Enviro Day 11/09/2020

Coaching and Inquiry 2020

Our progress so far

TUESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2020

GOAL: Have a plan for my teaching as inquiry - what and when - and show what I have done clearly

REALITY:

School inquiry on agentic learning, students being able to describe or show what they are doing and how they are doing it and next steps.

As a big picture we created the school reports which were student and whanau focused. Within that working quite a bit with students to get them think about their learning and next steps. From that starting to hone the SC and task and LI for everything. Through that, getting students to record, video them reflecting on their work - maths or literacy - and then putting that into their reports. I’ve taken down all the levels and exemplars off the windows as they weren’t useful. I want to do that again so it’s more child friendly. 

Part of this coincided with a school wide movement to tidy up book work. The folder the kids were using weren’t working so moved to writing books and a deliberate move away from Google docs but used Gdocs to create LI, SC, task and then stick that into every piece of work, but use it as a hands on checklist. Having to count what they’d done in each SC so they knew where they were at and what next steps. INSERT EXAMPLE

Outcome - them being able to describe and demonstrate their learning. Originally I wanted for when Diane or Kaiya to do a walk through, last year when asked what learning they described the task, last walkthrough they actually described the LI and SC. Not sure if they understand or can just describe. I think most of them do have an understanding of where they are and their next steps. They can follow that model now.

I feel like i’ve done a lot but haven’t documented it.

WHY? I’ve seen a dramatic increase in writing success. Supported by being able to see that success, because it is explicit. “Well done, I’ve been able to number how many commas, punctuation marks etc” after an explicit lesson on punctuation. What would be ultimate indicator of success? If they can do this independently without guidance. If I had them for another year I think yes, I could embed this. Difficult to get it embedded by the end of next year. 

For the end of year report for all students to have a video reflection in their report. Because it is so much more powerful and valuable than a picture of a piece of work. It's an extra layer of detail. Why is it important for them to be able to reflect and share with their whanau? Because they are sharing that level of their success with their whanau in a new way, which they and their whanau wouldn’t have maybe been exposed to before. I know this from whanau kauri and best evidence. OECD Nature of Learning.

2 ways they can do it - follow board and use First, Next, Then, or follow the green highlighted steps. And say e.g. “I used five commas, et, my next steps are ….” The good thing is they are not just following A success criteria, they are following THEIR SC and evaluated how successful it was. 

Maybe next step is honing 

It has been teacher directed. If I gave them direction into it they would ask how they can build free time into it.

Do they know why reflecting is valuable/ helpful? They all understand tickled pink, green for growth. They all can talk about their success and next steps. 

Something that has had a big impact on this has been the sticks with their names on. They want to be picked. Pretty much every kid can talk about their learning. 

NAME CARDS - trying to reduce hands up. Now it is democratic and accountable. Still have choice to say I don’t know/ don’t want to do it. Engagement has gone up. 

Do you engineer it so everyone is able to reflect on their learning.? There are lots of ways they can reflect - tickled pink GFG; SC sheet; SC on board; name cards; critical friend traffic lights (4 CARDS - green, amber, red, blue - choose card to start after mini lesson. I see someone has a red. I go and see if I can support to get to orange or green, better if kids see a red and support her. Anyone can support anyone else. Eventually everyone should be orange or green. Blue so confident they can support anyone at any stage.)

OPTIONS:

I could get some input from them - ask them, e.g.: What makes reflecting easy, what makes it hard, what can I do to improve it, what can the teacher do to improve it? Trial this with target students first. Because what works with them works for everyone. This will show me if I am going in the right direction where they are concerned. I want to find out if there is anything that I’ve missed that I can change quickly and easily, or to reinforce what I’ve done already. 

I need to continue collecting but I am building up a bank of video evidence. 

Do a Google form to find out which of the four ways listed above works best for students. 

• This will show me if I’m on the right track for agentic learning and what if anything needs to change.

WHAT NEXT:

Present survey to Kauri now

Analyse the data to find out next steps.

Senior Syndicate meetings

Today we had a great senior syndicate meeting, we now have an agenda to keep us on track and focused. 

Topics we covered are:

Teacher wellbeing;

Planning documents for topic/inquiry.  We decided to all use the doc. Rob shared and then alter this and add it to the master files planning file.

Target students and how we report on these, we streamlined how our format would look and made sure it was covering what we need.  This then flowed onto our reporting format and how we have gone with our different report/consultation with whanau this year - big discussion around making sure these reports are cohesive and we then looked at term 4 report format and tweaked this.  

Student behaviour also came up and we revisited the document with behaviours and levels/consequences that we had made as a staff a few years previous.

We decided that this needs to be a whole staff conversation and that we would look at this next week at staff meeting.

Lastly we said we need to do a blog post on our teachers inquiry EVERY syndicate meeting as we all find this is being neglected.

puzzle of practice

On the left an example of work done with teacher, on the right an example of work done with a buddy.

I have been struggling to form a relationship with one on my target students. He refuses to work and I feel like I have tried everything. RTLB, MoE, Teacher aid interim response funding, nothing has really made a significant improvement.

I decided to start buddying this boy with a capable boy who is an alpha male in the class. He is a leader but often uses his influence in the wrong ways. So he also had much to gain from this potentially mana enhancing opportunity.

After another frustrating day of my target student being out of the class more than he was in it, I decided that as he stays an hour after school for the late bus he and my alph male who is also staying for the late bus could do the missed work from earlier in the day. 

My alpha male boy was given a new pair of nice headphones I had sitting in the back room if he could get my target student to finish his work and they both got to play outside once it was done. It worked. This is definately my new strategy. Take the teacher element out and increase the peer support.

Online/Home learning during level 4 lockdown

The level 4 covid-19 lockdown has proven to be a success for Oruaiti school in a time of relative instability. We have managed a high level of communication to whanau and students both in terms of learning, feedback and resolving questions and queries. We have been prompt and precise with our communication and it has been a credit to our teachers' dedication to the well being of their students and their whanau.

That being said, we can all make improvements. Over the past week few weeks I have asked for and received some really constructive feedback. Whanau Kauri feedback form

Some of the biggest challenges have been getting whanau up to scratch with what we are doing. After all, kauri class have been doing this for most of term one on their own devices in school. I also noticed that, just like in Whanau Kauri after school groups, parents bring a certain amount of fixed mindset. For example, spelling online lessons that focus on sounds are difficult for parents to grasp. Therefore, I began each day in google running through a mini lesson and success criteria, aiming the instruction at parents more than students. It worked! I then did the same with writing and saw a big jump in quality and output.

One thing that I am trying to change is the level of parent competition in our shared writing docs. I noticed that the spelling and punctuation started to improve and that meant that parents were doing more of the work than the students. I parked it for a bit as I considered the benefits of their support massively outweighed the negatives.

The other thing that I have become aware of is that some parents find it difficult to just stick to the success criteria when giving feedback to their children. For example, in a writing lesson focussing on first person pronouns a handful of students had their spelling underlined. These are things that we have been addressing in Whanau Kauri and I have to let go and not sweat it I guess right now!

It has been really cool sharing each day in google meets with everyone. I think that the support from whanau has been exceptional and has made a world of difference. One example is Clive Walden asked if I could add text boxes to the slides where a response was required. It meant that students saved lots of time and focussed on the task rather than the format. It was a really easy fix that took me no more than 5 minutes each day.

These are the things that I will miss when we get back to normal. In this reflection I have weighed the pros and cons of distance learning as I have seen it so far; the loss of teachable moments against the advantages of timely parent feedback. Its a no brainer, this is a formula for success across the board. Korbin is a great example of how distance provides opportunities to shine.

Sharing Whanau Kauri questions with Petrina

Maths Discussion with Sue Holmes

I had a great chat with Sue Holmes about teaching and learning in maths last week. She looked at my lesson plans and we have sharpened it up a bit. We looked at Learning Intention and Success Criteria and how a subtle shift in focus can change outcomes for the students.

We agreed that the LIs were to focussed on a particular skill and could be broader to show connections to other universal skills and have a direct relation to our local curriculum and enviro focus. In other words, highly motivating and relevant links that are integrated with other curriculum areas.

I have also shortened the lesson and have cut out practice questions. Students now just have two word problems to discuss in flexible groups. They then show their working out on the board. We go through the thinking and I pick out what next steps and feed forward from there. Also no success criteria until after the guided lesson as otherwise they are not thinking freely and truely problem solving, just complying!

The first lesson was great and we are now adding more elements of cooperative classrooms.

Senior Syndicate Meeting 1 18/02/20

Draft front of report

Draft report

The group discussed the new format of the senior school reports. We were unsure of how to report levels while maintaining a student voice.

We are moving towards more agentic reports, written by students and genuinely goal set by students.

examples of reporting graphs

Oruaiti Coaching and Inquiry 2020

Add link to slides from meeting with Su

What next?

What questions to ask students?

How does this apply to emotional intelligence/mana potential? How can mana potential support students to describe/demonstrate their learning? How can they make more connections to problem based tasks?

Whanau Kauri After school promo video

Learner Agency Interview Summary

Rob 4/10/19

Affordances

Limitations

Goal setting 1:1 time reading/writing/maths Students decide what to focus on based on progressions developed by teachers, displayed Aspirations: goals linked to curriculum, getting external experts (eg sports coaches) to support goal setting Whānau aspirations Having strong relationships Engagement in child’s learning supporting their child Experts in their child Balancing with curriculum expectations  Ss must demonstrate learning with evidence using SC Provide authentic learning opportunities and voice for learners  Student started club around ducks Engaging with local business and community  Students need to have dispositions Mana Resilience Growth mindset Ako - sharing learning (Whangarei girls, tuakana/teina Support students to be the expert Teachers  give away power/control, learning is messy, learning is non linear Dispositions  - reflective, innovative, excited, varied, having strong relationships with each other Knowing learners Where they’re from, where they come from Trust in the teachers Relationships key Start with what students know, enjoy, bring in, springboard from that What they need (eg being outside). Use the local environment  Learning being visible Exemplats Expectations Evidence Feedback Ss & whānau to teacher Report on teacher, skills Catering for diversity Blended approach (DI/PBL) Ss learning at own pace Flexible timetable Leadership - teachers being given permission to try something new Beliefs of school strong PL&D Teaching Assessment (formative, individualised testing) Teaching as Inquiry Reflection - what worked, didn’t Outside experts in LA School having clear, agreed expectations about LA Lesson study RBL - identifying bias Technology Speech to text Flipped learning Slides Only as good as teacher pedagogy Ss can work at home Ss have choice/control  Collaboration Teachers Students  Integrated curriculum Teachers having a critical friends, coaching buddies, drop ins, setting and achieving small goals, being flexible Training teachers - T as role models, regular catch ups

Being unable to articulate learning  Teachers  fearing chaos - the unknown, the not knowing  Using timed testing, data walls Not personalising learning  Doing things the way they have always done it, easier Staying safe Developing a competitive model Teacher bias Resistance/being slow to change Views about technology Mismatch between feedback and learning focus Deadlines Timelines Whānau expectations Group work/problem solving not same as their educational experiences  Teachers cultural capital different Teacher expectations Lack of relationships  Ss not feeling safe, welcome Ss being ashamed to share their successes  Lack of resilience Ss expectations about what school should be like, feeling fearful Lack of PL & D Too many new initiatives Isolated school Assessments Focus on testing Timed testing Standardised testing

Top affordances Teacher willingness to take risks Teacher willingness to share power Knowing learners

Top limitations/barriers Leadership lacking focus/emphasis on LA Teachers not reflecting on practice LAck of teacher buy in/belief in LA