Inquiry #7: Professional Readings

Explain how they and other sources helped you form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning.

Student Learning

#1:  Understanding critical thinkers

Hunch:  If I teach students how to be critical thinkers then this will help them understand the higher level thinking needed to succeed at level 2.

In one of the presentations made by the Manaiakalani team, a focus on critical literacy is one of the ways that may contribute to a pattern of teaching to raise achievement.  

Further research into this, I found one of the readings that ‘Extending guided reading with critical literacy’ supported readers mores to consider and question the texts they are using in their learning.  The authors (Susan Sandretto and the Critical Literacy team) defined critical literacy as a ‘critical thinking tool that encourages readers to questions the construction and production of texts’.  

One of the strategies identified in the study found that the ‘direct teaching of metalanguage’ that teachers needed to do some direct, explicit teaching of some of the language that students would need to be able to use to discuss and understand some of the critical literacy concepts.

In our subject area of Social Sciences, we build concepts and vocabulary at the start of the lesson to help the learners connect to their learning.  I want to explore the benefits of this further when developing my intervention.

#2:  Focus on language through deep diving into concepts

Hunch: If we focused on learning and deep diving into concepts better and how they fit in the big picture, students will have a good base to understanding key terms and vocabulary and will therefore write better. 

The Learning Progressions Framework our New Zealand Curriculum offers support for teachers to identify, track and shift students writing, reading and maths.  A writing framework can support writers in their writing journey.

“Writing is an essential tool for learning in all areas of the curriculum. Students need to be able to rely on their writing to help them think, as well as to organise and communicate their ideas and understandings to a wide range of audiences”. 

I enjoyed reading about how De La Salle College used a collaborative approach across their cluster to understand the LPFs (learning progressions).  The inquiry helped them to strengthen writing for their learners and also help build teacher capabilities in the teaching of writing.

In my classroom, I try to utilise exemplars of student writing in past assessments supports students so that they can see what they can achieve.  I want to develop this better using the writing frameworks as a guide.

Teacher pedagogy

#3:  Cultural responsiveness for Māori learners in the Classroom

Hunch:  If we teach through a culturally responsive lens, our learners will feel connected to their learning and achieve success.

In one of our COL meetings, our COL leader discussed Dr Russell Bishops theories on practices that raised Māori achievement and one is that instructional practices need to be based on relationships.  “Strong and caring relationships are essential but relationships without a shift in pedagogy will not result in increased outcomes for students”.  A graph which shows how effective teachers ‘teach to the north-east’ show teachers who are ‘able to support Māori and other marginalised students learning most effectively’. 

Dr Russel Bishop conduct student voice research and found that 80% of Māori learners believe the biggest influence on the learners is their relationships with the teachers and equally the biggest barrier is deficit thinking.  This is reinforced in a video I watched called ‘The End of Failure’ where Dr Bishop speaks about relationship-based learning and success in implementing a well-researched strategy to connect with, support and increase success for Maori students (here are my notes). 

One of the issues he has highlight is the need for teachers to be ‘better supported to learn how to create effective caring and learning relationships in the classroom as the base for effective teaching’. 

Link 

#4: Contexts matter

Hunch: If we engaged the learners with a connected local curriculum, we can motivate them to care about their writing.

“In primary they teach children, in secondary they teach subjects”.

Our department has been building our units around our local curriculum to incorporate rich and relevant learning opportunities to create engagement.  

“Rich opportunities to learn are carefully designed to increase the breadth, depth and complexity of the learning experiences with which ākonga engage as they progress along their learning pathways. They are designed to support ākonga to contribute to their communities in ways that build on and strengthen both community and ākonga capabilities” (Rich Learning Opportunities Tool Guide, pg 3).

An appendix to the tool guide is Dr Rosemary Hipkins report on 'Weaving the coherent curriculum: how the idea of ‘capabilities’ can help' (pg 29).  

One of the barriers to learning for my year 12’s is understanding and emphasising with a perspective that is not their own. "Perspective-taking has been shown to be essential to understanding complex issues in our world.  Again, doing so contributes to building and strengthening the key competency of participating and contributing. It supports the New Zealand Curriculum vision of educating our young people to be and become actively engaged members of society" (pg 31).

I want to utilise the teaching units at level 2 to reinforce critical thinking through perspective taking.

T.C Staff PLD COL Inquiry presentation #2

Today our COL team presented to our staff where we were at with our inquiries and how we could support them in understanding inquiry in their everyday practice life.  

Here is our presentation.

The highlight for me was how Karen was able to describe inquiry in a way that our staff could understand and it bought to light that if we are honest about ourselves and how we see our teaching, we could start unpacking what the real issues could be.  I think a good message was to let staff know that we are not perfect and things may not work but that that is ok.  Karen's visual showed two sides, on the left was what we couldn't control (like kids punctuality and attendance) and on the right was what we could control like our planning.

Staff went into department groups to discuss what went wrong, how it made them feel and what they did or planned to do to address the issue.  It was interesting to hear some of the conversations that was being had and how in my own department, staff were sharing the same concerns.

Inquiry #6: Summarising your key findings about the nature and extent of the student problem.

Some of the key points I have looked at after profiling my learners is:

1. That 70% of my year 12’s were not confident writers
2. The shift from level 1 (year 11) writing of ‘Identifying’ and ‘develop ideas’ to the level 2 (year 12) writing of ‘describing, analysing and explaining’ is a struggle for some of the students
3. Students need to think more deeply with more opportunities of scaffolding in they’re writing to achieve.

This coupled with the data I collected on the students level 1 English results from the previous year 2022, I have made some observations and can recognise in my classroom which students display more confidence in their writing and which students need more support.

After synthesising some of the information I have collected as while as using my own teacher observations, I noticed that students weren't thinking deeply or had the skills do think 'critically' about the learning.  I wondered if they were asking questions, unpacking the language to make more meaning of it and I wondered if they had the will and the confidence to go for the merit and excellence answers.

The wondered if the idea of developing more critical thinkers would perhaps lead to more confident, critical writers.  This would then allow them to ask questions, think more deeply and critically so that they are prepared for the analytical and explanatory types of writing needed at level 2.  

I like to write ideas down on paper and try and connect them that way first.  Here's my sketch:

To show critical thinking in Social Studies, we look at how students respond to social issues and should analyse, justify and comprehensively aspects relevant to their learning.  As described by the Head of Learning for English, they find the same challenges when students move from level 1 to level 2.

Some of the data I will use to build a profile of the students’ learning as baseline data at the end of the year will be:

• A analysis of the comparative writing use an asttle testing framework
• Student voice surveys
• Teacher observations during guided writing

To narrow down my focus more deeply, I want to look at how to focus on writing by making the learning more culturally responsive through a critical thinking lense.

Can we teach writers to think critically through a culturally responsive lense?

After having some thought on the wording of my inquiry, I have a few attempts below:

Will a focus on critical thinking skills enable akōnga to be better writers in a culturally responsive environment?

Would teaching in a culturally responsive way enhance critical thinking skills that will enable akōnga to be better writers?

Would teaching in a culturally responsive way enable akōnga to use critical thinking skills to become better writers?

I've decided on:

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