COL meeting #2: 18th March, 2021

COL#2: 18th March, 2021

Today we had our second COL meeting at Pt England Primary school.  It was lovely to see the team for the first time in person this year.  Below are some of the notes I took from my meeting. 

Think about a size that is manageable and measurable.

What causes our kids to have a reading problem.  Not enough vocab?  So what?  What's the inquiry?

Teacher feedback or impact makes the most impact on a student.

Has to be something that we are in charge of.

How would we hone down things like engagement?

Kotahitanga - Dr Russell Bishop said 'kids do well if they get on with the teacher'.

“Something in the deliberate acts of teaching that could make a big difference”. Teachers might be doing it the wrong way or not doing it enough.

How do you know whose getting what and the right amount?  

We can measure the lunch programme - if they get the same stuff, how come boys are lower.

Control groups not always fair. Not compulsory.

Agree around some commonality but see the difference

Collaborative Inquiry is a “can do”

A group could agree to use a common tool 

They may end up using a different approach or could combine and try the same approach (may be a benefit in more numbers)

Still needs to be based on the evidence from various classes i.e. variations in content in response to learners.

In order to develop an intervention it’s important to know why is that happening?

Discussion time - find others who are doing similar inquiries.

https://christinetupou.blogspot.com/

https://potofaalili.blogspot.com/

I had an awesome discussions with Poto and Christine and how they want to focus on empowering the learners through the teachers that teach them.

Key takeouts:

• We share the fact that our Pasifika kids respond to their Pasifika teachers better
  
• Identity is a key factor that allows our learners to feel valued.

I had always felt that sometimes my inquiry is too focused on the how what I could do would change literacy and numeracy when the reality is, what needs addressing is teacher practice.  My passion is our empowering our Pasifika learners and after talking to Poto and Christine, I feel committed to continue my line of inquiry.

Inquiry Question #2: Inquiry Focus

Inquiry Question2 : From what you know already about your classes and your school’s profile and leadership goals for the year, share a possible inquiry focus.

My initial inquiry draft#2 is:

How does taking teachers on a journey of growth in Tapasā affect their pedagogical implementation?

Our school is made up of at least 68% Pasifika students.  We have strategies that we think we know and use around how to be culturally responsive to the needs of our students but there hasn't really been an inquiry to show how we can better adapt best evidence practice when engaging our Pasifika learners.

Part way through 2020, after reading a document containing student voice from our school, I decided that I wanted to turn that voice into action.  From this has came the Tamaki College Pasifika Initiative.  There are multiple levels of the initiative and one key aspect has been to implement the Tapasā into our teaching and learning.

I have been thinking about how to support those staff who are not Pasifika in implementing the Tapasā.  In saying that, there is an assumption that Pasifika teachers know how to teach Pasifika kids and although this may be true, relying on Pasifika staff to 'deal' with our Pasifika students.  So I'm am broadly thinking about who I would want to work with.

My inquiries in the past have focussed on a class and how I would implement interventions to accelerate achievement.  And these have usually been positive.  From my experience, I have noticed that as a Pasifika teacher myself, the students can relate to my teaching style and therefore respond positively.  I feel I am 'good' at teaching Pasifika students and therefore doing another inquiry whereby I teach the students I am inquirying into isn't condusive to the bigger picture.  We know that students engage with people who look like them and can connect with them.  My wonderings are: how can staff who don't look like me (ie. Pasifika) teach kids who look like me (ie. Pasifika).

I feel as a HOD and a passionate advocate of Pasifika education at Tamaki College, I would like to support non-Pasifika staff to connect with our Pasifika students better using the well documented and value added strategies shared in the Tapasā.  

My style of teacher support is to understand my teachers underlying assumptions and beliefs and to collaborate on a ‘framework’ that will allow them to look at their perceptions of our Pasifika students differently and build a repertoire of skills to support the learners in front of them.

Although our specific blogpost is supposed to frame our focus as a desired change in student learning and NOT a change in teaching, I am still working out how supporting our teachers will enhance and/or accelerate student learning and whether this needs to be a focus.

Initial Plan

My initial Planning will be to:

• Invite staff to join my inquiry
• Share with them the purpose of my inquiry and how it could support them
• Make a plan to regularly catch up with them
• Capture learnings through voice recordings and/or video observations.
• Pick out and align learnings from the Tapasā. 
• Document carefully our meetings
• Look at the different models that we could apply such as the growth mindset and the iceberg model.
• Identify trends and patterns from our meetings and share with my team.

Inquiry Question #1: Collaborate

My task was to collaborate with my school's leadership team and colleagues to identify areas where my inquiry will make a powerful contribution to the wider school and cluster goals.

Goal number 4 of our school goals for 2021 is: 

All teachers at Tamaki College will be well supported so that their practice meets the needs of their students. 

We have aligned our department goals to this school goal:

By the end of the year, we will have developed relatable practical teaching and learning resources to support the varying teaching needs of our team to meet the learning needs of the students in our Social Science classrooms.  There is a focus on our Maori and Pasifika learners.  We will construct a Social Sciences framework with which we will apply the learnings from the Standards for Profession teaching using the Tapasā as a lense, to enable all Social Sciences teachers  to have a kete/bank of strategies to support our learners across each year level.

My draft #1 Inquiry focus that I discussed with my school’s leadership team and colleagues was:

Can I develop the capabilities of my staff to accelerate learning through understanding and applying the Tapasā in a year 10 Social Studies class?

At this stage, ‘develop the capabilities’ relates to:

• Me understanding in depth the Tapasā
• Understanding where my team are and know about culturally responsive pedagogy
• Understanding where my team are and know about the Tapasā
• Wondering if kids can learn in an environment where the strategies from the Tapasā is prevalent and at the forefront of the teaching and learning/

Specific Outcomes:

• A ‘collaborative framework’ for staff in my department to develop with my guidance and support
• A ‘framework’ for success in collaboration with students
• A positive shift in achievement data related to PAT or asttle writing (possibility)

Wider school goals: 

• School goal:  Focus on school goal #4, on teacher wellbeing

Cluster wide goals: 

• Manaiakalani Achievement Challenges
• Challenges identified by Woolf Fisher at our cluster wide meeting specifically reading 

Through formal and informal discussions, I have talked to the following people:

My school’s leadership team: 

• Our School Principal (Senior Leadership team).  
• It is an inquiry that is paramount and embedded in your practice
• This is part of core business and will help staff develop cultural awareness 
• It will be useful to the growth of the department meaning that it will shift achievement in some way.
• You won’t be reinventing the wheel and should not be more work then what you are currently doing.
• Heads of Department (related to curriculum).
• How can what you learn apply to other subject areas.
• Positive in the way it can support our students.

Colleagues:  

• HOD in another department
• The more strategies the better especially around managing behaviour.
• It would be good to support staff in having restorative and meaningful conversations
• Teachers in my department
• How much more work is required?
• Can it work in my classroom? Strategies and tasks that you can see works.
• We would like support in how to scaffold collaborative groups because we don’t do it enough.
• Teachers from other curriculum areas
• I can see the value in working across curriculum areas.  How would assessments and reporting on the class look?
• Sharing ‘knowing the learner’ in a consistent centralised place important

Professional Colleague with Language and Inquiry Experience:  Dr Jannie Van Hees

• This is in two parts and maybe too big to do.  For the meantime, don’t worry about affecting learning and achievement as yet. 
• Uptake of the journey to somehow be evident in the pedagogy and then we make a projection (after analysing blogging, logging, student voice and discussions) to see what are some trends.
• Think about how you can collect evidence and measure this. 
• I think It will be interesting to see how they (not giving them do this do that) but saying from that piece of learning, I might try this and I might try that, alright go for it.  With regular checkpoints, the support will be there.

After discussing with the SLT and a number of colleagues and experts my draft#1 inquiry, I have decided to reframe my inquiry to focus on the capabilities of members of my department.  My Draft#2 of my Inquiry is along the lines of: 

How does taking teachers on a journey of growth in Tapasā affect their pedagogical implementation?. 

I will attempt to discuss this further in my next blog.