CoL Inquiry - Part One

It's been a couple of weeks since my students sat their PAT Math test, and so I've spent a lot of time reflecting on their results. At the start of each year we use these tests to help us to understand our students better; to see which areas of maths they succeed at, and which ones they are struggling with. 

The target group for my inquiry cycle will be a group named Storm; students in this group have OTJ's which place them around Level 2 of the NZC and they averaged a 3.3 Stanine in PAT testing. 

There are 10 students in this group, and with a group this large there is a wide variety of self-efficacy, interest, and enjoyment when it comes to maths, so, to get a better understanding of who they are as Maths learners I conducted a Student Voice survey; of the 10, only 3 felt that they were "good at math", the others did not know (good news is, none of them thought they were not good). 

They were pretty divided on how they felt about maths; a couple of them used only positive words to describe maths, words like "fun" "interesting" or "exciting", but what was interesting was that almost half of them used the word "stressful" to describe it, including some of those students who also said it was fun, and interesting.

I found this dichotomy super interesting, because, to me, it mirrors my own feelings towards maths. As a student when I encounter concepts that I do not understand, it is stressful. It's like trying to solve a puzzle, but half of the pieces are from another puzzle, no matter how I try to apply my learning and try to make the puzzle pieces fit, they just won't; however, if I find the other pieces, if I strengthen my understanding of a concept, or a formula, or a strategy, suddenly the pieces start to fit, and that is what lead me to the most recent development in my inquiry.

Do my students have a well-rounded understanding of the concepts and vocabulary that we cover? 

Do my students understand that addition is calculating the combination of 2 or more numbers, or that multiplication is the repeated addition of the same number, for example. How do we expect them to apply strategies to concepts that they are not fully aware of? How can they be adaptable, and flexible with their application if they do not first understand what they are being asked?

Without trying to cover the wide spectrum of concepts in the math curriculum I chose to focus on the two areas of maths in which my students achieved the lowest results; Number Strategies, and Algebra, and to work out where their understanding of the concepts within them are.

It is easy to assess their ability to solve problems in these areas, we teach a strategy, we give them a problem, and either they solve it correctly, or they do not. Testing their understanding of the concept is proving to be a little harder. After discussion with my colleagues, and conducting research of my own I could not find anything that fit my needs, GloSS testing where students explain their strategies, and eAsttle tests gave me some insight, but not an umbrella view of what they understand these concepts, and words to actually mean.

What I would like to do is build a diagnostic test, or interview that can assess whether or not they understand what a concept like "addition" is, rather than test their ability to add together numbers.

I'm working on putting together a prototype at the moment, so check back in to see what I've got soon!

MIT 2023 - The End of the Journey

As my father always told me  "All good things must come to an end", and this MIT journey for 2023 has finally come to an end. It is a bittersweet goodbye. I walk away from this project with a tremendous sense of pride in what we have accomplished together. MIT 2023 has been one of the most significant highlights of my year and has opened up so many opportunities, discussions, conversations, reflections, and friendships that have improved my practice and my outlook on teaching; the value of the MIT project goes far beyond the tools we have created, it is an opportunity to take part in a community of learning that is equal parts fun, inspiring, and motivating.

MathVentures is just the beginning; starting my investigation into math vocabulary has inspired my next inquiry cycle; investigating how we can continue to help our students comprehend the word problems they encounter in maths, and how we can support our students to build a robust math vocabulary that will help them to better understand how maths is applied in more real-world contexts.

Check out MathVentures here!

 In a way, the end of this journey opens up a door to a whole new set of opportunities to learn and develop my practice, and in turn, improve the outcomes for my akonga. As lifelong learners I think it is so critical for us to continue to pursue these avenues as they open up to us, and while MIT has come to an end this year, it is the start of a whole new journey.

I would like to first acknowledge my fellow MIT alumni for 2023; Crystal, Michelle, Essie, Jayne, and Maiken. You guys have been a blessing to work on this project with. Without the support and encouragement from you guys, I don't know if my project would have reached the stages that it is at now. Thank you so, so much. I am so lucky to have been a part of such a cool crew, and I won't forget our adventures any time soon! That boat trip to Russell is easily one of my favourite memories. 

Secondly, I would like to acknowledge the tremendous work put in by Matt Goodwin, Dorothy Burt, Justine Todd, and Jenny Oxley; the knowledge, experience, and feedback they have given us along our journey have been invaluable, and their contributions to our projects cannot be understated.

I cannot recommend this program highly enough, if you are thinking of applying, please do. You will gain invaluable insights, relationships, and confidence in your own practice that is hard to come by elsewhere.

Kia ora rawa atu,

Gabe

Response to Manaiakalani Kāhui Ako - CoL 2023

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2024 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise

The Achievement Challenge I have identified as an area of focus is to lift achievement in maths through the building and development of math vocabulary. For my MIT23 project, MathVentures, I focused on how to help support students unpack maths problems with unfamiliar vocabulary, and while this tool was engaging, and effective I believe I need to develop something more robust in my own practice to help them build the literacy vocabulary needed to accelerate, and perform to their full capabilities in maths. I fundamentally believe that being literate is the key to success in academia; not just in reading prescribed texts, but also in being able to tackle unfamiliar texts, across a range of subjects, and having the confidence in their skills to make sense of increasingly complex, and more subject-specific texts as they continue their learning journeys into intermediate and secondary.

What learnings from the 2017 - 2023 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking?
Looking over a variety of the different inquiries from CoL teachers I have found a number of them that are focused on accelerating our student's maths progress (Hannah, Clarelle, Elena), and a number that focus on vocabulary building (Robyn, Dianne) but none that I could see which focused on inquiring into our student's subject-specific vocabulary in maths. I feel like there is a great opportunity, which will also align itself with the new developments in NCEA with subjects now having a literacy co-requisite, to build our student's confidence in decoding and comprehending written math problems. I hope, as a result of this inquiry, that my students will feel confident in tackling a wider range of word problems in maths.

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa?
By making my inquiry visible, and accessible to all through both my blog and our Team 4 Class Site I can support teachers through my visible planning, reflections, and my own decision-making processes. Following the Manaiakalani model of "learn create share" I will ensure that not only does the work that my students are doing follow these principles but that my own learning journey through this inquiry mirrors them too.

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?
The data in EdPotential provided by the Manaiakalani Research team, and Woolfe Fisher, as well as a closer examination of my classes' PAT results, indicated to me that there is a need to make an accelerated shift in our progress in maths. Anecdotally I found that a lot of my students had conceptual knowledge of different number strategies, and place value, however, when faced with a word problem that required comprehension, as well as the application of a strategy, they fell short. I would like to undertake an inquiry that focuses on a larger, and more overarching area of maths instruction (vocabulary building) that I feel doesn't get the attention that it needs through deliberate planning and implementation.
How would you like to be supported in 2024 as you undertake this inquiry?
I have applied to be a participant in the Maths Program Intensive as a way of developing my professional understanding of how to construct and plan for maths effectively, as well as any other PLD opportunities that are available. I will also take on all opportunities to discuss my inquiry process with my colleagues and to gather feedback on what they feel they need to best accelerate learners across different levels. I hope to be supported in finding academic research, and PLD that will help me to guide my inquiry.

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with their inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?
As with everything that I do, my findings will be ubiquitous and visible throughout my journey; I am also willing and able to share this process through opportunities like Bursts and Bubbles, the CoL meetings, classroom observations, and the Manaiakalani online toolkits. I will not have all the answers, but through this process, I hope I can engage other teachers, and demonstrate my own learning process in the hopes that it can offer them something by which they can accelerate their learners' progress too.

MIT 2023 - Bay of Islands Summit

What an experience! Sorry, this could be a long post.

As part of our journey for MIT23 we are lucky enough to be presenters at the Bay of Island's Teacher's Summit 2023. This summit was an incredible opportunity for so many reasons; meeting new people, discussing interesting ideas, and learning new skills, and tools that we can take home for our akonga. 

The journey up began bright and early on the first Saturday of the school holidays. Forgoing the usual bliss of the first sleep-in of the holidays, I gathered my bags and was dropped off at school. I load the school van and pick up my trusted travel companion, Mr Goodwin on the way. The weather on the way out of Auckland had me dreaming about the "Winterless North". Rain poured for hour after hour, when finally we reach Kawakawa, less than half an hour from our destination, and more than an hour ahead of our airport run. We were feeling good. With our satnav turned off, and arrogance coursing through our veins we follow the path through Kawakawa, and head north over the "up downs" (iykyk). 

After another hour of driving we become suspicious that something had gone awry. "Surely we should be there by now. Surely we can't have missed the signs." Ahh, yeah. We had. I'm not sure how familiar you are, reader, of New Zealand geography, but let me give you a fun fact. Oponone (where we were) and Paihia (where we should have been) are on opposite coasts. Feeling about as dumb as it's possible to feel, we reluctantly turned on the satnav to inspect the situation. Maps said we should be okay, we continue this road, hang a right, 9km of bush road, and we'll be right back to where we should be. I'm still thankful to whoever decided, as we made our way through hairpin turns, and narrowing unpaved roads, to turn the rain off. The only dry part of our drive was through the bush, and by golly, that was lucky. 

What was even luckier was that after the slight detour, we arrived at the Kerikeri Airport just as my fellow MIT colleagues walked out of the airport, none the wiser that they might have been stuck there had we not made it out of the bush.

On our way to the accommodation we catch up; it's been such a lovely experience working alongside these teachers. They are creative, passionate, and as the title of our program would suggest, innovative, and I'm so lucky to have worked alongside them this year. We remark that this will all soon come to an end and that we're going to have to make sure we keep in touch after this is all said and done. 

We're up bright and early for our first day of the Summit. The day begins with a beautiful powhiri, and a korero from the respective rangatahi. The keynote speaker for the event was the principal of our gracious host school, Bay of Islands College, Mrs Edith Painting. 

The first day was comprised of several wonderful workshops, a beautiful kai for lunch, and an awesome cultural experience. I chose to visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds; I hadn't been since a teen, and my knowledge and understanding of Te Tiriti had definitely increased my hunger to learn more about such a significant place in Aotearoa New Zealand history. 

Day two was our turn. We were the first presenters, and unlike the other presenters, who were only presenting to a classroom full of teachers, we presented in the hall in front of all of them. I'm sure many of you will empathise; the classroom is our safe space, and where we feel most comfortable speaking publicly. Speaking in a hall, at an assembly, or at a summit, that's another kettle of fish. 

One of the best parts of this program is that we never have to do anything on our own. The support and encouragement that we give to each other was such a strong help, and I don't know if I would have been able to do the same on my own. 

I'll leave you with a couple of links to explore if you'd like to see more of our adventure! It was honestly such a blast, and an experience that I will not forget.

Bay of Island's Summit

Reading Practice Intensive - Session Nine (Final Day)

Session Nine: Sharing Reading

Sharing about Reading

Students sharing their work allows them the opportunity to create connections and to establish authentic audiences in their digital spaces that can build their understanding, and raise their achievement. 

Allowing students the time and the space to work on their blogs, to visit, and leave thoughtful, positive, and helpful comments on the work of their peers is something that I need to implement more deliberately in the timetable, as well as ensuring that they are sharing and reflecting on the work that they are doing on their own blogs.

Participating in Reading Communities

What does participation in a reading community mean? In the new curriculum we have an emphasis on participation in a reading community, but what does it mean? It means allowing students an opportunity to for students to share their ideas, and opinions on the texts they have been reading, and make recommendations to others about the texts they have found interesting or enjoyed. By doing this we give students the opportunity, not only to reflect on their own reading and learning, but also to take on board what other like-minded students have read, and what they might like to read next. Sharing is also an important part of formative assessment as it gives us opportunities to check out how children are learning as they progress through the year. 

Making Reading Visible

Using the blog is critical in making reading visible, and allows for easy connections with others around what our students have been reading, as well as an opportunity for feedback from whanau, teachers, and other students.

We can use the blogs to reflect on learning, and create a record of learning over time, independent reading, and the reading/writing connection, and probably the most important element which is giving the students the opportunity for self-expression, and higher-order thinking.

Our schools take part in something called the Summer Learning Journey, a blogging challenge that takes place over the summer holidays, and we found that the students who took part in it improved their writing, not just formatively, but summatively through their results in e-Asttle writing assessments.

We also want to encourage students to share on their blogs more spontaneously, and not make it a chore, and we can do this by encouraging them to share their ideas, and experiences that take place outside of the classroom. If we can create value in sharing their ideas on their blogs we can continue to make it exciting, and engaging by giving them the opportunity to have their own voice, and by engaging, and commenting on each other's blogs we give them a great sense of importance to what they are sharing.

Feedback

Blogs, Google Docs/Slides, etc. give us as teachers such a valuable opportunity to give students feedback, particularly rewindable feedback that they can go back to in order to guide their next steps. Giving feedback is such an important part of teaching, and effective feedback evidently has a great impact on learners' progress, so how do we make sure that we are giving good feedback?

Good feedback follows three basic forms; Evaluative (making a judgment, usually summative), Descriptive (giving specific information about where they are at, and describing gaps), and Generative (feedforward, and guidance for improvement)

Collaboration

Collaboration is such an underrated tool in our teaching kete; their lives outside of school will frequently rely on them being able to collaborate with other people, and gives them such valuable opportunity to learn from others, and to help each other to overcome difficult challenges by relying on others, and being reliable in helping others. 

In school it can look like; listening/reading/responding to each other, discussing and co-constructing responses, commenting on each other’s blogs, peer feedback, and sharing texts that they’ve enjoyed. 

Scaffolding this collaborative/feedback opportunity can be important so they learn to give constructive feedback to each other, learn to take on feedback, and to learn from others in a positive way. 

Whanau Engagement

One of the things I have encountered in my conversations with many students over the years is that many of the students with lower reading levels share something in common - reading is not commonplace in their households; they don’t have people who read in their households; they don’t see people reading, they don’t have books in the home, and they are not encouraged to read in their spare time. One of the things I want to push for is encouraging students to shift that paradigm, if they are not having reading modeled to them, that they can model reading at home for others, whether that be parents or their siblings. 

Final Day

Today marked the final day of the Reading Program Intensive, and what a privilege it has been to be a part of it - I went into the program with a great sense of false confidence around my reading teaching practices and boy - did I get a reality check. Humbled and feeling slightly overwhelmed at the beginning, the program, alongside my wonderful mentor Mrs Nua, have scaffolded and supported me to reevaluate a lot of my practices and to view reading through a new lens. I originally came to PES as a secondary trained teacher of English, and for me, reading was focused on the analysis of texts, the ability to identify, and explain language features, and to break down texts to their foundation in order to “better understand” them. Moving to primary it became apparent that these skills were simply not the focus, and although it took me a while to get there, I feel reinvigorated as a teacher of the English language to find engaging and interesting ways to teach my students, not only how to read, but to get them reading to learn. The change from assessment-focused learning to learning skills, and strategies has been refreshing, and while summative and formative assessments are still a critical part of my teaching practice it feels great to explore a wider range of avenues through which we can build our students' skills, strategies, and to foster their love for reading inside the classroom, and out.

A massive thank you to our facilitators, Naomi, Georgie, and Toni - thank you for sharing your wisdom, and guidance with us - this has been an invaluable opportunity, and I hope I can maintain, sustain and implement everything you’ve taught me, and do all of your hard work justice. Nga mihi nui!

 

Reading Practice Intensive - Session Eight

 Session Eight: Creating

As part of my own practice I have always endeavoured to have “Design Tasks” as part of the reading program; usually, a visual task in which students apply what they have learnt in the previous week to create something.

Creating as a response to reading; designing opportunities for students to create interesting, and imaginative responses to the texts they are reading. These tasks are engaging, and allow students to utilise different thought processes, and open up opportunities to try new things, and experiment.

Creating gives our students purpose, and gives them a tangible outcome for the learning that they do, the research shows us that the students who make higher shifts spend a lot of time creating, and applying their learning into making something for themselves, or for others.

Why do we create?

• Engaging for students

• Applying their understanding

• Excercising choice

• Collaboration with peers

• Make connections with the learning intentions

“Creativity combines Sight, Sound and Motion with innovation and imagination as well as accuracy, and attention to the last detail” SiSoMo (Saatchi & Saatchi)

One of our tasks today was to complete a Create task of our own; we were asked to read aloud a poem using expression, and tone which matched the tone of the poem, as well as to create a visual representation of what we were reading. I was amazed at how much of my own interpretation of the poem influenced the image that I came up with, in contrast with what some of the other teachers came up with. This reflects something that I think we all know inherently, is that every reader is going to have their own interpretation of the text, and how it makes them feel. I have included my own, as well as some of my favourites as I think it shows just how open minded, and creative we, as humans, can be.

Why is Creativity so Important? 

The refreshed English curriculum now has a new focus on Creating Texts for themselves or for others which indicates that the Curriculum will take into account how important the Create element of our student’s learning is.

Mayer’s 12 principles of multimedia learning empirically demonstrate the increased learning potential of combining visual and verbal modes (than either mode alone).

Create to Show Learning

How do we fit these Create tasks into our own practice?

• Short creative responses to texts

• May involve tighter or looser instructions (Scaffolding for the students to incorporate elements and reflections of our learning into their designs)

• Involve opportunities for choice to allow students to try different things, and experience new challenges

• Independent from teacher, but should involve opportunities for collaboration between students and/or the teacher.

There is such a huge variety in the different types of Create tasks, and during this session we have discussed, and reflected on so many. Building a library of these tools is something that I can’t wait to do - it requires a certain type of thinking to come up with original ideas for these tasks, so it’s great to use collaboration, and the skillset of other teachers to be able to borrow tasks and apply them to what we are doing in our classroom.

One of elements I will be focusing on in my own practice is collaboration; there are so many online tools, not just through the Google Suite, that students can work to create together. One of the ideas I had is to get students to create their own Kahoot quizzes to test each other (within reading groups), or between reading groups who may be reading the same text. Another tool I want to explore more is MindMup; this tool appears to allow students to collaborate to create mindmaps based on prompts, or important ideas from the texts that we read. This will allow them to understand different perspectives, and points of view as they work to understand the big ideas in the text.

We were asked to do something else today that I will definitely be borrowing, and using in my own classroom, and that is the One-Shot Book Review. In this task we were asked to promote a book that we enjoyed, and to "sell" it to other readers. The book I chose was "A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein. This book is actually a poetry collection, and one that gave me a love for poetry, which for years I thought was just about describing boring places, and emotions using complex metaphors, and simile. This author showed me that poetry can be fun, and silly, and can use those language features to make poems
MORE interesting, rather than harder to understand. Check out my One-Shot Review below;

In summary, I think it is especially important for our student's engagement to apply their learning in creative, and interesting ways. Their ability to produce interesting, and engaging content of their own opens up a whole new world, especially in the modern day where we are seeing podcasts, TikToks, vlogging, and so many other forms of creative outlets becoming viable outlets for expression, for creativity, and, although not critically important, for monetization. The world is their oyster, and as teachers, we are doing them a disservice if we focus all our time on having kids work on OUR content, instead of using their wonderful minds to make content of their own that they and others can enjoy!

Reading Practice Intensive - Session Seven

 Session Seven - Thinking 

Giving our students opportunities for higher level thinking; 

Critical thinking is one of, if not the most important element for our students to learn as they move into the real world - the ability to be discerning, and attentive to the content they are being bombarded with on a daily basis in the digital world. Moving beyond passively accepting the texts, and towards examining, evaluating, analysing, and critiquing the validity and credibility of what they are being presented with.

Thinking Frames 

All of these concepts are based on the idea that as we think more deeply about the texts we read, our thought processes become more abstract, and require some synthesising, and analysing multiple pieces of information, both from the text, and prior knowledge, in order to make sense of the more complex ideas in the text.

Analysis: Deconstructing by looking closely at the parts (language features) of the texts (i.e character’s actions, authors purpose, structure of the text, PAILS)

An example of one of the ways I can implement this in my own practice is the use of digital tools to annotate and highlight key parts of a text that relate to the language features we are examining - we think about the idea of zooming in (looking at specific parts/phrases/words) or zooming out (making connections between separate parts of the text)

Learners need planned, ongoing opportunities to understand and appreciate how language features are used for effect within, and across texts.

I have often referred back to an acronym that we used a lot when I was studying to be a teacher; PAILS (purpose, audience, ideas, language, and structure), and when we teach students a text it is easy to focus on the ideas, and the language, however it is critically important for us to be aware, as teachers, that some of the other features are not always apparent to our learners (i.e how structuring a piece of writing can accentuate which ideas are most important, or how a seemingly simple narrative can have underlying ideas that are only present when we consider the purpose the author had for writing the text)

By examining the language and structure of a text we open our eyes to a wider world in which a text does not exist in isolation, but rather is a reflection of the author, and the world that we live in; taking into consideration the biases, and underlying influences that go into each text that we read.

Critical Literacy

“A critical literate person is able to examine the power relationships inherent in language use, to recognize that language is not neutral and to confront their own values in the production and reception of language” (Luke, 2012).

In order to get our learners thinking more critically it is important to provide them with provocations that generate conversation, and discussion. It is important while we do this to take into account that provocations can inspire emotional responses and reactions from the learners, and while this is important, it is also important for us to create a safe space where they can share their ideas, not entirely free from judgment, but where they can discuss/argue about the topic, or idea in the provocation without directing it at each other.

We were asked to use the text that we brought (No Girls Allowed SLJ3) in order to create a provocation for our learners to discuss; one that challenges a Critical Literacy theme (ageism,, cultural differences, gender bias etc.), and to create a “counter-narrative” writing activity that reframes the situation in our text to challenge the idea. I came up with the ones below;

Provocation: “Do girls need to be protected more than boys?”

Counter-NarrativeWrite an extra passage in the story; the organisers of the tournament are scared of how good Riley is, and want to find a way to stop her from playing and showing up the boys.

Sythesising

When taught how to synthesise through multi-text reading, readers come to understand the importance of weighing up information and perspectives from different sources (including their own). This is why it is important for us to use multiple texts which focus on a larger theme or idea. Nothing exists in isolation, and so our ability to draw on multiple sources of information allows us to form more well-reasoned, and well-rounded points of view on the idea.

In summary - this session has been probably the one with content most familiar to me; critical thinking, and information literacy is a throwback to a lot of what we taught as English teachers in secondary school. It is really interesting finding, and identifying some of the issues that we can discuss with our students at a primary level,  as far as Critical Literacy goes, are relevant to our students, and other which I had not considered useable at this age level.

This term we are focusing a lot on perspective - both the characters in the narrative, and the authors' purpose, and a lot of the content this week is going to challenge me to approach these texts in a variety of different ways.

Addendum:

I believe this level of analysis is of critical importance as young people these days are more and more influenced by the "texts" that they are exposed to, whether that be visual texts like TikTok videos or the ads that bombard them every couple of seconds while watching their favourite steamer, or the dialogue in video games they play. These are all texts that require us to examine and analyse them with a critical eye, and if we are ignorant of these things then we can easily be taken for fools.