End of the Year- CoL Inquiry Sharing

 Bursts and Bubbles 

Learner Voice - This learner voice was collected in Week 5 of Term 4 2022. See what the learners have got to say about their year.

Update on this year's Inquiry Focus

 

This year the focus of my teaching as inquiry has been on engagement.  Engagement not only of learners in their learning but also their whanau and engaging learners in a holistic manner. 

For the purpose of this inquiry I have been exploring a lot of different research on engagement, reading documents like the NZ Curriculum, Ka Hikitia and Tataiako and Tapasa to understand what is outlined in these very significant documents for how our learners learn best. What are the effective strategies that underpin culturally responsive practice. 

The guiding principles of all of the above mentioned documents highlight very similar points. All of them emphasize on one big aspect and that is the relationship between the teacher and the learner. All these documents have it written in them the voices of the learners and they are all saying one common thing and that's - my teacher knows me and my family, my teacher cares for me and that I know my teacher as a person. 

So, keeping all these aspects of these documents in mind I focussed on an intervention that was gathering learner voice on what they want in the day in their learning, what they like, what interests them, what makes them go and feel happy in their learning. I also involved my learners in the planning process through our learn, create, share pedagogy. 

So far the results have been uplifting and I look forward to sharing the evidence and the impact of the intervention on learner engagement with my colleagues at our last CoL session of 'Bursts and Bubbles' in mid November. 

Here is a video of me talking in detail about my intervention. 

Link to the video. 

Kia Ora. 

Curriculum Design and Engagement

Kia Ora Bloggers,

It seems like a long time since I shared and posted on my blog. I can tell you though I have been extremely busy trying out a variety of things within my teaching programme in order to respond to my question I posed myself at the beginning of this year- 

How can I engage with my learners and establish relationships with them and their whanau and at the same time engage them in their learning irrespective of the circumstances we are in?  

Although the question remains the same, it surely has given rise to many other sub questions and one of which I was grappling with in term 2 was- 

How do I reignite student engagement in a post-pandemic world and the on-going covid outbreaks? 

Currently, we don't have any lockdowns , however, engaging students in their learning and checking in with them regarding their well-being is of utmost significance.

The importance of student engagement in their learning, making deep learning outcomes possible for students, and achieving student retention, is increasingly being understood in this post pandemic year.  It struck me towards the end of term 1 this year that student engagement is going to be a challenge for many teachers and schools.  So, I started thinking of pedagogical practices that would successfully support this transition of my learners from virtual learning caused due to prolonged lockdowns to them being in a class not only physically but also mentally present. 

I then thought, there is not much I can do to improve their home life but what happens in the class I can really make a difference. So, I thought of revamping the way I was designing learning for my learners. As Kift, Sally M. & Field, Rachael M. (2009) state in their research that intentional curriculum design motivates students to learn, provides a positive learning climate, and encourages students to be active in their learning. AND that's what I envisaged for my learners- to be active in their learning.

So, I had a chat with my learners towards the end of term 2 and gathered up their ideas on what makes them excited, what is it that they want to learn about. Carrying out this survey has proven to be highly beneficial as it has not only increased student engagement in their learning but also their achievement is getting better. 

The other major change I started implementing is asking my learners what they want to learn about. What are the topics or subjects that interest them? 

This term learners wanted to learn about the history of protests in New Zealand so along with my learners we created a Google site to study about the history of New Zealand Protests. 

Here is the link to the inquiry page of my class site- we call it the LCS(learn, create, share) page. Learn Create Share is our pedagogy that guides our teaching and learning in Manaiakalani schools. Link 

Another major factor in increasing student engagement in literacy has been through designing T-Shaped literacy units using Google sites as these units are used by the learners in mixed ability groups where the learners choose who they would like to work with and they get two weeks time period to work from a site and this strategy in curriculum design and implementation has proven to be highly effective in engaging the learners. My role has been that of a facilitator of learning and be there for my students to answer their questions and support the ones form a group or be part of a group who have been away from school due to sickness and other reasons. 

Here are the reading, writing and maths slides and if you see them from term 1 , you will be able to notice how these have evolved and how the learning design has changed over the year. 

Reading Tumbles and Learning Slides

 
 

 Writing Tumbles and Learning Slides  

 Maths Tumbles and Learning Slides

Relationships and Partnerships

Today we had Tony from InterLead come in and have a professional learning conversation and discussion with the senior leadership team about relationships and partnerships. He discussed with us what we are doing as leaders to lead our people. 

I have placed this image here that shows a woman weaving. The reason I have chosen this image as it symbolises or represents our roles as leaders, especially in the current times when many of our people we work with whether it is our learners, our families or our own families and our colleagues and us as well are all dealing with the impact of covid from the last two years. 

It has become apparent to me yet again after today's korero with Tony from InterLead that the importance of relationships and partnerships just cannot be underestimated. 

Our job as leaders has become more than just being able to plan together or design learning programmes together for our learners. It has become more multi dimensional. It is now very important to weave people together through creating common pathways and building shared understandings so we can design and aim for positive learning outcomes for all our learners. Hence why the image that shows weaving. 

For me the biggest takeaway from today's korero was to be able to ignite conversations with my learners and my colleagues. 

Next steps for us as class teachers and team leaders now is to go on walkthrough visits to our colleague's classrooms at our own place -our own school and ask questions to ourselves about our own practice. What are we doing? How are we working towards meetings the goals we set ourselves through our inquiry at the beginning of the year? 

My inquiry focus is engagement. How can I best and continually engage my learners and their whanau in learning and school despite the changes caused as a result of the pandemic? 

To conclude this post, As a teacher and team leader I need to persistently reflect on the how and the why around me. How am I engaging my learners and my team members? What steps am I taking to make sure I am creating engaging learning programmes in my class and supporting my team members to do this too. 

My Inquiry Focus- The how, what and why...

This year as an across CoL (Community of Learning- Kahui Ako) teacher I started focussing on the following question as my inquiry focus. When I started thinking about my focus question for this year the omicron outbreak was at it's full swing in March. So, I started by asking a question to myself that needed to be dealt with at that time- 

The question I asked myself in March when I began this inquiry was- 

How can I engage with my learners and establish relationships with them and their whanau and at the same time engage them in their learning irrespective of the circumstances we are in?  

The reason for me to ask this question was many fold. The main reason was majority of learners and their whanau being affected by covid yet again. Either getting it themselves or being close contacts or just being scared of getting it. 

So, after nearly two months of forming this question I am sitting here today thinking is it still relevant? The answer is yes but there is another layer that has popped up since March. I now not only have to focus on keeping my learners engaged in their learning but also have to support a new teacher who has just started teaching this Term and her experience during practicums in classrooms has by and large been online. It has been an absolute surprise for my team member who has stepped in a class that is not virtual and has real people and real stuff happening in front of her. 

So, now my inquiry has evolved down the track of supporting my team member who is absolutely new to a real working classroom. 

I am supporting her by working alongside her on my CoL days (outside of class) and after school twice a week to design learning programmes, demonstrating the implementation of the designed programmes and providing her ongoing feedback. 

My team member has been coming into my class on her beginning teacher release days and observing me engage learners in learning, implementing learning programmes and working with learners providing them with feedback and feedforward. We also have been co teaching. 

As a result of this support given to her she is feeling much more confident in implementing the learning programmes on her own. 

Some snippets from our mahi so far...

Implementing the use of think boards for my team member during Maths. 

Forming learning groups together and planning for next week. 

Modelling unpacking learning intentions.

My team member working with a group of learners during Maths. 

Forming groups

Forming groups

Learners working with my team member during Maths.

So why am I providing this level of support to my team member? 

The answer is I identified very early on if I don't provide this multitude of support levels then my team member might not be able to experience success in her first year and feel burn out. 

Engaging my team member or even my colleagues and of course my learners is my primary focus for my inquiry so far. 

I would like to conclude my post with this quote- 

Occupational Well-Being

In the recent years I am sure we all have come across the word 'Well-Being'. When I first heard it I thought to myself 'Well -Being' -hmmm.... what is it? I knew what being well meant and to me it was about knowing your inner self and knowing what makes you feel well and what makes you feel a bit overwhelmed and being able to develop strategies to regulate one's emotions in order to feel well. 

However, in recent times I have noticed that a large majority of people I know not just in education but in other sectors too have started putting the responsibility of their well-being on outside agencies or factors like their employer or organisations they work in. This has been very fascinating to me as the family and cultural as well as community group I come I always believed that well-being is something that is intrinsic and something a person needs to understand and manage. 

Yesterday, at my school we had a professional from InterLead come in and talk to us about occupational well-being. 

It was interesting to learn about occupational well-being yesterday. There are different types of well-being. like- social, psychological, emotional, physical and occupational. We explored all the different types briefly but occupational well-being was explored in depth. 

What was most interesting to learn was that although it is occupational well-being and the employer has a responsibility to create a safe and healthy work place environment but it is an employees's huge responsibility to make sure that great working relationships are formed and it is us as individuals and team members to maintain these relationships with our colleagues and leadership team. It is actually the responsibility of an employee to make sure they manage their well-being at work. 

For me as an educator it is my job to create a healthy, safe and positive work culture not only for myself but for and with my learners and my colleagues and the leadership team. 

Some wonderings I have at this stage...

What strategies can I consistently use to manage times when I feel a bit overwhelmed at work or lack motivation?

How might I support my team members well-being at work? 

Currently, I do make sure we talk about our well-being during syndicate meetings and it has definitely been of value. I will perhaps discuss this with my team members and seek their guidance so we are really chugging along well in terms of looking after our well-being at work. 

To conclude, 

I would like to share this quote I came across recently that according to me fits in well when we are thinking of our well-being at work or even in our personal lives. 

Manaiakalani Data Sense Making

Today all the schools in Manaikalani cluster of schools came together either online or face to face at Pt England school to look at our achievement data from the last year and Term 1 of this year. 

It was a highly interactive session and we all worked in small groups and had a number of tasks to do in order to understand the data in front of us. 

We worked on a Jamboard and this is a photo from my group. 

It was really good to interact with data and understand data by actually working with colleagues from across other schools and finding what progress the students had made across the cluster. We identified areas we need to improve and work on to shift data and make accelerated progress with the learners. 

It is clear from the data that although writing is a curriculum area that has seen the most accelerated progress across the cluster, yet the reading data is not consistent with accelerated progress. I always thought the two curriculum areas go hand in hand. 

Maths is an area that needs to be looked at too in great depth as the data shows there is a lack of accelerated progress in mathematics. 

Next step for me will be to look at the data within our team and then forming next steps from it. 

Some wonderings I have.... 

What are the factors impacting learners achievement in reading?

Why are majority of the schools seeing positive shifts in writing but not reading?

What do we as educators need to do to make incredible shifts in maths?

My first CoL workshop - YAY!

 

Running a workshop on unpacking T-Shaped Literacy and Argumentation Writing with the awesome Team Tui at GTS

Yesterday I ran a workshop for our senior school teachers at GTS (Glen Taylor School) and unpacked what T-Shaped literacy model looks like and what argumentation board writing is. 

We looked at the text types involved in T-Shaped literacy and what planning and implementation for it looks like. 

We discussed in detail the provocations/statements and questions we can use that are in accordance with our learners interests. We talked about how we can have provocations that are topical but also cater for our learners interests.

We looked at what argumentation boards are and how these can be implemented through T-Shaped literacy. 

I will be going into the senior school classes next week to model a lesson/session on T-Shaped literacy and argumentation board writing. 

I am so glad to have made a start with my CoL journey this year. I look forward to working with colleagues across our Manaikalani Kahui Ako next Term. 

 

Inquiry Focus 2022| Wonderings so far...

 

Like a waterfall falls constantly, I have been thinking and thinking and wondering and wondering about what my focus is going to be for my CoL journey. 

Every year brings it's own new challenges for us educators and especially the last two years have been grappling with and making adjustments to not only our teaching programmes but our teaching approaches to cater for the ever changing needs due to the ever changing landscapes in education due to our dear friend Covid. Covid has enabled me to think outside the box not only in my professional life but also in my personal life. 

Since the last two years we all have at some stage felt "oh maybe this Term might be a straight up free flowing (free of covid) Term but it has not been like that and in particular the last two terms of 2021 for us in Auckland were really challenging. However, we all did what we had to do and did our best. For me I think I learnt so much about my learners and their lives. It absolutely enlightened me and has made me a better teacher and person. It has humbled me in life and slowed me down a bit and has made me appreciate the small things more in life both at school and home. 

So, when I sat down to think about what will I be focusing on this year it was apparent to me to consider how our climate has changed in education due to covid. This Term has been all about thinking on your feet the whole time and changing your course like an ever flowing river and cut across the hard rocks and paths and just paving the way. With 80 percent of my class going into isolation and coming back to school from it and I myself have been in isolation with my family this year so it has been challenging to engage learners in different and a variety of not only physical spaces but their individual conscious spaces as well. It has been most important to know and understand , not just know but understand the emotional state of my learners as I believe that if we have our learners emotional wellbeing sorted then learning comes naturally or sometimes easily. 

So my wondering or inquiry focus or question in the current times is - 

How can I engage with my learners and establish relationships with them and their whanau and at the same time engage them in their learning irrespective of the circumstances we are in?  

A few wonderings - 

How can I support my learners and whanau in these current times?

What are some other colleagues of mine at Glen Taylor doing and my colleagues in the wider Manaiakalani cluster?

This is the focus for now but it might change in a few weeks or a Term maybe. Or it might not change but one thing is clear to me that I am passionate about engaging my learners in their learning and do it through building a strong foundation with them that is nurturing and positive relatioships are the key through which everything is unlocked. 

That's it for today. I will be reflecting soon on my inquiry and blog. 

Kia Ora. 

Interesting piece of reading...

Kia ora Bloggers,

Lately, we have been implementing hybrid teaching and learning in our daily programmes.  Below is an article I came across as I was reading about Hybrid Learning to gain a better understanding of what it entails. 

Click Here 

Currently, I am pondering over the following questions?

What has been happening for my learners and myself?

What have been the positives?

What has been challenging?

What might I continue implementing or keep?

I will blog soon again with my responses to the above mentioned questions/wonderings? 

How I can support my colleagues in the Manaiakalani cluster of schools?