TAI2020 WFRC Inquiry task #3: Building an accurate student profile

Inquiry task #3: 

My task is to describe the tools/measures/approaches I plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge.  I will also try to justify why I chose these approaches and tools.

(Note: Although my hope is to inquire into how teachers collaborate as well as our students, my focus for answering the inquiry questions will focus on the students).

My challenge is to see if implementing the strategies involved in the ‘Talanoa’ will help my learners to collaborate better in their project based groups.  I feel that by doing this it will help my learners to make accelerated shifts across the board in reading and writing.

Raising the literacy levels for our junior school in reading and writing is a focus across all curriculum areas.  Is it key to preparing our students for the challenges of NCEA in the senior school. I would like to if the Talanoa could be used as a tool to enhance learning.  My efforts in the past have not been entirely successful in incorporating the Talanoa, as my focus has been raising the achievement in writing for my learners and Talanoa became lost in translation.  My idea is to equip students with the tools to talk their learning by using well-researched strategies, in a hope that it would support their literacy learning better and provide positive outcomes for the learners.

Planning changes:

• I am conscious of the fact that we have a non-teacher driving the course.  My plan is meet with Karl more regularly to plan ahead to ensure that we are on track with the projects vision as well as meeting the achievement objectives of the junior school Social Studies programme.
• I need to identify which skills students need in preparation for asttle and PAT tests but also to meet the curriculum standards.
• I need to check the Literacy learning progressions and figure out which ones will benefit students not just in Social Studies but across the curriculum.
• It describes the specific literacy knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students draw on in order to meet the reading and writing demands of the curriculum. Teachers need to ensure that their students develop the literacy expertise that will enable them to engage with the curriculum at increasing levels of complexity and with increasing independence. As students progress through schooling, they need to be able to read and write increasingly complex texts and to engage with increasingly complex tasks.
• I need to regularly meet with all the teachers and team involved with the class to ensure the groups targets are met and any concerns are raised before my teaching the class again.
• I need to develop a centralised ‘dropbox’ for strategies, tips and tools that each of the teachers have found worked/didn’t work. 

Instructional changes:

• I need to understand that my theory of the teacher at the front of the class is to be used only when needed.
• I need to ensure that I spend equal amounts of time with each group to ensure their projects are heard.  
• I need to provide opportunities for students to co-design the lesson and teach other students skills that are needing reinforcement.
• I need to provide differentiated activities and tasks to suit the varied learning needs in the class.

Data:  PAT/E-asttle

• I want to analyse the students’ results to help me profile their learning abilities and understand where the strengths and gaps are.  

Student voice

• I want to regularly have a number of students provide one on one feedback.  This could be done by creating a student council.
• I want to send out a student voice survey to identify what is going well and what we need to work on.

Colleague/Literacy expert observations

• I want to meet with Dr Jannie at least fortnightly to help me manage my inquiry better.  I tended to drift off at the end of 2019 and failed to complete my evaluation properly and I don’t want that to happen again this year.
• I would like an expert to observe the interactions between the teaching team and the students as well as the project groups themselves.

COL teachers expertise

• I hope to meet with the other COL teachers at our school to see how they are going and share highlights and lowlights.  This creates a sense of colleguiality around our inquiries.
• I plan to utilise the learnings that Nicola Wells found in her comprehensive Inquiry last year around raising the reading levels of her year 9 class.  It is a robust inquiry that has some key insights that I feel are valuable to understanding the complexities of reading for our learners. 

(I’d like to acknowledge Robyn Anderson’s blog posts on her TAI2020. They are written with such clarity and have helped me scaffold my own blog posts.  Thank you Robyn!)

Online Teaching and Learning #1: First few days in Lockdown

Getting ready for lockdown 

When we went into lockdown, there was like a short amount of time to get ourselves sorted, both staff and students.  On the Monday of the lockdown week , I spoke to my seniors about the fact that we will be learning online and not to freak out.  For my year 13's, I spent a whole double period just answering any questions or worries that were top of their minds.  For both my year 12's and 13's, we tried out a hangout meet in our classroom.  They found it strange and were quite shy at first but a test run was a good way to gage how it look and feel.

Trying the hangout in class

Getting our teaching sites ready

The main platform our Social Science department chose to use to connect with our learners were calendars and sites.  I had oversight of our department and took on the job of checking for consistency and accessibility.  In our department we don't have individual teachers sites as such, but a one stop shop website that functions as a centralised hub.  On the landing page, each of the senior subject branches off into it's own specific site.  From those sites, each teacher is in charge of the functionality of that site.    Each landing page has an introduction to the course, calendar, assessment information and a year planner.  

Social Science landing page

For the juniors, I designed a landing page for each tutor class for ease of finding their work.  The aim was to have a centralised place where kids could see a tracking sheet of their work and blogs.

1st days of teaching online:

For the seniors, I had on average 7 students which was great.  Most of them just used the chat function to communicate which I found strange as I felt like I was talking to myself.

For my year 9 class, we had 14 students in the hangout with our project leader Karl and our student support Mr Dunn.  The challenge for this class was to figure out how to continue to work on our projects and in their groups in lockdown.  This is something I want to think about over the next few weeks.  I enjoyed teaching this class and the highlights were discussing what Covid-19 meant to them, Nevaeh asking to use the bathroom and Mathew multi-tasking feeding his baby brother.  I’m really looking forward to ‘hanging’ out with my kids online!

Mr Dunn showing us how flash the internet is

Mathew feeding his little brother

Discussions around my inquiry with an expert #1

Today I had the opportunity to sit down with Jannie Van Hees, our literacy expert to sound out my inquiry as I was feeling a little anxious about how to approach it.

Below is the dialogue that I had with Jannie.

Is it o.k that my inquiry is something I didn’t know about at the beginning and to say that?

• Novel/ Pioneer/ Original 
• No intervention
• It's o.k to say that I didn’t know what I was going to do until I did it.

Where can this my inquiry fit in the big picture with regards to the follow?

• Talanoa 
• Key competencies

How should I identify my group I want to do?  

Depends on the goals.  How pedantic should choosing the group be

• Choices:
• One that I have a relationship with
• One that I have no relationship with 
• Neutral

• Observations about the Water safety crew- individually (hows it going as a group) PMI
• Floundering away with the lack of knowledge
• They have a high level of compliance
• Not challenging - keep it confidential for now
• Hows it going as a group? What are the pluses? Minus?

Should I also look at how teachers collaborate to plan the course or should I just stick to the students?

You should be kind to yourself.   It's about managability’. You could look at collaboration as teachers and how they adjust.  Talk individually to the teachers.

In what ways can I collect data?

Video one focus group.

Look for the idea chain:

• One dominates idea chain
• Two quick to say oh yea thats good
• When someone grabs an idea and goes yes  but doesnt look at other possibilities
• Leave it with the group.
• Teach talanoa
• Video the group, let them look at the footage.  2 points that you are doing well and 2 not so well.
• I want to meet with the kids fortnightly
• Look at the footage and says what stands out?
• Format:  What are 2 stand outs going well.  What are questionable?

Put it into a shared space to see if the kids get a chance to review themselves.

You are learning to enhance your own learning capabilities through working with others who have a like mind and that more minds are better then mine.

Whats the trends across the group?  Whats the trends that I see?  What are the implications for you?

Then throw in the Talanoa.

Want the kids to experience learning in a collaborative way about something that matters to them.  

My intention is to see the journey and to discern from that new learning that will enable me to replicated.

If countries have the virus in Taiwan is low deaths (masks - bus full of tourists, compliment), Italy high deaths - high percentage of other people (slapping, hugging, kissing - don’t tell me what to do).  We think we are our own person but we are very cultured.

We came together as a group of teachers to do something different here because we needed to.  I asked myself ‘will this work for what we say is the needed journey for these kids if we want to make a significant change for the way we deliver learning 

Does project based collaborative ways of learning in a Talanoa environment, is this the persuasive difference maker for the learning journey’s of our kids.  

This would be typically how year 9’s do it.  This is how we’ve delivered learning in the past.  What were some of the issues arising.  This was the causality of why we needed.  But again, just because we are going to make a change, doesn’t mean it’s going to totally work. 

Genuine inquiry into a real situation of the unknown. 

9AK #5: Staff supporting student projects

There are five project groups collaborating on various project based issues in our 9AK class.  They are making steady progress towards completing the planning for actions, although the challenge has been spending enough time with each group to support them better.

Today, we were blessed with 5 staff in the room who stayed to support a group.  They were Ms Lote-Fepuleai their English teacher, Karl their Project leader, Mr Dunn our DP/Project supporter, Dr Jannie Van Hees and myself.

After an introduction, each group got on with their projects.  Each staff member aligned themselves with a group and the project leaders shared with the staff their projects.

Reflections:

The one on one interactions between the staff and project groups helped the students feel connected to the bigger picture of how important their projects are.  I hope that we can get this opportunity again.

TAI2020 WFRC Inquiry question and task #2: Collaborate

Inquiry question and task #2: 

Will my inquiry make a contribution to the wider school and cluster goals?

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.

My Inquiry focus for 2020:

Does project based collaborative ways of learning in a Talanoa environment make the difference in the learning journey of our kids?  

At this stage, ‘Making a difference’ relates to:

• Raising achievement in PAT reading or asttle writing
• Wondering if kids can learn in an environment where Talanoa is prevalent and at the forefront of the teaching and learning?  Compared to other year 9 classes, will it help raise achievement in reading and writing?  How can I support the lower ability students whilst engaging and enriching the learning for others?

Specific Outcomes:

• A ‘framework’ for collaboration between teachers
• A ‘framework’ for success in collaboration between students
• A positive shift in achievement data related to PAT or asttle writing

Wider school goals: 

• School goal:  Focus on school goal #2, raising the literacy levels of our junior students (see specifics here).

Cluster wide goals: 

• Manaiakalani Achievement Challenges
• Challenges identified by Woolf Fisher at our cluster wide meeting specifically reading (please see blogpost #)

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

My school’s leadership team: 

• The SLT (Senior Leadership team).  
• Vision is to see the collaboration as supporting our schools goals.  
• ‘What kind of support is needed to ensure this succeeds?’.  
• Connecting with the families from the beginning is key
• Heads of Department (related to curriculum).
• What does this look like in our subject area?
• How would we support our teachers who are part of the class
• Share your learnings - good and bad

Colleagues:  

• 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
• There seems to be a lot of time and planning going into this but we haven’t really heard much about the class, please share more about who they are and what they are doing.
• Literacy experts: Dr Jannie Van Hees
• This is an ‘Action Research’.  As the participant, you are essentially inquiring as you go (refer to blogposts # and #)
• Narrow your focus to think about it in two parts: A community of learning and a community of learners.  A group of teachers who are trying to cohese and a group of learners.  You would make a bigger impact.
• Manageability is important.
• MIT teacher from the cluster
• How are the year 9’s managing the changes in teaching and learning?
• From your findings, I’d like information on how we can work together better to support our year 8’s going to T.C
• Colleagues who are supporting the learning of the project based class.
• Community Activist 
• How will you sustain and maintain engagement within the groups without losing them?
• What limitations are there with regards to timetable for example, if we want kids to really utilise their time around projects?
• Kath Murdoch’s ‘The Power of Inquiry’ inquiry learning cycle may be good to scaffold students in their groups.
• Co-design is important to enable students and stakeholders to work together.
• MOE Principal Advisor Secondary 
• Keep making the main thing the main thing
• How do we make sure the learners do not miss out on key learnings required in the curriculum?
• MOE Lead Adviser - CoL
• How will you measure the success of the programme?
• Think about using the ‘Key Competencies’ and how different capabilities come across different areas of the curriculum.

I have found discussing my inquiry has helped me shape it better and think about the pros and cons of where I am going.  

9AK #4: Studio ONE: A day to reconnect with student projects

On the 11th of March, our 9AK class spent the day working on the first of their planning and presenting days for the term.  We called this day 'Studio #ONE'.  The purpose of the day was as follows:

• Reconnect as a whole to the purpose, direction and emergence of Akomanga Kaihanga 
• Provide space for and support for teams to help them work well together
• Review data and progress prototypes
• Receive feedback and take prototypes to next stage from guests and community
• Plan and set up the next sprint success
• Teams leaved excited, resourced, motivated, and clear 

The space provided a good opportunity for students to work on their projects and to prepare to present to an audience after lunch.  Karl started the day with a reminder on where they were at and what they needed to do get to.  For an hour students had to plan for their presentations, figure out who was doing what job and practice standing at the front sharing their projects.

After morning tea, the boys had the chance to bond with each other by waking to the top of Mt Wellington whilst the girls visited a number of places around Panmure.  Although I really wanted to run to the top of Mt Wellington with the boys, I reluctantly stayed with the girls and the first place we visited was the Peace Experiment Montessori Education School across the road from the library.  We met with the principal Steven Arnold who kindly showed us around the school.  The girls were amazed with the freedom the students had, who could choose what they wanted to learn and when they wanted to learn it.

The next place we visited was the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board office.  Here were we treated to a tour by the lovely receptionists and the girls enjoyed being in the boardroom and having a chance to debate Covid-19 (please see the video below for part of the debate).  

The boys rejoined the girls to meet at the Panmure Community Hall, where we were greeted by the Hall Manager Boaz Moala, who gave us an opportunity to explore the Hall and imagine redesigning the space.  We were lucky to have the chance to see the hall in it's entirety, even the small rooms that had been locked away for years. 

This is the just-before-lunch-I'm-hungry look.

After being treated to a delicious lunch supplied by Josie and her team, students went straight into the presentation part of the day.  Students had to present to invited guests who ranged from Mr Dunn our DP and staff (their P.E and Health teachers) to community activists and business people.  The guests went from group to group to hear their pitch and to provide constructive feedback.  Students who were not presenting were also given the chance to ask questions to each presenter, which meant the presenters needed to be thinking on their feet and ready to provide answers.  Overall the day was really good in providing students an insight into what the end of the project presentations would look like.  The skills and capabilities that students learnt on this day will definitely allow them to grow and enhance those skills moving forward. 

9AK #3: Planning and Scrums video

To help students understand their project groups, they took part in agile project based learning.  This model was introduced by Karl during the 2 day marae noho at the beginning of the year and I was interested in how it would support the groups in  getting their actions completed in their project groups.

Each group has a 'scrum' and they needed to take part in a 'sprint' which was like an intense, high pressure , where they complete any tasks on their backlog list to do.

On the video it shows the following:

• Students listening to the instructions.  
• They led some of the discussions.  
• They modelled to each other what to do. 

Here is a video showing students at work.  In my observations, I am able to see which groups found the teacher instructions useful and followed the tasks set and whether the modelling the students did also supported their learning.