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!

Pai tū, pai hinga!

Currently our staff are fortunate to be having a weekly PL session with Rosalie Reiri on our use of Te Reo in our practice.  When I first heard that this would be running each Monday afternoon for the remainder of Term Two, my first thoughts were the following:

• "But I have so much to do, when will I get the time back?"
• "I'm already using Te Reo in the hub!"
• "I hope I don't have to say anything in front of anyone - my pronunciation is terrible!"

Notice how these thoughts go to self doubt and time constraints - I didn't and it wasn't until this week that I realised this.

The sessions so far have been pretty insightful more on how much I still have to learn about using Te Reo in my practice.  I reflected on how I felt hard done with the Te Reo course at university which gave me a great perspective of the bicultural nature of our education system but did not set me up for success with any practical application for my practice.

Rosalie shared with us this video where Janelle Riki-Waaka speaks of the schools of Aotearoa.  It is a great video to watch if you are reflecting on how you are using Te Reo as I came away from watching this with a new sense of purpose on ensuring that I am trying my best to show our school as one that is of Aotearoa.  The first thing I did do after our initial session was to learn how to add tohutō (macrons) to the vowels to ensure that if I am using Te Reo in emails or planning that I was reflecting the correct use.

Another thing helping my confidence grow is the 'homework' tasks that Rosalie is giving us to develop our skills!  Here is one of the examples where I was able to create a short stop motion to illustrate the difference between tēnā koe and tēnā kōrua:

These sessions have also given me more confidence with teaching - the learners in our hub have decided that they want to share some Te Reo with the rest of the junior school at our upcoming assembly.  Normally I would be quite nervous with helping the learners practice and ensuring that we we saying words properly however we shared with them how the teachers were all learning Te Reo and our practices now seem more natural.  I feel more confident to help learners with pronunciation and am looking forward to seeing the hub perform this week.

Getting Our Write On!

I have written earlier about how my dissertation focus will be around building both confidence and engagement in writing and seeing if this has a link with achievement so I thought it may be timely to discuss the approach that I am using with this.  As mentioned earlier, our hub has already undergone our Term One inquiry into writing so my individual inquiry focus is a continuation on that.

I am currently working with a group of learners which are working towards the Year Two or Year Three writing standards.  The standards for each are as follows:

YEAR TWO:

YEAR THREE:

With these in mind, I am exploring the links between students' non-cognitive skills and both engagement and achievement with their writing.  Each week learners will be reflecting on the following:

• Which of our seven learner qualities did they use in their writing this week?
• How did they feel about their writing learning this week?
• What help do they require in their writing learning from myself for the following week?

I am using Explain Everything to help learners both articulate and record their thoughts.  Learners are able to highlight and record their thoughts on each of the above questions which I am transcribing and using to help to inform the following week's planning for their writing sessions.

Already two weeks in and I can already see how this is impacting my practice as I listen to the reflections - learners are taking the time to really be honest in how they are going with their writing and what parts of their learning that they require further assistance from me.  This has helped me already craft some workshops where I can spend time with learners on particular skills that they feel they need a boost in.  I will be examining these feedback loops in more detail in Term 3.

I am very lucky to be working with such a great bunch of kids - check out some of their description publishing below and if you can, please feel free to leave a comment on the blog post!

Meet My Guardian Group - Agents Of Their Own Learning!

I wrote an earlier post about getting to know myself before knowing my learners so I thought I would introduce you to my Guardian Group.

While not your standard photo, this does sum up some of the personalities of these kids.  In the hub with 70 learners, I am responsible for the roll and pastoral care of this group of learners.  When I came into this year, I reflected on my interaction with my last year's Guardian Group (that I shared with my mentor teacher) and felt that our time together was quite transactional and dedicated solely to the taking of the roll and the dissemination of information.

So coming into 2017, I really wanted to dial up the relationships with my Guardian Group.  A noticing that the hub team had with all our learners early in the year was that they needed some time after lunch to come down from the excitement of break time so we came up with "Relax and Refresh" - a 15 minute period after the roll where they could prepare for the afternoon block of learning.

Wanting their voice into how to best utilise this time, we discussed different ways that we could continue our learning and after a couple of days, this is what they came up with!

Looking at the activities they came up with, there is a great balance of the initial intention of providing them a chance to relax and recharge, but what I enjoyed seeing more was that some of the activities gives us opportunities to develop our skills of collaboration and finding out more about one another.

I got a great insight into the nature of these kids last week when I shared with them this article.  We discussed the article and how this idea linked in with our Break Through learning (learning spawned from an insight or our passions) and then we spoke about the money.  I innocently asked the question about what they would do if they were offered the $44 million.  The majority of the group spoke about how money does not equal happiness and how aspects such as family and health were important.  I was blown away by the humble nature of their responses and know that by doing future activities like the ones we have planned out, that I will get further insights into how to engage with these learners.

I tell the kids that these 15 minutes are one of my favourite times of the school day and I am looking forward to building further agency with these learners for the remainder of the year.

Changing Spaces 2017

This year I decided to take a risk and present at Changing Spaces - I attended the day last year and supported but watched all my colleagues speak about their practice and how we operate in an ILE and thought that this would be a great goal for my second year.

I was fortunate to attend the keynote by Chrissie Butler where she challenged us to take a mental walk around our schools and their environments as she spoke.  She spoke of us as educators as developing an acute sensitivity to individual differences in order to drive design decisions.  This means that we should be looking for a framework to support the deliberate design for variability.  As a teacher, I should be providing options for recruiting interest, optimising individual choice and selecting options to help minimise distractions.

She really challenged me in my thinking of how am I using our environment to do so and as I was frantically tidying up tables and chairs after our presentation, I stopped and thought about some of the following points in her presentation:

• What defines the bicultural space?  How are the learners' individual stories being represented?  Are there spaces for everyone to make connections?  Does it feel like a safe environment to meet the needs of the whole person?
• This safety extends to both gender and sexualities - Chrissie challenged us to stop speaking in the binary and more as a 'we'.  This also links with being a community.
• Equitable access for all - she shared a great quote from Timoti Harris: 'Steps will naturally exclude some, a ramp allows all to enter'.  Again I have started to look at our space with a new lens and will continue to observe throughout the first few weeks of this term.
• Sensitivity to sensory needs - it was great to be reminded of this as I feel that I have become accustomed to the background noise in the hubs.  For some learners, this is a major distraction so how can we use the space more effectively to support them with their learning?  It also made me more mindful of the learners that use the noise to slip into the background.  Are there ways that I can connect with these learners in a way that enables them to feel comfortable but also makes me more aware of their needs when teaching?

This final quote from the presentation really stuck out for me - 'Nothing for me without me.'  I do centre my practice around using student voice however as I was putting the tables and chairs back into the spaces that they sat for Term One, I had to walk away.  This notion is key as I am not the only individual in the space and our learners needs to feel that they have a voice in the design of their space.  So instead of finishing the task, I just made sure things were back in an orderly fashion where we could use some time next week to look at the design and see if we can improve on anything for Term Two.  I am looking forward to the learners' input and feedback as I know they will have some great insight into how they want this to look like!

After the keynote, Latai and I were able to share with a group about our journeys so far as beginning teachers in an ILE.  This was the 2.0 version of a presentation we gave last year at the University of Auckland We asked the group to share with us the reasons why they chose to attend our session and it was a mix of those who were also new to teaching or those who had or were transitioning into an ILE setting.  Feedback from the previous year was that people appreciated the stories that teachers told about real life situations so one of the main activities we ran was giving groups scenarios that they discussed and brought back to the wider group to share.  These scenarios were examples from our first year and after everyone shared, we gave our insights based on our experiences.

I was grateful for the opportunity to present as I do need the practice of public speaking however co presenting takes a bit of the nerves away and this was a good example of how hub teams work together to complement each others' abilities as well as the generating and sharing of collective insights.  

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.

Term One Inquiry

Today we had to present our Term One inquiry to the wider staff.  This was introduced to us as a "sprint inquiry" which seemed a bit daunting at first however in reflection, this was a good exercise to really analyse our impact on our learners.

Hub Whenua chose to analyse the impact of experience in relation to learner's success, achievement and engagement in writing.

The group of learners that I have been working with are currently operating at below national standard or have expressed that they either do not enjoy writing or feel they lack ability when it comes to planning and crafting.  This meant that I had to really dial up the celebration of success both at school and at home.

Here are some of their artefacts from the experiences:

Play Dough Recounts:

Oobleck Recounts:

While there has been a positive shift in engagement and success, we have yet to measure achievement through assessment, however, I do feel that this will also be similar shift when we do examine this. This experience has really challenged me in how I am currently structuring my writing programme and I will add more elements of oral literacy and experience based learning into my writing plans for Term Two.

Here is the full inquiry document from today's session: