2022 COL Interview...

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise.

This year Dianne Fisi’iahi and I undertook a collaborative inquiry. We found this afforded us a sense of continuity that when combined with our shared vision, meant our learners heard a shared message regardless of who was leading the teaching or who was in the room. For this reason some of our ideas that have informed this conversation will align quite closely. Our current Y6/7 EOY data analysis shows that focus on spelling is needed across the board which is why we see Achievement Challenge 2 (Lifting achievement for boys writing in years 1-10) as the direction our 2023 inquiry is heading. We have our why and I look forward to seeing what our how looks like.

As you will remember from Dianne’s interview, when we were choosing our inquiry focus we chatted about our own spelling memories from school. We both understand the frustration spelling hurdles bring. In my case it stems from the portion of time spent learning in the American curriculum. To succeed I had to unlearn the spelling of words I had already mastered, and relearn them without the u vowel. I was then forced to repeat the process in reverse when we moved back to NZ. I went from being the top speller to writing out words 10 times because I missed a vowel. I felt caught between 2 languages so I can truly relate to how many of my learners feel.

What learnings from the 2017 - 2022 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

Learning with and from my fellow CoL teachers has meant I have collected many gems from others along the way that have become firmly embedded in my practice. To this day I use Andrea’s ‘explain ready’ phrase when I want my learners to be able to share their ‘how’ in their own words.  It is the ongoing opportunities to strategize over our ideas that didn’t quite go to plan, that inspires me. How unplanned hurdles are overcome is what truly captures my interest, as it is these ideas I tap into and tweak when I have my own hurdles to climb over, or am helping someone else find a way around theirs

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and  kaupapa?

 

To accelerate student achievement the Learn Create Share pedagogy and kaupapa of Manaiakalani is the glue that holds my planning together. Analysing the data helps me highlight knowledge gaps, and identifies where I need to be explicit and where I need to be creative in my teaching.

 

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

 

Recognising our tamariki don’t have the academic literacy to access the learning is the research finding that continues to challenge me. Many of our learners simply do not have the literacy skills and confidence needed to record their ideas independently. When you add to this the fear of failure spelling errors brings, it’s not hard to see the reality of the struggle many of our children face in Y7/8 when asked to write to explain.

How would you like to be supported in 2023 as you undertake this inquiry?

 

The support I would like in 2023 is to be a part of planned opportunities to see and hear how other COL teachers drive inquiry in their schools. This would enable us to build on and strengthen the processes we already have in place.

 

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with THEIR inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

 

Aside from continuing to model my inquiry on my blog, I have found that the best support I can offer my colleagues with their inquiries is to guide them through the inquiry process term by term. To make this rewindable and manageable a few years ago I created our PBS Teacher Inquiry DLO, which is our version of a ‘how to’ process and is shared with staff in termly chunks. If both Dianne and I are successful in gaining a CoL position Dianne would support the teachers new to our school, and I would support the more experienced teachers who move at a faster pace, as this plays to both our strengths. 

2022 Teacher Inquiry Evaluation...

This year I set out to find out if focusing on Reading for Enjoyment would increase student self efficacy and capability in Reading?

My reason for choosing this inquiry and the shifts between time point 1 testing and time point 2 testing are explained in detail in the previous two posts. The changes/tweaks I made are shared here and the picture the data paints is here. These posts explore both the qualitative and quantitative measures undertaken this year.

Summarise evidence about key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning.

Creating a causal chain helps you to stay focused on the purpose of your teacher inquiry. It is so easy to fall down many rabbit holes along the way so having a causal chain to look back on helps to keep you on track. My biggest takeaway from looking at a variety of readings is if we are to develop reading for pleasure habits in students we need a collective and collaborative approach that allows our tamariki to see role models at school and at home who value reading.

I wanted my students to want to read a wide variety of texts because they want to. My aim this year was to help the students in LS2 to see our weekly library visit as both fun and to quote one of my learners, understand 'that opening the covers of books you haven't read books is a fun way to find new ideas or even learn a thing or two.... It's like a supermarket for the brain' - quote taken with student permission from this year's T1 writing sample. My challenge was to find out why the links in the chain appeared to be broken again. I work in an ILE and share a class with Dianne Fisi’iahi and knew that if my inquiry was to become a success it needed to become our inquiry.

We began by:

• Actively planning time in class for reading for enjoyment, after all if you want something to happen you need to make time for it to happen.
• Getting to know our learners as readers by gathering student voice through Naomi Rosedale’s Reading for Enjoyment survey.
• Analysing beginning of year data to give us a clear picture of what our students can do and where our knowledge gaps are.
• Connecting with whanau to foster support for reading for enjoyment at home
• Using our student leaders as role models to promote reading for enjoyment across our school
• Creating our own LS2 Reading Challenge to motivate our learners to read a wider variety of texts.
• Making reading for enjoyment visible in our class
• Researching the benefits of RFE and ways other schools have grown this culture

Write an overall evaluation of your intervention in terms of the causal chain you had theorised. To what extent was the intervention successful in changing factors such as teaching? To what extent were those changes in teaching effective in changing patterns of student learning?

At the end of Term 2 I looked back at my causal chain and realised through our weekly RFE tips shared at assemblies by our student leaders and our Leaders in the Library initiative, my students are seen as readers. More importantly they are beginning to see themselves as readers as we are actively reading for enjoyment in our classroom each day. To reinforce this latter point I made a point of capturing all of this in photos which were prominently displayed in our classroom. However because I was always beyond the lens I had not been allowing my learners to consistently see me as a reader.

I was introduced to my students as readers when they completed RFE survey at the start of the year and got to know them better by observing what books they were choosing to read then taking time to talk to them about their chosen texts. I also asked for text recommendations and made sure my learners saw me reading the texts they had suggested I read. This served two purposes, one showed that I was an active reader and the second that I valued their input.

We turned the results of our monitored time we spent RFE and the RFE survey into purposeful statistical inquiries by using the data gathered to identify the problem areas and offer possible solutions. This gave all of us ownership of our shared goal of increasing the time we spent reading for enjoyment.

The RFE display in the classroom not only gave my learners the opportunity to see themselves as readers but also the opportunity to talk about the importance of RFE to their whanau during our student-led conferences. The parents/caregivers enjoyed seeing not only their children in LS2 reading but also their younger children. Listening to some of the conversations taking place during this time I realised that our learners understood what RFE was and were able to talk about why they needed to be encouraged to do this at home. As a result most of the parents/caregivers leaving the room promised to help keep the reading for enjoyment going at home.

Timetable opportunities for RFE so students read the books they take out of the library and introduce LS2 RFE challenge to encourage students to RFE in their own time helped us to drive this initially, however whilst the timetabling remained in place, our reading challenge fell by the wayside. After several attempts to reignite this we understood that our 2022 were not motivated by the follow up challenges. We wanted them to want to read so readily removed any barriers that may have prevented this from happening. What was a success however was our RFE Holiday Challenge. A reading challenge created and managed by two of our student leaders. What was exciting to see was who participated and what they have posted on their blogs, even more amazing was the interaction that took place in the blog comments. 38% of our class took part in this challenge which may look like a low number, but in my mind that's 38% of our class that we know of who made time to read for enjoyment over the holiday break.

As I stated in a previous inquiry, in all assessments our students are required to read and respond to questions. Often our students are often not literate in their own language so the gaps that emerge when questions are written in English are getting wider, thus causing bigger disconnects in the learning. Sharing an infographic I saw online with our class last helped to strengthen connections and understandings to the importance of RFE. We didn't focus on the test scores rather the amount of word knowledge gained by finding 20 minutes a day to read.

Creating and referring back to my causal chain has resulted in this intervention successfully changing my thinking around the value of RFE in the classroom. I am now seen as a reader and know that if this is to continue I need to continue to motivate my learners and plan time for this to happen within our class program. The changes in teaching have been effective in changing patterns of student learning as our students now open the covers of the books that once simply stayed in their trays. The data analysed in my previous two posts are evidence of the shifts in both mindset and learning. I do see a change in attitude towards reading, strengthened connections to new learning, increased vocabulary awareness which has been transferred to personal writing, higher levels of self efficacy and an overall shift in achievement which has resulted in a higher number of our learners achieving at or above the expected norms in literacy.

Write a reflection on your own professional learning through this inquiry cycle.

One of the most important changes I made in my teaching was to make sure my students saw me as a reader. Chrissy Smith put it best when she said ‘by not reading with our students we are not valuing what we are asking them to do’. I am definitely now a teacher who actively opens a book when my students open a book. My biggest takeaway from looking at a variety of readings earlier in the year was that if we were to develop reading for pleasure habits in students we needed a collective and collaborative approach that allowed our tamariki to see role models at school and at home who value reading. Leaders in the Library, whanau support and sharing RFE tips at assemblies has helped achieve this and are initiatives I want to keep in place when we move into our 2023 learning journey.

I have summarised my own learning in my Bursts in Bubbles presentation which can be read  here. My journey this year reminded me if you want something to become a success you need to be walking the walk and talking the talk. Plan for it, drive it and find ways to give your students ownership of the change you want to effect.

Timepoint 2 Testing - What the Data tells us...

When we began this inquiry both Dianne and I knew intrinsic motivation to want to read for enjoyment was something our learners wouldn't achieve on their own. We needed to develop a class culture where reading for enjoyment was seen as the norm. Influenced by the decision to build a class culture is why we chose to show student data from the whole class as selecting a target group wouldn't give us a true picture of the change. Due to absence and students transitioning in and out of our class over the year we are now sharing the data of the 26 students who were present at both timepoints.

The presentation below is an comparison of our time point 1 and time point 2 data and paints a clear picture of the shift that has occurred in attainment levels. I still believe that the last two years of disruptions to learning due to Covid and ongoing unexplained absences this year are still impacting some of our students learning opportunities, as connections made through continuity and consolidation have not been consistent.

Link to presentation

Analysis of PAT Reading data shows at TP1 27% of Year 7 students and 40% of Year 8 students were achieving at or above the norm. TP2 data shows shift in both year groups with Year 7 increasing by 46% to 73% and Year 8 increasing by 20% to 60% at or above the expected norms.

An observation both Dianne and I made during the TP2 testing was the increase in confidence across the board. The TP2 tests took longer to complete than the TP1 test, perhaps because this time responses were informed and linked to the text rather than randomly 'guessed' as we suspected happened during the TP1 testing. Probe running record results reflect a shift that aligns with the rest of our data. RFE opportunities have increased our learner's reading mileage and exposed them to a wider range of vocabulary. Current data shows at least 60% of our students in both Year 7 and Year 8 who were present at both testing timepoints are reading at or above their chronological age, with the most significant shift belonging to our Year 8 learners. When looking at the vocabulary section of the e-asTTle writing the data between the reading ages and vocabulary scores shows that 60% of our Year 7 learners have shifted from 'below' to 'at' or 'above'.

The shifts evident in the data show that there has been an increase student self efficacy and capability in Reading. However, alongside our Reading for Enjoyment focus our active participation in the T-Shaped Literacy and Extended Discussion PD have complimented and strengthened all reading opportunities in our learning space. Reading a wide variety of texts has allowed our learners to move beyond the literal by considering and discussing mood, atmosphere, characterisation, narrators and point of view. The connections to these focus areas has enriched our discussion and have enhanced all reading opportunities, both in class and when reading for enjoyment. All three interventions have given us the opportunity to help our learners strengthen their connections between the written word and their comprehension.

Describe and explain the changes/tweaks you have made in your practice along the way...

Motivation is intrinsically related to engagement, so learner engagement was a vital component in establishing a class culture of learners who are motivated to read for enjoyment and understand the benefits that reading outside of the classroom could bring them. Developing this motivation did not happen by magic. This is something Dianne and I have worked hard to develop with one of the most important changes we made to our teaching being to make sure our students saw us as a readers. Chrissy Smith put it best when she said ‘by not reading with our students we are not valuing what we are asking them to do’

If I roll back the clock to the start if the year, I remember walking past the student trays in our class and noticing that the library books I had seen earlier in the week were in exactly the same place. The reason for this was simply that no one said they could take the books they had borrowed home. I knew I needed to do something about this but I didn’t know how.

After a very rich learning conversation with Naomi Rosedale I had a tentative pathway mapped out going forward and was challenged to think about and inquire into and track my learners’ reading dispositions and interests. I didn’t have to start from scratch as I was able to use Naomi's Reading for Enjoyment survey with my class to help me get to know my students as readers.

Our data showed that within our class there was a huge disparity between the students who have made the connections they need to allow them to operate at a higher and more challenging level, and those for whom the gap has widened each year. By strengthening students connections to the benefits of reading for enjoyment, I hoped to see a change in attitude towards reading, strengthened connections to new learning, increased vocabulary awareness which would be transferred to personal writing, higher levels of self efficacy and an overall shift in achievement so that a higher number of our learners are achieving at or above the expected norms in literacy.

Gathering student voice gave us a clear picture of where our students were at, what they were thinking and what we needed to do to allow our learners to make their individual connections to the learning. Naomi's reading for enjoyment survey has allowed me to measure both the small and big changes. The presentation below does exactly that. Each slide contains the comparative data gathered from time point 1 and time point 2. Underneath the graphs I have analysed the shifts in more detail. It is important to note here that although this was a whole class inquiry I have only anaysed the data gathered from the 26 students present at both data collection times. I have gathered data from a cross section of students. The biggest and most noticeable change towards the benefits of reading for enjoyment are the mindsets of our students. 

Link to presentation

We adapted our timetable to incorporate RFE as a valued and visible part of our program and by that I don't mean we just made a time slot for reading. We discussed books, created book chains, created our own student led holiday reading challenge (explained in more detail in this post), introduced the Leaders in the Library initiative (explained in more detail in this post), shared our weekly RFE tips at our school assemblies and invited our whanau to share our journey. Reading for enjoyment needed to be visible so I spent the year capturing and displaying photos of our learners actively reading. The idea behind this was that if we couldn't see ourselves as readers change would not happen. Additionally we made and displayed posters to encourage others to RFE. 

One of the most successful ideas we tried was to put the data we gathered back in the hands of our learners. As a class we analysed the initial RFE survey findings and came up with ideas as to how we could change the deficit we had towards RFE. This was how the LS2 Reading Challenge was born. Our thinking was that if our learners had ownership of the challenge they would have more skin in the game. Following on from this we decided to capture the time spent RFE. This post explains this in more detail. What surprised us as teachers was that simply being transparent with the amount of time spent RFE motivated our most reluctant readers to come in before school and open the cover of a book. 

However not everything we tried worked. When we began this journey as I mentioned earlier, we created our own RFE challenge. This started with a hiss and a roar but Dianne and I quickly realised that our students preferred to read and talk about their books instead of completing follow up challenges. Not wanting disengagement to raise its head we let this idea fall by the wayside. It's not something I wouldn't try to use in the future but was something that didn't work this year.  

Did our focus on Reading for Enjoyment increase student self efficacy and capability in Reading? The qualitative data discussed and analysed in this post indicates that we most definitely increased our student's motivation to read which tells us that barriers have come down because we took the time to make something that was not the norm become the norm. By walking the walk and talking the talk we removed the fear of failure that fuels low self efficacy and showed our learners that RFE opens the doors to a wide variety of learning opportunities.

LS2 Chromebook Slam!

This afternoon we held our first digital SLAM in LS2. This was an opportunity for our students to share a Chromebook tip with each other in a fast paced an energetic way. These are not our original tips but are shortcuts we find useful in our 1:1 digital classroom. 

T Shaped Literacy Unit 2 - Characterisation...

This term our T shaped literacy unit focused on characterisation in texts. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups. I lead the last unit so this time around Dianne took the lead. After creating our unit we remembered or more able students shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. To rectify this we made the decision that I would take a small group characterisation unit that ran alongside Dianne's unit. To keep this entirely separate we used different texts for each group although our learning intentions were the same. Dianne used the text 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and I used 'Wolves' in children's literature. As Dianne had a much larger group she was supported by our TA Linda.

Like last time we began by introducing the word characterisation so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. To help our students and ourselves strengthen our connections to this focus we used the excerpt from the text 'Beans' that Aaron shared with us in our PD sessions. These activities can be found on here on slides 98 - 106. Both Dianne and I then front loaded our groups with vocabulary they would be needing to make sense of the learning. This can be found here on slides 11 - 22

We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation again this time around as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded.  My group had an individual response DLO as it was a much smaller group. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. The purpose of the response DLO is to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

Having the reference slides was a huge help as this allowed for ongoing rewindable learning opportunities to occur. What I found was that this was actually a challenge to navigate past so I created a slide that worked along the lines of a contents page. This was a tweak mid unit as I found myself scrolling for days to find the slide I was currently working on.

 

The Wolves unit focused on the way author's influence the perception we have of wolves as readers. In most children's literature the character of the wolf is more often than not portrayed in a negative light. As we explored these texts we found a number of similarities between the words used to describe their appearance (eg: big eyes, sharp teeth) and the illustrations even though the authors and illustrators in each text were different people. My students then filled tables that reflected their first impressions and synthesised their findings across the range of texts we were exploring. We incorporated learning from our Mood and Atmosphere unit to allow for consolidation and transference of learning. Each text we unpacked had the same follow up activities so again that allowed opportunities for connections to be strengthened. My Wolves unit took on a critical literacy approach so we compared texts that showed the wolf character from both perspectives. In place of sharing the activities created I have chosen this time to highlight the student's work via their blog links and a collaborative DLO. Not everything we did was blogged as not everything was a 'create' task. 

Character Story Response - This was a collaborative task that incorporated shared ideas and rich discussion opportunities.

Wolf Character Analysis - The Three Pigs - This was a collaborative task that involved a co-constructed questionnaire, individual data collation followed rich discussion opportunities when the data was analysed. What I like about this post is the fact the students have widened their audience by including a google form to help them gather a wider range of data from their global audience. This will make for interesting comparisons if we get any responses.

First Impressions of Character Analysis  - An individual task that showcased individual connections made to the learning. The students were free to adapt their DLO layouts but again have chosen to use the layout and colours I chose in the response DLO. You will see from reading these that strong connections were made.

For our final task I asked the students to use their learning of mood, atmosphere, sensory imagery and characterisation to describe a wolf from a text of their choice that we had read and unpacked. The examples below reflect how these students perceive the wolf character they chose to describe.

Santana's Description

David's Description

Chisa's Description

Bella's Description

Farzana's Description

This was another powerful unit of learning. I spent the first week setting my students up using  Aesop's, Wolf in Sheep's clothing text. Upon reflection modelling and co-constructing responses alongside my students that week enabled them to continue to work independently when I was off work sick for two weeks. Although there were teachers present in the classroom, I chose not to let this learning fall away because I wasn't there. I wasn't up to Google Meets so we made use of emails and the comments tool for feedback, questions to be asked and guidance to be given. I'm very aware of the affordances that learning in a digital environment offered us in this version of distance learning and am so grateful that we took the time to set ourselves up for success as this allowed us to keep this learning going.

Click here to find Dianne's blog and her reflection of her T shaped Characterisation unit.

T Shaped Literacy Unit 1 - Mood and Atmosphere...

This is my reflection of our first T shaped literacy unit that focused on the mood and emotions in a text. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups, except for our two 'top' groups. We kept these groups separate as we wanted to see how they would rise to the challenges set. This group of students have shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. This proved to be an excellent decision as it not only allowed the two groups to realise their full potential, but saw other students who would normally take a more passive role, stepping up. 

We began by introducing the words mood and atmosphere so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. These lessons were shared in an earlier post.

Our provocation that underpinned our learning was: ‘Man should die fighting hard like the struggling shark not tamely submitting like the lazy Tarakihi.’ Should the men of the native contingent have had the right to prove their mettle at the front?

I was responsible for creating and running this unit, with Dianne supporting me. We will be reversing the roles in the next unit. Doing it this way allowed Dianne to observe me and give me regular feedback, in addition to supporting the student learning. I chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. I do realise this looks like creativity was a bit stifled, and to some extent I agree. In the past when I have run T shaped units my groups have all naturally changed the look of their response DLOs, but this year they didn't. Perhaps because these students needed the scaffolding in place. The purpose of the response DLO was to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The master copy of the response DLO. Each group made a copy and used this as the place they recorded their thinking and added the links to their recorded learning conversations. Really useful additions to this DLO were the 'Questions we have' slide and the 'Vocabulary we don’t understand' slide. Discussing the content of these slides at the start of each lesson meant that we learnt with and from each other the whole way through. 

What has amazed me throughout this learning experience is the way my students have connected to the learning. I don't recall ever having asked them to look closely at the way the author uses mood and atmosphere in the text before, so this focus was completely new. Their understanding is reflected in the discussions that we chose to record on Screencastify and in their DLOs. 

One of the highlights of this unit for me was when a student who finds many aspects of reading a challenge called me over to his group and said, "Mrs Anderson we can't believe they had racial profiling back then.... The men of Te Hokowhitu-a-tu were overlooked because of the colour of their skin.... I can't believe that some people in England thought the Maori men wouldn't be safe if they had guns, that's just dumb!" I was so shocked by what he said I wrote it down as soon as we finished talking. This just proves the importance of helping our students make connections to the learning. His 'ah ha' moment set the tone for the rest of his learning. He confidently contributed to class and group discussions from then on, and on a number of occasions took on a leadership role in his group. Something he usually shies away from.

I'm excited to see how we can transfer this learning across our wider literacy program.