when it is needed.

Step three was to organise a meeting with Fiona Grant to talk through my inquiry so far. Fiona helped me see that I that my hypothesis is if I use 'talk' to help my learners gain a deeper understanding of maths vocabulary, this widened connection to maths words will provide opportunities to improve their reading comprehension which will in turn lead to accelerated achievement in maths. I want to find out if using Talk Moves to 'learn' to talk in Maths will help my learners 'learn' through talk. Alongside this I want to see if the knowledge and skills gained can be transferred from the classroom to the blogs. 

Fiona asked me what was happening now in relation to my inquiry. I explained that I have introduced, unpacked and created group norms. I have introduced and unpacked the TM framework prompt 'So you're saying'  to encourage my learners to actively listen to others' responses. At that point Fiona asked me if my learners understood what that meant. This was when it dawned on me the reason I was 'lost' was because my learners did not have ownership of the Talk Moves process. 'So you're saying'  is not how we speak. My students can't see themselves in the framework so there is no personal investment.

When asked how I was going to engage my learners in what I wanted them to learn, I knew what I needed to do. I know I encourage my learners to 'look for the learning' when we are commenting on blogs so I am now thinking that if I ask my learners to 'listen for the learning' they will know what to do. We need to create our own version of the Talk Moves Framework using our language because this is how we learn in LS2. When I reflect honestly this disconnect applies to me too. I have no connection to the words used as I do not speak like this... #Lightbulb moment! 

As the in-school COL teacher I am always looking for ways I can support our PBS teachers. My takeaways from speaking with Jannie and Fiona are:

• Inquiry questions need to be succinct
• Ask for help if you need it 
• Use 'I'm hearing' when teachers are talking about their inquiries so that I am guiding not telling.
• Create a causal chain to help visualise your theory of action.

Qu 6: How I will use the data...

Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

Time point one data (shared and analysed in this blog post) was captured through:

• Informal teacher observation
• Student voice
• Assessment (IKAN, PAT Maths, GLoSS)
• Formal observation by a colleague to identify teacher talk time vs student talk time, strategies I use, purpose for talk (teacher/student)

This year I have moved away from comparing historical data with current data as the picture painted does not relate to my inquiry question. I feel however, the methods of data collection used at time point 1 will be able to be easily replicated when I am gathering data at the end of the year and will allow me to make clear comparisons.

The comparative data I am most excited to see is the data from the formal observations as this is not subjective. It is real and will allow me to see very quickly if there have been shifts in student confidence levels, teacher/student talk time and the amount of scaffolding I am needing to provide to get the maths talk going.

Student voice comparisons will allow me to see if there has been any shifts in attitude, use of content specific vocabulary and efficacy. Assessment shifts will allow me to see if the language we use when actively participating in Talk Moves conversations is helping to make the connections to the learning needed to show that understanding is being transferred and applied independently. Finally the informal observations will show if there has been any change in participation levels.

Qu 5: Nature and Extent of the Student Challenge...

Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding.

The challenge for my students this year is to make accelerated shift in Maths by being able to talk about their learning in thinking groups, explain it on their blogs and create comment threads that invite others to respond by talking/writing about their learning in maths.

Accessing content vocabulary continues to be one of the obstacles that seems to limit assessed student achievement. Our students are not confident when using maths vocabulary out of context. As a school we have been inquiring over the last few years into ways we can help our students to see that learning used in one area can be transferred to another - linked to vocabulary, instruction and strategy. With teachers being transparent in their inquiries we can see what is working and what we can build on. Building on from the year before is the direction we are all heading this year. In 2020 we were successful in using our blogs to encourage our learners to share their learning, ask questions and talk about their learning.

Fast forward to 2021 and we have all got new students in front of us. For many the simple transition between rooms is a challenge for many of our learners as they leave behind the known when they walk through the new doors of the unknown. The students who were with me last year, for the most part, are able to talk confidently about their learning when asked. This is because this is embedded into our classroom culture. However for many others being asked to talk about their learning is a huge challenge. Low self efficacy and a limited knowledge of vocabulary means these students find the 'talk' component to be overwhelming. Student voice collected earlier in the term identified shyness as one of our biggest obstacles and shows what I have stated above to be an accurate observation. It is from this data that I now realise the more able students find it frustrating that others in their group rely on them for the answers. The fear of 'getting it wrong' or having their ideas overlooked are other factors at play here.

I know from previous inquiries that if students are not able to use their words to explain their thinking, their connection to the task become compromised. I want all my learners this year is to create comment threads on blogs that help strengthen their connections and the connections others are making to the learning. I want them to refer to the learning intention and confidently use content specific language when giving feedback and feed forward. I also want questions to be asked that provide opportunities for those receiving the comments to justify their thinking. If this is to become the norm and be a successful intervention I need to provide a scaffolded framework so that opportunities to use content specific vocabulary in context, are not seen as safe learning opportunities and not overwhelming and scary situations.

I need to help my learners understand what a learning conversation is and realise 'talk' has a valid place in our class strategy toolbox as it helps us unpack and reflect on our learning. So the question I am asking is 'will using Talk Moves in maths accelerate student confidence and capability to use spoken and written maths vocabulary and language?'

Qu 4: Collecting evidence and data...

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

My focus group are made up of a mix of Year 7 and Year 8 students. Four students I taught last year and two who are new to LS2 this year. These students are the students who prefer to sit silently in maths time. They work hard and listen carefully but all become anxious if they are asked to share their thinking during instructional teaching times. With my inquiry in mind I stepped back and watched how they interact with others when working in maths thinking groups. The information below indicates what I observed on this occasion.

• 6/6 students look at the person speaking and nod their heads in a way that looks to others like they agree with what is being shared.
• 1/6 students offered to act as scribe.
• 4/6 students turned down the opportunity to act as scribe.
• 6/6 students did not share an alternative strategy (their book work showed a variety of different strategies had in fact been used)
• 4/6 students did not volunteer to speak first during sharing time.
• 6/6 students enjoyed the group success when their group's strategy was successfully shared with the class.
• 1/6 students offered to act as spokesperson.

Student Voice

The best way to see how my students feel about contributing their ideas when working in thinking groups or commenting on a maths blog post is to gain their perspective. I used Google forms to capture this data as it allowed my learners to share their thinking with me without being influenced by the ideas of others.

Focus Group Baseline Data

Baseline Observation 

To enable me to measure time point one data with time point 2 data I took Kiri Kirkpatrick up on her offer to observe my learners and I in a guided lesson and record the talk that took place in that lesson. After the observation Kiri showed me how to analyse the amount of student talk compared to the amount of teacher talk in the lesson, so that when we repeat the process later in the year I will be able to see if my intervention has helped to change these percentages. 

For anyone wanting to replicate this, you need to listen to the audio and record the timings of who is speaking and for how long. I will unpack this further in a future blog post. Analysing the audio takes a while but gives you also gives you so much more information about your own practice that you can reflect on. For example, I noticed that I use a wide variety of deliberate acts of teaching (DATs) to scaffold the learning and help my learners strengthen their connections to the task ahead. 

I used modelling to clarify and let my learners see what they needed to do. I realise that I prompted to encourage talk and the use of the content specific vocabulary. I used questioning throughout the lesson to encourage my learners to add detail to their responses. Without realising, I heard that my feedback to affirm, inform and guide was ongoing, informal and when needed. There were several opportunities where telling and explaining was used to help clarify confusions, and I directed my learners towards the success criteria, questions stems, new content specific vocabulary and the teaching DLO slides when specific instructions were given so the purpose of the task was made clearer. I could also see that I need to allow a longer period of wait time with the students who prefer to listen rather than contribute. On two occasions I feel I stepped in too early which meant the students who were less confident with sharing actually weren't given a true opportunity to take a risk and share their thinking.

The lesson captured was an honest one. I did not do anything I don't normally do because someone was observing me because I wanted real and purposeful feedback. Additionally this group had not worked together before so confidence levels were altered. 

Teaching as Inquiry 2021

Click here to see how I align my inquiry with the Manaiakalani framework.

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning. 

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect