Professional Reading #1: Learning in a Covid-19 World

What we know is that covid caused a lack of connection to learning and being able to connect with people and place.

One of the key factors that I consider a barrier to student learning is the lack of connections students can make to the local community.  A factor that is highly likely to have contributed to this barrier has been covid.  With lockdowns over the last two years limiting the connections to happen, I wanted to see how big an impact of Covid was on a students learning then and now.  I read through Life during Lockdown - Findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand COVID-19 Wellbeing Survey and found interesting information that supported my theories. 

Two key points that were evident in the survey when it came to learning from home:

“School satisfaction Students’ feelings about school and schoolwork are inextricably linked to their engagement and attention. Positive feelings towards school are key for promoting academic success and buffering against disengagement from learning “ (pg 18)

“Social connections are an essential aspect of child and youth wellbeing.  Concern has been raised as to the impact of COVID-19 social restrictions for children given most were isolated from friends and family. Although shared experiences of the pandemic may have brought some households together, there was also the potential for COVID-19 restrictions to make it more difficult for children to find meaningful and supportive connection.  Limited social contact has potential to reduce perceived closeness and belonging and increase loneliness and feelings of isolation (Pg 19).

When I think about how to this relates to my hypothesis, I am conscious of the fact that every child experienced Covid differently and when I come to plan my intervention, how can I be sensitive to this fact. 

#4. Summarise your key findings about the nature and extent of the student problem

#4. Summarise your key findings about the nature and extent of the student problem i.e. present your baseline student data and evidence.

The problem that I thought was a key problem is that students feel disconnected to their community because they don’t see themselves in it or belonging to it.  I found that a key reason could be a lack of focus and distractions away from their learning which has a big impact but also the lack of enjoyment in the learning is a factor. 

Distractions:

As part of our Tapasā surveys conducted at the end of last year, we asked 100 Pasifika students what did they think were the barriers to their learning and among other things the biggest result was ‘Distractions’ with 35%.  

When broken down further, the majority of distractions occurred externally from forces outside the learners control.

I did a similar survey with my year 9 students and asked them ‘Are there any barriers to your learning in my classroom’ and although the majority said ‘No’, 24% of them said the biggest barrier was ‘Distractions’.  

When thinking about my inquiry, how can I limit distractions in my classroom as it is a major barrier to learning?  

Whanau discussions:

As my Social Studies class is also my mentoring class, I have called and discussed student lack of engagement with parents as we look to support their child.  I’ve had a number of conversations where parents welcome the support and understand the difficulties in the classroom.  My learnings from having these conversations and seeing the students the next day, is that they change in their behaviour, always for the positive. I need to ensure that I am keeping the connections up and focus on sharing good news as well. 

Connecting with other teachers.

I have on-going discussions with all of the teachers of my kids to develop personalised learning plans with our more boisterous students but also shared good practice.  With one of my students in particular, I expected similar experiences with that student in the class but a their English teacher shared a strategy that I had not tried before.  We then had an in-depth conversation about how they came to use the strategy and I also visited their classroom to have a look at their learning environment.  I decided that I would like to replicate aspects of their learning environment too as I wanted to break down a barrier that says we don't share good practice across the school.

I will continue to share my findings as I continue to work through the nature and extent of the student problem.

TC Sos Dept #7: Manaiakalani Secondary Social Studies Department Discussion #2 CREATE

This week our department took part in the CREATE workshop, hosted by Kerry Boyde-Preece and Naomi Rosedale, as part Manaiakalani’s department discussions.  

Scott and I talked about a collaborate unit between one of my year 9 Social Studies classes, their Te Reo teacher Matua Harley and their graphics teacher Ms Spark to design an app to support learning about our local curriculum.  Matua Harley provided the context, I developed the concepts and Ms Spark helped students design the app.  We shared it was at the early stages of development and we still had some tweaks to fine tune the unit.  

We heard from teachers at Hornby High and Waiopehu College who shared what they were up to it and Kerry shared some cool resources that me and my team want to try out in the future.

T.C Staff PLD: Accord Teacher’s only day

In preparation for the NCEA refresh, school’s have been allocated Accord Teacher only day.  We had our first one for the year on 16th May.  There were 3 areas of focus:  

• UDL Design
• Literacy and Numeracy
• Local Curriculum design

We divided our day into 3 parts.

Our first session focused on Literacy and Numeracy.  We looked at the overview of changes being offered and how it can be strengthened within our school.  We also revisited our thoughts around preparing for the online common assessment task that is coming next year and ways we can contribute to getting our kids ready. 

Our next session looked at how we could design and review a course outline with UDL design lense.  We actually spent much of time talking about how we can get to know our ākonga better and what practices we could use to do this.  

For our last session, we looked at developing a local curriculum.  I invited Matua Harley and Whaea Ruiha to come and share their insights about how we provide an accurate meaningful and relevant local curriculum in our subject.  Matua started by explaining the Maori place names relevant in our area and how as soon as these names were given European names ‘they became markers in time’.  He shared how the original state houses for soldiers called the ‘fencibles’ and that these were the first of their kind in N.Z.  An important point he made was that there are at least 3 - 5 different iwi in our area and all have different narratives and work differently.  On reflection, this brings a new challenge for us as a department, who are trying also to prepare for the new Aotearoa Histories curriculum.

T.C Sos Dept: Supporting a colleague with managing behaviour

One of my department members (Teacher X) was having hard time with a group of 3 boys who were unruly in their Social Studies class during their last lesson.  The next day, they emailed me in the morning for advice as they were going to be teaching the class after interval in period 3.

I checked their timetable and they had a non-contact period 2.

The class with boys in question had English at that time and I suggested they visited the class to speak to them.  I suggested they quietly asked the teacher if they could speak to each student one by one, in the corridor.

I provided some steps as a guide to follow below.

Explain the purpose of the meeting:

‘The reason why I am talking to you now is to address the behaviour that you showed yesterday in Social Studies.  It was disruptive and before I allow you back into class, here are expectations that I have...' (If time, you could explain how it was disruptive).

Check for understanding

‘Do you understand the expectations?’

Ask if the student would like to say anything

‘Do you have any questions’.  ‘Is there anything you would like to say’

Reinforce positive behaviour

‘I know you are able to work well, I’ve seen it’

Or

‘Let’s have a good lesson today so that you can get some learning done because I want you to succeed’

Follow up

As they line up outside your classroom at the start of period 3, remind them to put phones away, bag under desk and ready to learn.  As they come in, pre-empt their positive behaviour by saying 'thanks boys, I know you are going to make a good effort today etc...'.  During the class, get up and wander around and give affirmations for good behaviour. 

Teacher X emailed me the next day with an update:

Hi Dot,

I went to the English class in period 2 yesterday and took student 1, student 2 and student 3 out and spoke to them individually.  Each said that they would not misbehaviour in class.  Student 1 apologised for this behaviour and student 2 seemed regretful of his behaviour. 

In class in period 3 & 4 yesterday all 3 were better behaved and did not cause any disruption. 

Thank you for your help and suggestions on this Dot.  

Regards,

Teacher X.

Reflection:

I'm not an expert but sometimes just having a quiet chat with a kid on their own means the focus is on them, not them and their friends.  This can be a respectful way to interact with a student because even if it's not your intention to embarrass a child, sometimes they might feel singled out.  Asking if the expectations are understood can give kids an opportunity to process and think about what is expected.  It could also give them a chance to speak up if they don’t get it.  Sometimes kids get a surprise when they see you out of class because they think teachers don’t talk to each other.  I found by setting some positive expectations with students can help redirect their behaviour. In a previous blogpost, I talked about the Pygmalion theory and how students can grow into their teachers expectations. By pre-empting good behaviour, you are hopefully replacing negative behaviours with already planned positive ones.  

The guide above won't work everytime but I guess it's good to have another strategy in the kete.

#3. Describe the tools/measures/approaches you used to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that problem.

#3. Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that problem. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools.

Ka Hikitia and the Tapasā clearly align a success criteria in the classroom with the relationships built between the teacher and student.  I wrote a blog previously on getting to know my mentor class blog.  I want to continue to get to know my learners by gathering their asttle data reading and writing results and connecting their abilities to process information and make connections with their engagement in class.  

Finding relevant research with respect to understanding how to build connections is important to grounding my inquiry.  I want to inquire into well-founded studies and research to base the profiles of student learnings on.

Making connections with whanau and parents is important to support learning.  I want to connect with parents of my mentor class more to enable them to support their child in their learning.  I want to regularly contact them in some way to share their child’s learning.

Making connections across curriculum areas is important so that students can know that we talk to each about student learning and I can gather ideas as to what works and what doesn’t.  I want to start a conversation and dialogue with their other subject teachers to find common learning connections and challenges.
Sometimes I don’t think I challenge my class enough in their learning.  I want to pose a provocation students to challenge their thinking that all learning happens in the classroom and that it is important to know and care about their community.

I want to collect viable student voice through surveys and focus group discussions to ensure that students have a voice in their learning and to inform my practice.  

I want to compare video evidence of students’ confidence levels at the start of an intervention and then again at the end so I can see if there is any improvement in attitude.