Term 3 - Where to from here?

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During the last two terms I have been focussing my inquiry around what is it that I am doing to bring about a change to my student's learning. The evidence gathered from formative assessments, group teaching and observations was telling me that my students were falling short when trying to apply knowledge from one context to another. Another problem is that my students aren't able to read longer texts, read for a longer time before being distracted or bored and are therefore not as informed about the topic in question as they should be. This then leads to create tasks that are very low in thought. All of this from students who are reading at an age of 10 years to 13 years... Something has to change!

So in other words, I am falling short in teaching these skills to my students!

This term my focus is changing to looking more in depth at this problem. What can I change in my practice to solve this? How can I provide more opportunities to go deeper into a text that is both guided and free form? How can I relate one weeks worth of work to another weeks worth of work in a meaningful and contextualised kind of way?

Lots of questions... heaps to change... lets get started!

Term 2 Reflection

When trying to get accelerated progress with my top reading group (12 year reading age and up) this term I have realised that they are struggling to apply their knowledge across a range of texts and topics. So one way I have tried to meet this need is by integrating Reading and Writing seamlessly so that I am able to make as many connections for them (scaffolding and gifting). This is working really well and I am now seeing a vast improvement in their ability to make those connections!

Onwards and upwards!

Term 1 Reflection

Wow, this term has flown by!

I am really proud of my students who have been working incredibly hard on their reading this term.

What I have been absolutely stoked with was how they have been actively working on their learning goals. They really appreciated me sharing with them their testing results and being a part of the process when analysing the data and co-creating their next steps. This has made a huge difference to their motivation and enjoyment. Consequently 10 students from my target group have made 6 months progress while two students have made 1.5 years plus!

Onwards and upwards!

My Inquiry Focus for 2016

In 2016 Pt England's school-wide teacher inquiry focus is: Formative practice in reading and writing to improve students achievement.

This got me thinking. How does formative practice impact my teaching? Am I even using it well? Can I change how I assess my kids in an ongoing way that is impactful to my teaching and consequently my students progress/ development?

I realised by the end of last year I was starting to feel pretty stressed before my kids sat their end of year assessments. All I could think of was, "HAVE THEY IMPROVED??" This was a scary thought because of all the hard work I had put in to gain accelerated progress from my class. But that was only the start of it. What if I found out that a student hadn't understood a key concept or hadn't in-fact progressed? It was now too late to do anything about it. My window of change had gone! What about those kids who I hadn't moved on quick enough? Had it been too easy for them, meaning that an opportunity to extend them had been missed?

My 2016 enquiry focus had been birthed.

This year I am wanting to enquire into what exactly is creating accelerated progress in my kids. I want to find out what I am doing that is making a difference, and do that more often and throw away the ineffective, time wasting teaching/tasks/activities. I need to keep up to date with testing so that my teaching is always at the cutting edge, not relying on a gut feel.

I want to be more intentional in my tracking of progress throughout the year in the hope to fix a big problem. The problem I most want to solve is with my extension kids. I have realised that they are unable to think critically about a text. I have realised (through data analysis and extra testing) that they find it hard to evaluate a text. They also find it really hard to transfer knowledge from one context to another. This is what I want to fix!

My enquiry Focus for 2016:

Use formative assessment to track progress closely and determine what the next teaching and learning steps are in reading.

Term 4 Reflection - How did we go?

This term has been an amazing term. What I have loved has been to see the huge difference that I have been able to make in my student's learning. Since being able to analyse my student's data I have been able to find a number of interesting things:

• 23 students who made 1 year or more progress
• 12 students from my target group made more than 1 years progress
• 5 students made 1.5 years or more!
• 5 students who made no improvement at all (4 high needs kids)
• Only 1 student from my target group of 13 didn’t move
• PAT has aligned very closely to our other data and eventual OTJs
• Some huge shifts across PAT scale scores. However, these are very sporadic.

I am looking forward to the challenge that my next year's class will bring. I can't wait to continue with the things that I have learnt from this year and take it even further.

Term 3 Reflection

During term 3 I have been working on integrating a lot of what I had been working on with iPads into the netbook world. The key thing that I have continued with when creating greater scaffolded reading followup activities have been the use of audio instructions and queues.

One interesting thing that I have found out when creating audio instructions and queues is the more natural they are the more powerful they are to the students. When I had created more of a scripted instruction I found that the students weren't getting the most out of it. I realised that the true power of these instructions was when I was recreating myself - more natural and conversational. This way it is like I am answering a question that the student has asked rather than just telling them what to do.

Creating Scaffolds That Enable Higher Order Thinking

During the last 4 weeks of term 2 and the beginning of this term my main focus of my inquiry has been on scaffolds. I have re-realised just how important they are to my teaching and the student's learning.

The main catalyst for changing how I use scaffolds has been the shift from teaching extension students to teaching well below students. I was suddenly thrust into a world where every student needed instructions explained, re-explained and even re-re-explained! They needed way more help when they worked independently than I had realised!

So, this has led me to create templates (see below) with loads of instructions. I have also needed to create audio voice recordings to explain these instructions further for those who are reading well below. This has lead me to chunk each piece of the create cycle into smaller, more manageable pieces with clear modelling on how to achieve these.

What difference have these practice changes made? Well, for once I feel like I am starting to get content that is more thought out, in-depth and shows me where the students are at in their thinking or understanding of the content. This is the first time that I have been able to strike a balance between the creating of a quality product married with quality thoughts and insights.

Where to know? I am beginning to see this line of thought and practice seep into other learning areas. I am beginning to develop more scaffolds and aids in maths and am finding that the students acquisition of new concepts is quicker. I'm excited to see where this will lead.