Collaborative teaching and learning. DFI day 5

Gratitude chain: what a great way to start today's session of DFI.  30 seconds to firstly acknowledge what person prior to us was grateful then into our grateful korero then onto the next person all in 30 seconds!

VISIBLE: can you see it?  This has been part of the Manaiakalani kawa since it's beginnings.  Our journey has see many of the locked away - kept to thyself practices diminish because it doesn't work!  No that's right we need to make what we do VISIBLE which does mean sharing of great ideas we all have.  Teachers experience that today in open learning spaces, the development of teacher around learning AND behaviour is so much quicker.  Students, teachers AND whanau are more a part of open spaces across schools and the community via our online hosting of all that we do.
Our default is visible.  Visible learning supports the Kawa of what you say is what you'll do - they'll be no surprises!

Hapara was specifically designed to support Manaiakalani.   This was designed so that the learning would be visible to the teacher.   It's a great tool to support our students and brings stability to our current situation of students carrying out distance learning.   Our whanau have access to Hapara also to support their children from home.
John Hattie supports - our feedback and feedforward makes a positive difference for our learners.  John Hattie is a Professor of Education first at the University of Auckland then later at the University of Melbourne in Australia.   He is very big on VISIBLE learning! 
Our researchers

We need to keep sharing the process of teaching and learning in a visible setting.  We must follow the process of limiting the links.  Remove the barriers of passwords and limiting the links.  It's the best way to go.  Thanks Dorothy for the korero here!

MULITMODAL....MULITTEXTUAL
How can we make our delivery inclusive?  Not just about uploading our worksheets, we actually need to move away from this and look at how we can include all our students.  How can our students take on more responsibility for their learning.  Self manage and self scaffold.
First key concepts is:
a. Engagement - the HOOK
Are our sites engaging, does it hook the attention of your audience?  Does your homepage have all your communication points present?

BUILDING TIME - time to build a google site from scratch with Gerhard.  When creating a new site, identify FIRST what is the purpose of your site.  Think - limiting links, limit the amount of clicks for your audience.  If you can't get to where you need to be in 2-3 clicks - you need to refine this process.  A flow-chart on paper can come in handy here.   Once this purpose and flow has been decided, next you think about the pages.  What's taking up the most real estate?  The least?  What is the best layout for this?

How do we hook in the behaviour and learning we're after.   The MULTIMODAL elements hooks in the behaviour we are after - being excited, interested - a desire to find more!   The MULTITEXT elements caters to the cognitive!

Multimodes to engage the learners.  This might mean writing, video, song, animation, graph.  We want people to understand information - this is our goal!

Our site should have multiple modes of presenting this important information.  Academically we want to be sure we are reading multiple texts.
1. Main text: the actual text we want them to be able to read
2. Complimentary texts - ideas can be accessed independently says the same thing but in different way
*Scaffolding texts - main ideas can be accessed independently, ideas are still on same wave length as main text.  Vocab list with links etc.    (referred here to matrix created by Angela Moala)
3. Challenging texts - not just challenging vocabulary but various points of views, conflicting information type of challenge
4. Student selected texts - an invite for students to build up mileage and knowledge by students

I was in team Kerry for building site from scratch on 'Fake News'.  It was a great experience working with our team of 5, great questions to help me along the way.   Please go here to see what I managed to create with the support of leader Kerry. 

What will I take from today?

• Limit the links on our sites!  Keep thinking of ways to refine this feature for our learners, not simply for this time of distance learning but into the future schooling that follows.
• Multimodal and Multitextual - an oldie BUT GOODIE!  A must!  Are we empowering learners with the resources we are providing?   Are we allowing our students to contribute to these resources?  We should be
• VISIBLE: if it ain't visible it ain't useful to no one

Kia Ora to Dorothy and national team of Manaiakalani facilitators.  

Have a blessed Easter Break.

DFI: Dealing with Data: DFI Online FRIDAY 2020 session 4

SHARE is the theme for today!   Hasn't this been the focus these last two weeks for us all!
How relevant is it for us today!

