Lovin' The Library!

With Term 2 moving on quickly, it is time to stop and reflect on how my inquiry on how to use the environment as another teacher has been working.

While I had been focusing on the space within the hub, it wasn't until last week when I had to let the kids know that we weren't be going to the library the following week that I realised how much of an impact having a regular library session each week has been building the relationship between teacher and learners as well as coming the realisation that I had been using the library space as another teaching environment.

Please note this photo was not staged - this is the usual state of the group when we are in the library on Thursdays.

Moving in the library for 30 minutes each Thursday has helped me appreciate the following:

• I am getting time to learn about the kids as readers as we discuss their interests in books.
• I am seeing some of them take risks with the choice of books they are choosing - I have implemented a "Free Reading" Box back in the hub and we rotate each week on who gets to choose books for this box.  This has allowed the kids to go and ask each other opinions about the types of books they would enjoy.
• I get to share some of my passion for reading with the group.  It can be pretty easy for us to get caught in the routine of learning within the hub and what the kids have said to me is that they like the fact that I sometimes can be looking for a book to read myself.  
• I am also using this time to teach skills like researching, skimming and scanning as well as evaluating texts as we begin to locate texts for inquiry.  Having this context allows the kids to be more engaged and they are able to make the connections quicker due to the environment we are in.

Next Steps:

My inquiry is changing in focus as the kids are making progress so I intend to keep the regular library session to help me explore this further.  Stay tuned for the next update!

Closing The Door - My Hunch

Working in an ILE, you do get used to the hum or buzz that comes with 70 bodies within one space all undertaking their learning.  However for some of our learners, this can serve more as a distraction and they may seek out spaces where they a) feel comfortable and b) feel safe to take risks in their learning.

So come to this year where I am operating in a learning space with 100 learners and three other teachers, it seemed somewhat wrong to try the following.  I took a group of learners into one of our larger breakout spaces and I closed the door.  Their faces said it all when they smiled.  The transformation of the space went from hustle and bustle to a more calming vibe and the kids sensed it as soon as the door touched the wall.

Now it is not my intention to close these learners off from the rest of the hub.  My inquiry is focused more around how the environment can be used to foster independent learning.  The "Bat Cave", as it has been named, is serving as a launching pad where learners can develop strategies to focus on their learning, rather than get caught up in the activity that is happening around them.

I did something more extreme and this has put me in the learning pit.  I took all the furniture out of the space (see the photos below).  I am curious to see what the learners feel that need or by observation, we decide as a group is important to have in the space to help us with our learning.  So far we haven't asked for much as we have been working on building the routines and structure of our literacy learning.  This group is with another teacher for numeracy so we are working together to create the norms for the Bat Cave, co-constructed with the kids.

We decided that we needed a whiteboard the other week - the smart board that we couldn't get working wasn't adding any value so we were fortunate enough to appropriate one that wasn't being used in another part of the school.

Next Steps: I have had a few teachers come and observe me which has been great for my practice.  I need to look at developing my knowledge around using the environment as the third teacher so will be exploring some of the content by Reggio Emilia.

What's On Top for 2018?

Recently we have been asked to build our inquiries for 2018.  Given the nature of who I am as a teacher and how my brain works, I intend to embark on three inquiries this year - one being my main inquiry for the year and two smaller ones that focus more on specific elements of my practice.

My main focus this year is how I can use space as another teacher within my literacy program.  I will be labelling these posts with Inquiry - Environment.  This goal also speaks to some of our COL achievement challenges, with particular focus on goals two, three and five.

My secondary focus will be examining how I am developing learners' articulation skills within numeracy.  These posts will be called Inquiry - We.  This also has connections to the COL achievement challenge six.

My last focus is reflecting on myself as a practitioner, especially as I am a mentor teacher to an AUT student this year.  This posts, called Inquiry - Me, will be focusing on my reflections as I build my coaching ability with an adult.

While I appreciate that it may seem ambitious to achieve all three, I think having the platform of my blog to help me articulate will help me document my thinking and build my reflection skills further.

2017 Reflection on my Impact

With the end of the year drawing to a close and assessments finished, I thought it would be timely to reflect on what impact I had this year and how I would use any learning from this year to help form next steps for 2018.

I did some data analysis on the shift of my learners this year. I measured those who had had the expected 12 months gain (i.e. maintaining their National Standard curriculum level between their 2016 and 2017 EOY results.) and those who had accelerated their learning and had 18 month or greater gain (i.e. shifting from Below Standard in 2016 to At Standard in 2017, or shifting from At to Above Standard).

Numeracy:

The majority of the learners that I taught for numeracy maintained their progress and will be moving into next year with a strong foundation for the continuation of their maths knowledge.  Looking at this data, my numeracy practice is something that I want to continue to evolve as I feel that I can improve in this space.  During the middle of this year, I moved away from the digital aspect of my instruction based on feedback from my principal when I went to her to ask for help to see how far I could challenge some of my groups.  Learning became hands on and we did tangible examples using pen and paper during instruction, allowing learners have gain success with new strategies and having these to refer to as they moved through their follow up activities.  This is something that I intend to continue moving into 2018.

Reading:

While this data looks very similar to my numeracy groups, this set shows that I have continued to push learners who are currently at 'Above Standard' for them to maintain this shift.  The reading groups I worked with were all very enthusiastic readers and now all reading at Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum.  I have really enjoyed my time with these learners as they have allowed me to blend other areas of the curriculum into my reading practice.  Using tools like GetEpic! has allowed me not only to offer more opportunities for students to access multimodal texts, but also allowed me to teach skills like research and inquiry which is something that I am going to continue into next year.  

Writing:

This has been my biggest impact and something that I am most proud of as we now have a gang of writers who are enthusiastic about writing and want to continue this journey.  For some learners, this has meant that they have made considerate progress however the attitude they know have for writing is what inspires me the most!  As a writer myself, I need to ensure that I am continuing to build my craft and practice to continue to develop and challenge others to write.  Knowing myself as a writer will allow me to see opportunities to engage with my students and colleagues as well as continue to challenge my mindset as both writer and educator.

So what's next?

I am moving into a new year level in 2018 teaching Years 4/5/6 with three other teachers.  I am excited for this challenge as it not only means that I am moving with some of my learners that I have been teaching this year, but also reconnect with learners that I taught in 2016 who will now be in Year 5.  I am also excited for the opportunity to teach at some different curriculum levels as well as working alongside some other teachers whose practices I am interested to tap into and see what impact we can grow for our 2018 cohort!

Perceptions of Progress

In order to prepare for Term Four, I got learners to do a reflection on how they enjoyed their learning this term as well as ask some other questions to get insight into how they were finding my planning and instruction.  As these learners have been with me for the majority of the year now, I chose to add in a question about had they felt that they had made progress in their learning as I was interested to see what voice came back from them in this regard.  Having used Google Forms to capture this information, I have been able to analyse and graph their responses.

NUMERACY:

All these learners are now moving from Early Stage 5 to Stage 5 so it was great to see from their responses reflect some of the different areas that we were learning about this term.  I chose to explore a more hands of approach with these learners where we problem solved together and share our ideas on a group modelling book which the learners enjoyed judging by this graph.

I also chose to dedicate one of our weekly sessions to building their confidence with strand maths as most of our learning had centred around either number knowledge or strategy.  By making these lessons more hands on, the learners have been able to make progress in areas that historically I have left to the end of the term to go through and they have been able to make connections to other parts of their numeracy learning.  However how did they rate their own progress?

Reading through the responses, the majority of them talk about being able to work through 'harder' or 'bigger' strategies which rings true to how I introduced the bulk of the Stage 5 strategies to the groups.  We would start with Stage 4 or Early Stage 5 strategy first and unpack that before making connections to the Stage 5 strategy.  The one learner who felt that they did not make any progress is one that I have been tracking for confidence and their response reflects this.  What was more awesome to read however was that they wanted to continue their learning and wanted more assistance (a 'workshop') to help them with this.

READING:

We have had a busy term with literacy and these learners have been able to move into more complex texts based on the learning that we had done the previous two terms.  We have also looked at building our inquiry skills with information literacy.  As I have mentioned earlier, this group are very engaged and their reflections about the term mirror my observations:

The two learners that said 'no' are ones that have recently moved to new reading levels and I have been working with them to manage any anxiety over the shift in focus.  

I also asked all the groups about what they thought their reading focus was for this term (please note, it was a bit of a trick question as all answers they could choose from were focuses but I was more interested in seeing how they responded):

Gold 21 and 22 Groups:

Silver 23 and 24 Groups:

Having asked about their focuses for the term, it was great to see how some of these had come into their responses about making progress.

I am currently looking at how learners self-report as part of my dissertation so am aware of any bias that may come from these responses however I am more happy to see that the learners are seeing themselves making progress.

Google Forms are Choice!

I am a big fan of using Google Forms in my practice.  It is a great way to capture voice, check for understanding and gain feedback on lessons.

However when I did my Level 2, I learned about how you can maximise the element of choice in your forms.  Prior to this, I had created forms that took learners through a series of questions from start to finish.  However now I can add sections to a form and have learners go to different parts based on responses that they give.

This has helped me support learners who may struggle with a concept so rather than just have them answer "no" or "I don't know" to a question, I can now take them to a different part of the form where I can ask specific questions to help me gain further understanding of what I might need to assist them in their learning.  I also learned how to add videos to help learners build their knowledge of concepts before answering questions.

I have updated a lot of the current Google Forms that I use with my groups and now really enjoy seeing how learners are making choices and decisions and then justifying these decisions.  Here are some examples of how I have updated these forms.

Reading:

I have been getting the groups to evaluate their texts this year by rating it on a likert scale, however this term I chose to change it up and allow learners the chance to give a more definitive answer which is closely followed by the chance for them to justify their decision based on their response.

Numeracy:

I am revisiting a lot of the Early Stage Five Addition and Subtraction strategies with my groups so have been giving them some activities and videos to help me gauge their understanding before moving onto the Stage Five equivalent strategy.  This helps me to structure the learning based on which learners are feeling about the current learning.

Writing:

Similar with my numeracy groups, I am trying to do some refresher workshops with my writers on how we refine (edit) our writing.  This also gives me the chance to see what learners need assistance with their current skill sets or spot opportunities for future workshops or sessions.

To sum it up, I think my title of the blog post hits home - I do find using Google Forms a key part of my practice and am looking how I can continue to challenge my skills in this area.  Stay tuned for future updates!

The Power of Padlet!

I have used Padlet as an information collection tool in my practice - mainly for me to capture voice from the learners and use it as a visual brainstorm.

This week I went and observed one of my colleagues, Mel, who teaches in one of our Year 4/5/6 hubs. My observation focus was how she teaches Year 4 literacy as I now have learners who are accessing this area of the curriculum.  One thing I noticed and liked was how Mel used her modelling books as an interactive tool with her learners, enabling two way communication between herself and her learners.

Reflecting on this, I really wanted to see how I could try something similar with my literacy groups so I thought about how Padlet may allow now only me to see how the kids are engaging with their learning but also with each other.

This week, I reintroduced the idea of quad blogging to my reading groups as they seem now more interested in engaging with other blogs.  We discussed why we had a hub blog and I let the kids write their thoughts down on this padlet.

There was an instant buzz in the air as everyone started to write their ideas down however the really cool thing was when they noticed that they could read each others ideas.  Questions sprung up straight away to one another about why they would write that or noticed similarities or differences in their comments.

With this initial excitement, I have decided to incorporate Padlet into the Build Knowledge element of my reading programme where learners can write their predictions down in a Padlet and we will use this as the springboard into our guided reading sessions.  I was conscious that I may need to give the groups time to experiment more with Padlet so was glad to read this blog post from Troy on allowing sandpit time with new apps, with a focus on Padlet.

Looking forward to seeing how this encourages collaboration between learners!

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Reading

Following on from last term's reflection, I reached out to my learners in order to gauge their voice in my teaching and to analyse the shift.

I chose to add one question to the ones I asked last term, this being:

• What are some things that you have learned this term?  This was more out of interest to see what learners could remember from this term.

The first question I ask of the learners is how much they have enjoyed the learning this term, with them being able to rate it on a likert scale from 1 ("I haven't enjoyed it!") to 3 ("I have enjoyed it a lot!").  

Great to see that 4 learners (16.7%) are sitting between the two choices, this means that I still have a bit of work to build engagement with reading.  This group of learners are very engaged with their reading to the point where they are planning their own time when it comes to reading.  Here is a slide that I add to each groups modelling books to help them do so.

It was great to read what learners had both enjoyed reading and learned this term.  I had worked to have learners make connections through different texts, using both readers and journals alongside using apps like GetEpic!.  The learners have really enjoyed using this as an additional resource for books and I have used it to build collections on similar topics so they can analyse and decided whether texts are appropriate for their use.

It is also great to see that some of the additional writing activities made the lists like our alliteration activity and you might notice that a lot of the group mentioned learning about Haikus which was a follow activity where we looked at syllables and how we can use this knowledge to help us when we need to chunk new words we encounter in our reading.  Check out the groups great poems below (note two links due to labels):

Reading through the challenging comments from the learners, great to see that learners had reflected on some of the learning that I chose to focus on this term.  We spent a lot of time working on the differences between retelling and summarising as a lot of the group found it difficult being able to identify and utilise these skills.  We also spent time developing our word attack skills so activities like the ones above helped learners build their confidence in these strategies.

Looking at shift, the majority of the group have maintained their skills and I have mapped out their shift based on a resource our SLT helped created for us and reflecting on this, some of the comments about how I can help learners progress stand out for me.

A few of the learners mentioned about how they would like me to help them further understand their follow up activities so I will reassess how I am creating modelling books and ask my mentor to come observe me in relation to instruction with these groups.  Great to see the honesty with some learners requiring further assistance with summarising - this was a note that I communicated to whānau these holidays along with the links to the resources to help learners practice over the holidays if they wanted to.

In summary, I am very fortunate to working alongside this group of learners as they are so engaged with their readers.  Stay tuned for an update on what Term 3 is going to look like for my reading practice!

Superhero ABC and Feedback

Based on feedback from my reading groups, we have been looking at ways to develop our word attack strategies this term.  There is a book in our school library which is very popular with one of our learners in the hub called "Superhero ABC", so much so that it is known by a number of our learners as "his book" so they were very surprised when I used it as the prompt to explore alliteration.

With the hook there, a lot of the learners were quite excited to develop a character of their own and use alliteration to help describe their abilities and background.  I chose to use a combination of both Explain Everything so the learners could draw their character and Google Slides where they would be able to craft their descriptions.  I shared this to the whole group so each learner had their own slide but could also read others as I wanted to introduce the element of peer feedback to the exercise.

After the first session, I began to read through the descriptions and thought that I would use the comment function of Google Slides to give the learners feedback.  This was a bit of a risk as most of the learners hadn't had exposure to this form of feedback before however I gave each learner feedback.

The next day I explained to the group that I had read through their initial drafts and had given them feedback using comments.  I modelled how they could find this on their slide.  In hindsight, I hadn't told them about the 'reply' function of the comments but as you can see from the images below, they soon worked it out.

The majority of the responses were similar to this (NB have blocked out learners full names):

However as the week moved on and I started conferencing with learners, I noticed a shift in some of the learners responses.

I even started have dialogues with some learners who posed me questions of their own:

Learners who normally were too shy to ask for help during lessons now found that they had a voice and were empowered to ask questions.

This did get me reflecting on how I was using feedback in my practice and how I could use the affordance of comments to extend my reach - to date, I had not used the comments as I 'felt' that this may had been too advanced for some learners but seeing how naturally these 7 and 8 year olds took to this, I can now look develop both my own and the learners skills in both receiving and giving feedback.

Here is the blog post with the learners new identities on there - good to note that Blogger only allows a maximum of 20 labels on a blog post so I had to split the post in half to ensure all learners names were on this.  Stay tuned for another update as they have requested we look at some poetry before the end of the term with our new identities!

Term One Reflection and Next Steps for Term Two

Something that I have noticed Ashley do really well is reflect on each term using the voice from her students to help her take stock of her teaching practice and help inform her next steps.  It was something that I wanted to put into practice for this year, especially with my dissertation focusing on the use of feedback.

This term I chose to do this with both my reading and numeracy groups as my writing groups will be focused on next term with my dissertation intervention.  With each group, I asked the following questions:

• How had they enjoyed the learning this term?  Learners could rank this on a likert scale from 1 to 3.
• What did they enjoy during the term?  This is free text where learners could give me some insight into what they enjoyed in the particular learning area.
• What did they find challenging this term? Again free text response to help me understand if I need to clarify or revisit some areas.
• What can I help each learner with in Term 2?  Hopefully getting some voice from the learners on areas that they felt they needed assistance from myself on.

Learners were given time to reflect through the term using both their progressions and modelling books and then could respond via a Google Form that I had set up for each group.

READING

I have really enjoyed the term with my reading groups.  We have managed to click as a wider group and each group has formed a close bond even with learners moving in and out of groups based on their current reading level.  In regards to levels, 85% of the group have moved at least one reading level and I am now looking at how I bridge some learners from the end of Year 3 standard into the beginning of Year 4 standards.

In relation to engagement, this graph shows that 74% of the group scored 3 meaning that they have enjoyed reading a lot this term.

From the responses, I seem to be hitting the mark with the texts I am selecting and the follow ups that I am creating however I was more excited to read some of the comments with what the learners were finding challenging or required assistance with next term.  A lot of the learners are developing their awareness as readers and I had noticed a trend with them that our word attack strategies were an area that we needed to develop further so this is a great goal for Term 2 to achieve with the learners.  I also need to look at how I am modelling and giving instructions with the follow ups as a lot of learners remarked that they were finding these difficult.

NUMERACY

It was interesting to compare the responses from my numeracy learners.  In regards to engagement, the number of learners that enjoyed it is sitting around 60%.  As the learners are at a similar stage, I had been doing a lot of whole group teaching and running opt in workshops for those learners who wanted further assistance and my gut is telling me that this approach may not be hitting the mark with some of my group.  What I have decided to do for Term Two is create numeracy groups and I will work with these groups based on their needs.  While this may require more planning time, I should be able to focus the time with each group better.

I felt that the responses from this group have really allowed me to see where I need to focus on the learning for next term.  We are all moving into Stage 5 number knowledge and continuing to develop our multiplication and division strategies.  I found it interesting that both Kahoot and Prodigy (read Chelsea's blogpost on it) had got a few mentions seeing how I had only introduced both to the group in Week 8.  I have shared Prodigy with families as a way for the learners to practice their maths skills at home so great to see that the engagement with this tool at home.

CONCEPT

I am starting to investigate our Term Two concept of "being our best self" by looking at the school's wellbeing progressions - we are meeting next week for our planning days but I am excited to be delving into this part of the curriculum.  Stay tuned for an update on both this and how I am going to be planning for my writing groups.

Impact Stories

Today I got to share this impact story at our school's Professional Development session where all the staff got to share their Teaching as Inquiry goals and the impact that the inquiry had on our learners.

As a PRT, I do not have a teaching as inquiry goal as I am currently doing a professional goal each term so I shared my Term 3 goal where I investigated the "Learn, Create, Share" pedagogy over different learning areas.

I chose to share this as a personal narrative as I had alluded to my reluctance as a writer when I was the same age as my learners and some strategies we had used throughout the year to help motivate and help learners shift in their writing.

I also decided to have a bit of fun with the presentation and tried out my love for Stopmotion to help illustrate the story from a different perspective.

Teaching Inquiry - First Thoughts

As I begin to form my first teaching inquiry, I am thinking about how I can create shift with my Year 3 learners with their writing.

Literacy is my passion and I am constantly looking for ways that I can model both engagement and exciting with the writing process with my learners.  I feel it is important for me to be a role model for my learners with writing as this is the subject that I experience the most resistance from my groups and their voices represent that of mine when I was at school.

"I don't know what to write about!"

"I don't enjoy writing - it is boring!"

"I am not good at writing!"

This are snippets of conversations I have on a daily basis and while it does sadden me, I intend to use this as motivation to look for ways to win the small battles and chip away at the underlying issues.  I know this is a marathon, not a sprint so intend to use this to build the inquiry.

I know I am not alone in this - last night, Hub 1 and 2 ran a workshop for parents who were looking for ways to help build their children's confidence in writing and how to support what they are learning at school.  This is a great insight into how I can connect with families more and use these relationships to help tailor my planning to the individual needs of my learners.

Casey the Caterpillar and Handwriting

As a Hub team, we have decided to have phonics for all learners in the morning.  As I have not had much exposure to phonics on placements, I have been observing for the majority of this week but noticed how well one of my colleagues incorporated the use of handwriting into these lessons.

Listening to the language, I was fortunate enough to go to a PD session run by another colleague where she was able to share some resources and training in Casey the Caterpillar.  This resource is used as a story to help learners understand the structure of their letters and has a great story to go with each letter of the alphabet.

I have included a photo of my attempt below by using the technique - I think this is a great resource for me as a beginning teacher as I need to improve my own writing skills for my learners as well as continuing building the skills they are developing when they enter the school.