COL Interview 2024: Questions 2 - 6

2. What learnings from the 2017 - 2023 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

In no particular order.  

• Karen’s innovations in creating learning for the kids on social media platforms and her watching her create and trial the innovative teacher inquiry game 'Boost' with our staff.
• Christine and Poto from Glen Taylor. We have created a strong bond and have connected in our knowledge of identifying the challenges and support needed for our Pasifika kids. 
• I know that Christines supporting teachers and their pedagogy and being culturally responsive in our practice.  
• Andrea who is currently building a Pasifika teachers network she is building is needed and important in building last.  

3. How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa?

• Through ensuring that students and staff know that the Learn, Create, Share model is one of the ways we continue to be connected to each other.
• I will continue to work and support Kerry and the Manaiakalani team through department discussions and secondary connected.
• I will continue to challenge and question systems to ensure the appropriate voices are heard.

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

Here are some of the findings that I have found useful, challenging and enjoyable in guiding my pedagogy and the pedagogy of my department.

• Reading Research tool observations.  These tools are so beneficial and need more 'airtime' to be incorporated across the cluster more purposefully.  I would love to see PLD from the team for our school to work out how to implement the tools better.
• Critical literacy page 4
• Cluster-wide PLD

5. How would you like to be supported in 2024 as you undertake this inquiry?

• I would like to continue to work more closely with other COL teachers within our school but also across the cluster.
• I would like to have a regular check in and talanoa with Fiona.  
• I would like to book in and see Matt more to help with my workspaces.
• I would like to meet Dr Russell Bishop and be led in a PLD by him.

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

• I would like to support teachers by inviting them to observe my classes.  I would like to allocate my time COL time once a week to have one on one conferencing with staff. 
• I want to continue to present to our staff once a term with our COL team.

Me looking interested in library books

COL Interview 2024 Question 1

Because I talk too much, I've decided to break my interview questions into two parts.  This is part ONE.

1.  What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2024 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise.

The achievement challenge the I am focusing on is achievement challenge #1 Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13.

I am a year 10 mentor/tutor this year, its that year between being fresh at year 9 and feeling the pressures at year 11.  As the years progressed, we seeing the struggle to engage with the learning, to stay motivated and focused.  As of this week, the average attendance of our year 10’s was 53% for the year (including hybrid learning)

This term the school wanted to see if we could have them focus on relevant learnings that are worth credits.  So English, Science, Maths and my dept Social Sciences decided to offer at least 3 credits. I found a level 1 standard 4 credits.  I taught level 1 this year and decided I would try and rearrange the timetable so that I will be the one to teach all the year 10’s for 3 of the 4 periods of Social Studies classes each week.

To start the process, I looked at what the challenges and barriers were for learning. One of them was that not every student had a device.  When thinking about a framework as to how to create the environment for learning, I thought about the iceberg theory: the stuff you can see on top is the organisational stuff, below the iceberg is the shift in thinking that leads to a shift in teaching.

 ICEBERG THEORY:  Above the water

1. No devices unless you need it to research
2. Every child provided the tools to learn (black clearfile, worksheets, pens)
3. Learning space - the school library
   

BELOW THE ICEBERG

• Building an environment of learning that is safe and comfortable.  
• Learning through the values lens and using the language to guide the learning.
• Setting high expectations (constant affirmations, you can do it, well done). 
• Provocations that lead to critical thinker.
• Showing passion and conviction ‘this is so important to know and I know you know it’.

Structure of lessons

• Structured way of learning that is repetitive 
• Feedback and feedforward:  Every weekend I’ve taken each box home and marked and put comments on every child who’s been present their folders and provided feedback.

So far the sessions have been going well but my next questions were: 

• How do I keep the momentum going and allow now for the differentiation in learning?
• How do I ensure that learning is deep enough and wide enough?
• How do ensure that my Māori learners are engaged and can achieve success?

I’ve had some ups and downs so far.  Ups: Students seem engaged and I have received has been positive feedback.  Teachers have also accidentally observed me.  Downs:  It takes a lot to organise and I’m exhausted at the end of each day.  But I know the investment is worth it!

When talking with teachers who have observed me, they have shared how they have found the lessons engaging.  This leads me to think about leading learning for teachers.  

During one of COL meetings this year, our Co-ordinator mentioned Dr Russell Bishops work around teaching to the north east.  I was interested in hearing about the research and spent some time researching and looking at his work.  At my next department meeting, I put to my team, what is the biggest impact on Maori achievements in education?  The feedback interesting and Bishops studies found it was the teacher student relationship.  On the other side, the biggest barrier was deficit thinking. 

My next questions are:

• What is my theory of teaching?
• How does it guide my pedagogy?
• How do I unpack my unconscious bias around deficit thinking?
• Can I support other teachers to unpack theirs without being frustrated?

I have so many things to consider and will try and identify a more concise inquiry with more research.

The Challenge: Providing our year 10's with quality learning.

In my last post, I described what I did to set up my year 10’s to achieve a 4 credit standard we are offering at level 1 Social Studies so that students will have credits on the board before the new changes occur in 2024.  This is blogpost is about setting up the student learning.

Choosing the right topic

It’s hard to try and think of a topic that would keep the kids focussed.  It’s term 4, a busy time of the year.  Kids and staff are under the pump and most are just hanging on for dear life.  I had to think about a major Social Action that students could see had an impact in the past and today.  I thought about the Schools strike 4 climate change march back in 2019, where some of our students had attended.  I thought about inviting some key speakers who went to try and put a face to the action.  But it didn’t seem the right topic that would hook our kids into.  Then I thought about the historical Springbok Tour of 1981.

I talked to the two History teachers in my department about choosing the Springbok tour 1981 and both suggested it was a good idea as we are in the middle of the Rugby World Cup at the moment.  It is also part of the Aotearoa Histories curriculum as one of the pivotal times in our history and needed to be taught.  I wondered if it was too old as a topic but as I started googling and looking at it in depth, I found the themes of racism and racial segregation so relevant for a focus today, I decided to go with that topic.

All paper, no devices

This one was hard to decide on but I decided that student's would only use their devices for research purposes.  I ordered 150 clearfiles and big boxed containers for the staff to put them in.  They will remain in class with the teacher to be distributed during each period so that we won't have any fluffing around with devices.  I invested in lots of pens and pencils that I will keep restocking and big white boxes for the teachers.

Clear timetable for the term

I set up a clear learning timetable and will go through it with each class so they can see the big picture.  On it, I put each of the key events that are coming up like exams, film festival, due dates for the assessment etc.  They will have a print copy and I will share a digital copy as well.

Setting High Expectations from the Start.

I expect some of the students will find it hard to settle at first but I focus on setting up the culture of learning by referring to the values first and foremost.  For example the first tutorial, I will focus on the RISE value of Success as being a partnership and that me and their teachers are willing to give them the best opportunity to succeed and they can meet us half way by coming to class on time, coming prepared with the right attitude for learning.  I will always always praise their potential.

I am hoping some of these strategies will work.  

The Challenge: Providing our year 10's with quality teaching.

In 2024, the new changes with NCEA Level 1 will need to be implemented as part of the Ministry’s curriculum refresh.  To help get our kids on the ‘board’, some of our core subjects such as English, Maths, Science and Social Studies decided to offer at least 4 credits to support our potential level ones who are at the moment in year 10.  In my department, we decided to offer 4 credits.

I had a look at potential standards we could offer and settled on the achievement standard 91041 ‘Describe a Social Justice and Human Rights Issue’ worth 4 credits.  I had taught this standard to my level 1’s early this year and most of them had achieved the standard.  I also felt that this one was the easiest of the standards in Social Studies to achieve especially with the limited time frame we had. 

I wanted to ensure that all year 10’s would have the same access to the learning that my year 11’s did so I went about setting out a plan.  I set a goal of trying to get the majority of year 10's who attend school regularly to achieve the 4 credits (I will formalise a goal after the initial learning sessions).

This blogpost is in two parts.  This part is about setting up the teaching, then next one is about setting up the learning.

Expert teaching about the standard:

As the only teacher of Senior Social Studies I figured that I could support the staff in my department by taking on the teaching  the teaching and learning of the subject by teaching the entire cohort what they need to know to achieve the standard.

I toyed with the idea of teaching all 180 in the auditorium at the same time, but the differences in timetable meant that I would be impeding on someone else’s classes so couldn't do it that way.  There are 6 year 10 classes and on a Monday, 5 of them have social studies, 2 sets of classes have them at the same time.  As I had hybrid seniors on a Monday, I decided I could try and teach the 5 classes as ‘tutorials’ on a Monday, to set them up for the learning (the 6th class was my own year 10 class that I would teach separately on a Tuesday).

5 of the 6 classes also had a double period during the week on a Wednesday or Thursday so I wanted to combine 2 classes on a Wednesday and 3 classes on a Thursday both in the library for the space and the sense of formality.  I called these ‘workshops’ as this is where the majority of the teaching and learning happens for the kids.

Structure of the tutorials:

1st one is setting the scene, basics of the context, basics of the standard, overview of the timetable, setting expectations of learning.  The rest of the tutorials will be looking at teacher feedback, understanding the focus of the week.

Structure of the workshops:

I decided to structure the workshops as follows:

• Our learning objectives
• The values of the day
• What if provocation
• Prior knowledge: What do you know about…
• Introducing key concepts, words, vocal we will come across 
• 5 minute writing tasks defining words
• Slide with 2 paragraphs maximum highlighting key words on context (read it to them)
• 5 minute quick fire questions referring to paragraphs 
• Hit them with a big chunk of learning but summarise discussions with images and at least 2 supportive videos
• A table with questions, short-answer and paragraph writing activities.
• A reading that supports the learning and a writing exercise.
• Recap learning objectives.
• Extra for experts wanting to do more

Single period sessions with their normal teacher:

Following up on an unfinished work and feedback.

I will write how this part went in a later blogpost.

Inquiry #9: Restating my Inquiry focus and other stuff

Restate your inquiry question and your theory of action/chain of events:

My inquiry is “Would teaching in a culturally responsive way enhance critical thinking skills to enable students to become better writers?"

How I will collect information:  

• Formal ways:
• Student voice
• Teacher observations.

Informal ways:

• Student and teacher discussions

How I will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way

• Collect samples of student writing
• Discussions recorded with students
• Reflection on my teaching and teacher notes
• Discussions with colleagues

Inquiry #8 Intervention Tools 3: Relational Pedagogy

At the heart of my inquiry is cultural responsive teaching and specifically, how can I support and raise the achievement in writing of my Māori students.  Dr Russell Bishops studies show that Māori learners believe the key to their success is the relationships that surround them and this has a direct impact on their achievement. 

But that does not stand alone and his studies found that in ‘Teaching to the North-East’ is not just about creating caring relationships with student, it’s about ensuring that the relationship matches the high teaching skills provided by the teacher.  This is called ‘relational pedagogy’. 

In the past, I have used board theory alot and want to look at co-operative learning groups where students will discuss their learning and learn from each other.  Providing relevant feedback and feedforward is important and something that I know I need to improve and is important.  Allowing extra time for students to come in after school would also help.  High expert teaching supports students in knowing what is going on and where they are at.  

More research shows that you can't just teach a text that is specific to a people or indigenous group and expect that to be culturally responsive, but that teachers need to go know students before making judgements as to what is responsive to them.  

Inquiry #8 Intervention Tools 2: Writing Strategies

Here are a few writing strategies that I want to use to support writing for my seniors.

1st Strategy:  Reading aloud and guided vocabulary activities

Reading and writing go hand in hand.  For the level 2 exams, students are required to read and interpret a number of different sources to show their understanding by applying findings to the questions. I want to try a predictive reading strategy with the class to help them deep dive into understanding the reading and draw from the reading the key concepts and vocab needed to understand the text.  This in turn should reinforce the focus on understanding key words to make meaning.

2nd Strategy: Visuals and word counts matter

A study called ‘Write that Essay’ found that students’ responded to knowing how many words, sentences, paragraphs etc they needed to write to help guide them.  I found this useful in the past and I wanted to ensure students knew exactly how many words they needed per paragraph and how this would look.  

3rd Strategy: SOLO taxonomy Hexagons to encourage critical thinking

One of the activities I like doing is the Hexagon activity where students have done some prior-learning about a topic and then are encouraged to make connections that are relevant to the topic.  I want to utilise SOLO taxonomy framework more purposefully in class to encourage the learning. 

Inquiry task #8 Intervention Tools 1: Workspace design

I’ve created a workspace for students to access their work in one centralised location.  On it, I hope to add rewindable learning opportunities especially for those who may have missed classes as well as evidence of writing as we progress with the learning.

The structure of the workspace is as follows:

• Tips for preparing for exams
• Understanding the writing expectations with 
• A study of exams
• Understanding the language of the standard
• Understanding the conflict

The workspace will help me to track student writing tasks in a common place.

I have not been a great advocate for workspaces myself just because I couldn’t get my head around it.  Now that I see the benefits of using it for the learners, I will definitely be actively using it to support student learning. (Link to workspace)