After farewelling Team 5 this morning I jumped straight onto our DFI for our fourth session.   Blogger is where I have begun today!   Blogger was selected years ago, today it is still highly functional space for our children. It looks after us legally too so thumbs up all around!
WARNING!  Don't be swayed by the latest look/app, stop and check that it's safe legally, systematically secure.  Blogger still wins this hands down.

AUDIENCE: you want an audience?  We need an audience!  Blogger promotes celebration of completed tasks, the effort to share what you can with your audience!  As an audience we have a role to play too!
Our well being is very important!  Hauora - our students hauora right now is being supported by our ability to interact through comments on their blogs and google meets etc.





DEALING WITH DATA

Google form helps us to collect data!  We had a 15 chalk and talk session with Gerhard.  forms.googl.com is a way to get there.   Great idea is start with a black template rather than a themed form.
In sandpit time I've created a survey I will send to whole of team to find out what our students want for the weeks of distance learning ahead in regards to regularity of meets for various learning groups.  Part of this will be their need around social connections for Hauora - Well being.

Google MyMaps
So much opportunity here to support teaching and learning for literacy and numeracy.
Google Earth has many great functions - 3D imagery, embed html content, does not yet allow importing of spreadsheet.

Google Sheets
A lot of cool tips here for admin involved in teaching AND the teaching and learning we provide our students, whanau and school community across regions.

Blog data case studies - using spreadsheets and google draw to analyse blog data.
We had the chance to hear from Robyn from Panmure Bridge School.   Her sharing was around a case study on a Mele - a student in her class.  The idea of setting goals for blog posts and children planning using statistics to work out how many blog posts per week/month/year.  What is a realistic goal and how it can be achieved.  Along with this I imagine that students will also refine the quality of posts not just the quantity!

We had sandpit time to create our own graphs and analysis of a blog and it's data re posts etc.  That's the image I've posted right at the top!

So what you gonna do with this all Mrs Tele'a?
I will plan a lesson like that of Robyn and Mele's sharing today to support student goals and motivation during this time of distance learning.    I will send out the google form I've created to support our teacher planning.  Also refresh my own plans around rostering when and where to be giving feedback via blog commenting.

Thanks to the DFI team from across Aotearoa for such a productive day.
Ka kite Ano.
Le Atua i lo tatou vā

Andrea

Manaiakalani COL teachers share teaching inquiries

 

What a great afternoon sharing alongside all CoL teachers!   We all presented in a session to showcase our inquiries at the Annual Manaiakalani Hui.  It was great to share our inquiries with a whole range of people.   The audience I shared with were from a range of places:

• old teachers friends from across the cluster dating back over 10 years!
• core education representatives
• members of the Woolf Fisher Research 
• Manaiakalani Outreach Team
• new teachers to our cluster
• members of our Manaiakalani Hackers Team 

A few standout points for me was finding out from colleagues a common goal of having students AND teachers 'Explain Ready'.  Meaning:

a. students are ready to explain how they might solve a problem in maths.  

b. they are able to interpret what a word problem is actually asking

c. the need for educators to be more aligned in the terminology

d. the need think carefully of  the style of questioning and processing we need to promote.  

e. teacher choice of language and modelling will develop mathematical understanding to the point of being able to transfer knowledge and practice into other strands and curriculum areas.

As I shared in my recent post my inquiry falls under achievement challenge #4: 

Increase the achievement of Years 7-10, in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets

Here is the presentation I shared..  I must say it was fun setting up the 3 panelled board - really made me think about what really needed to be shared given the limited space to display.  Thanks to the Manaiakalani team for their leadership in setting up this valuable opportunity for us all.  You are very welcome to visit my professional blog to read and see more.

Teacher talk is so important! Being 'explain ready'.

This afternoon was time well spent with Jo Knox and colleagues from year 5 through to 8.   The focus for our group PD was on the teaching and learning of fractions - ratios and proportion.   As the workshop unfolded it highlighted the following

- How we set problems to solve
- How we phrase our prompts and questions
- Which parts of a word problem to we spend time on teaching
- Which parts are redundant - not useful

This links to what I have found in parts of my inquiry.  The teacher's ability to articulate mathematical operations through to problem solving is significant in the learner's ability to advance in maths.   Where a teacher creates tasks effectively, use of correct terminology and mindfulness of scenarios learners may come up with - the thinking process of students is set up with greater stability.  The thinking process taken will prompt a transfer of skills across strands.  

Again I find myself reflecting on my own methods of setting up maths learning.  The language and phrases I use in maths to prompt the solving of various maths problems.   Jo Knox referred to the basics of how we describe fractions - what works and doesn't.   The part that doesn't work - showed thinking processes that were very limited and did not support the transfer of knowledge into other strands.   PD for myself - get explain ready for whatever scenarios students come up with in their efforts to problem solve.

The following are some helpful tips from Jo Knox's session.

• Some students in ratios use additive - stage 6
• We want to move into multiplicative
• ‘Launch’ of question. Ensure all students have access to understand the question. It’s not meant to trip up students. Explain different parts to allow students access to the question.
• Whatever your problem area. Do a 5 minutes piece with class daily. Maths wall could show the processes you want to teach.  
• Who can find keywords? etc
• Where are the key numbers?
• Redundant? Who can find words that are NOT useful
• Do exercise to picture what you’re trying to ask WITHOUT numbers. E.g. ‘I have money in this pocket and some in this one...how much do I have’. 
• Students will understand what operations you’re after BEFORE dealing with the numbers.

Explain ready as students - next steps.

Graeme Aitken: Collaborative Teaching as Inquiry Image from collaborative inquiry presentation given to school leaders at Manaiakalani Hui Term 2.

As the term kicks off I've used this inquiry flow chart to focus myself on what the next part of my inquiry will be. You open the lid with investigation from your hunch, you may find you were right OR close, or maybe - that the issue is something else!

The start of my inquiry?

Using student data WITH students to support achievement in maths. What has unfolded is a careful selection of words and phrases from me as a teacher to model how we interpret our data from formative assessments so far. These being gloss, IKAN test and small group work.

On expecting students to articulate back to me via blog posts and conversations I have picked up that the students were able to identify the strand area of weakness. This was hugely motivational and built confidence in a number of nervous students. However the next problem became obvious. It's the next level of detail we are actually after! So if you say - 'Proportions and Ratios' is the area of weakness in number - what IN proportions and ratios is the problem area. What are the building blocks that lead me into understanding fractions (proportions) and then ratios? Students goal: to be 'Explain Ready'. Using collaborative teaching inquiry model from Graeme Aitken I have come up with the following to guide me through the next steps for my inquiry.

Inquiry that Hannah West shared in our Pt England School inquiry groups.   Thanks Hannah for your great ideas around screencast!    Will show what we come up with soon!

'Explain Ready' with OTJ's.

Year 7 & 8 had a busy end to the term with their technology expo, gloss and running records, parent interviews and more! In the space of reporting to parents it is necessary to be 'explain ready' with various pieces of data and knowledge in the area of maths. Maths was our selected curriculum focus for our parent interviews. Some parents found this odd as in the past 2 years we have reported as home class and literacy teachers. Given the lower numbers of parents who attended most ended up visiting both their child's literacy AND maths teachers. So it was a win win situation!

 In reporting about maths this prompted me to look very closely at what the students understood to be their strengths and weaknesses. Further to this to offer my advice as to what needs to happen next in their learning. Regardless of my ability in this teaching area parents hold us - the teacher - in a high position of authority and knowledge.   Being well prepared with explanations of OTJ and next steps are a priority when reporting to both parents and students.

 My target group findings after gloss in May: 
1. A common theme for students in my target group is the need to develop skills to interpret word problems. To understand what the question is actually asking in terms of mathematical operations and the sequence in which to work the task out. An example of word problem that stumped students in this target group: 24 pegs, 2 pegs used to hang out 1 piece of clothing. How many pieces of clothing can you hang out? Approximately 2/3 of group were stumped. When I did the work of interpreting this to the equation '24 ÷ 2 = ?' students immediately answered correctly '12'.

 2. Secondly there was an obvious need to develop their basic knowledge around ratios and proportions. This stood out as the lower strand in the gloss test.

These are two areas I will target with the group in the new term as well as their home learning for the week.

Screen casts that 'Explains and shows' my understanding

Following on from our staff meeting led by Dorothy Burt we had our own Pt England group inquiry session.  In this session we are invited to share and reflect on progress today with our own individual inquiries.

I will share about the findings of a colleague around the use of capturing screen casts that display a student working through a problem.  In this you will see their working out with a voiceover that is captured at the same time.

The idea I plan to implement with my target group is this very activity of having students capture their explanation of maths problems they tackle.  

Plan of action:
1. Demo working out a problem they find easy using screen capture
2. Demo working out a problem that is challenging for their maths group

I will need to support this process well with helping students to  identify specifically a problem to solve.   Also the skills needed to capture their explanation/working out well so that their example is a clear example of 'Rewindable Learning' for their peer group.

Screencastify - tutorial video

Using assessment data for 'Staff' and 'Students'

Professional Development with Jo Knox is a great support to my teaching and students.  AND my COL inquiry even!   This particular workshop looked at using student data to empower the learner.  A good chunk of Jo's presentation broke down steps we go through with assessments such as the IKANS.

You may recall that I have been using the IKANS as a starting point for my data sharing with students.

 I carried my action plan to highlight the strongest and weakest strand from the IKANS with my target students.   A common complaint from us all was 'too fast!'.   Jo shed light on an extended approach to using the IKANS - some of which I'm happy to say I've tried too!

In the above image you will note that FIRST you mark the IKAN, SECOND you show the students the answers.   Allowing them to identify what they think were 'silly mistakes' for themselves.   Students are then allowed to complete these questions and have them marked as correct.

This SECOND part I only carried out partially in showing the students the 'knowledge' they needed to be correct rather than letting them first scan to see what they could get right.    Also note here - we are actually extending the test time - further than the fast screen flashes they experience in test time.

Formative assessment: PAT, IKANS and GLOSS.   How do our students see these results?  Often one piece at a time.  A time I bring them together to date is when I am trying to make an OTJ for upcoming reporting season - mid year summary to prompt my next steps.   Jo suggests to use a 'Spidergraph' (slide 14 in presentation below) to show both GloSS and IKAN.   This in itself will be informative for students and surely motivate them to keep on with their learning sessions.  Empowering students by using their own data.


Next steps for my inquiry: CREATE rubric and templates that support the following:
1. Carry out the 'SECOND' step as outlined in Jo's presentation
2. Plot results out of Spidergraph
3. Implement activities that prompt reflection on data
4. Decide WITH student what our next steps are in learning in the number strand
5. Implement support this choice in follow up activities and home learning

Data - our comparisons from February to April 2017

We've just completed a second round of IKAN tests where we gather a snapshot of the different areas in number.   The students in the target group along with their peers have shown an increase in enthusiasm in learning.  I have noticed an increase in questioning and discussion around what methods they use to problem solve.

In listening to the IKAN's this second time around I picked up again on more learning goals for myself as a teacher.  The terms and phrases I have used have not been as effective as I'd hoped.

Place value was the initial focus for the target group.  However when you observe the data below you will see that it still is the weakest of all areas in number.   There was shift for students - mostly in other areas.

This lack in shift I believe is from not extending the phrases used to support my learners.  For example in the number 789, how many tens are there?  I was accepting '8'.  Whereas the question is actually asking 'How many tens are there in the WHOLE number' which is 78.

My next goal is to be more accurate with my questioning in maths to ensure the correct terminology is used. This will lead me into teaching how to transfer this knowledge of mathematical terminology in problem solving further than place value.

Our team discussions on maths inquiries at Pt England revealed more to me.  I noticed that around the room - especially with place value, there was some inconsistencies too.  A school focus we could well do with is aligning the terminology we use - especially around place value as it is a weakness across the levels.

I am carrying out gloss tests now with this group.  I will share this data here soon.

KEY: blue February IKAN, red April IKAN
Student C made the most progress in all areas - except place value.

You are very welcome to add link in a comment that could support my inquiry of using data to support learners.  I'd love to try out more ideas around 'Place Value Nested', which has been highlighted as something I have overlooked in teaching PV.

NUMBER SEQUENCE

FRACTIONS

PLACE VALUE

BASIC FACTS

The WHY of this inquiry

Below you will see items posted earlier this month.  What I have not stated clearly enough was the 'WHY' behind this inquiry.

WHY???
I have reflected upon feedback via our PAT, IKAN, small group observations, Gloss results also research across the cluster.  It has been found that the rate of acceleration and achievement is slower when hitting year 7 - 10.
*This is the reason for my selection of inquiry - maths for learners in year 7 and 8 in my target group to see if I can shift achievement through using close examination of their results WITH the student.

My inquiry to use data to empower learners is currently my hypothesis to make learners in this age group aware of what they are actually achieving.  In this knowledge be more driven and focused when presented with ongoing maths tasks that target the areas needing development.

From previous post:
Go to this link to find out more detail about my COL inquiry.   The curriculum area it sits in is maths.

Empower learners - show them the data!

Kia Ora, Talofa lava!  After considering my school’s targets, Woolf Fisher Feedback from 2016 and the Manaiakalani CoL achievement challenges I have arrived at the following:

My Inquiry this year as a CoL teacher is to use data to empower learning and teaching in maths.

What does this looks and sound like? Students receiving explicit teaching and guidance through their own data.   Student empowered to interpret from data what their strengths and weaknesses are.   Collaboration of peers and  teacher to map out steps to accelerate their individual and group learning in maths.

Target Group - Priority Learners?

7 children - majority are sitting below the national norm.   2 from 2016 data show to be at.  However small group conferencing and IKAN test it seems that they are sitting below.  The absence in results for IKAN, for 2 due to poor attendance and the other an incorrect filling out of answers.   I hope to test them this week to add their first round of data for 2017.

	Ethnicity	Year	OTJ 16	Add/Sub	Mult/Div	Fr/Pr/Ra	Overall	NS	Fr	PV	BF
Boy	Maori	7	At	6	6	E6	6
Girl	Tongan	7	At	6	E7	5	6	5	4	4	5
Girl	Samoan	7	Below	E6	E6	E6	E6	5	5	4	E7
Boy	Samoan	7	Below	6	6	E6	E6
Girl	Maori	7	Below	6	6	E6	E6	4	5	4	6
Boy	Samoan	7	Below	E6	6	E6	E6
Boy	Cook Island	8	6	6	E6	6	6	E6	5		4

Hypothesise?

Through empowering students to analyse and understand their own personal and group data, the students will accelerate their achievement and move into the 'At' and/or 'Above' in the number strand.  (Gloss, PAT and IKAN assessments)

Slide from Lenva Shearing presentation to Manaiakalani School Leaders PLG

Action plan to date

On completion of our most recent IKAN and PAT maths assessments students have and will be 

1. analysing their personal data (what do the lines, numbers and dots mean?)

2. can explain their strengths and weaknesses (dialogic and  text/symbols in blog post)

3. learner access any time to individual sets of data to help set learning goal.   Goal is specific for target strand, determined by analysis in step 1.

 Lenva presented to the School Leaders of Manaiakalani on 'Using student data to empower learners'.  I plan to use this also as a title for my inquiry.  Lenva's presentation  was an excellent reminder having just completed testing cluster wide.

I will be using resources from this page on the Manaiakalani site  to support teachers at PES to carry out the same with their learners.   Also creating DLO that are rewindable for teachers and students.

**In addition to supporting learning in maths, as a Spark-MIT I plan to investigate how to better support home learning.   Home learning being focused on the strand of number in maths.  It'll be interesting to see the change this could bring about too!

Teaching as Inquiry 2017 - COL

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning.

In 2017 for my inquiry I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge 

#4. Increase the achievement of Years 1-10 learners, with a focus on Years 7-10,  in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets.  My specific focus will be on maths.  However I will share from time to time on the other curriculum areas as I am able.

The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2017 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

 CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect