Literacy Teaching as Inquiry 2016

My teaching inquiry will have quite a few contributing anchors this year.

1. Registered Teaching Criteria

2.  Core Education's Ten Trends 2016

The segment of change I will be focussing on is 'Cultural'

The impact of teaching / learning for diversity and Digital fluency

3. Teaching as inquiry - a refresher

4. Building collaborative Teaching as Inquiry teams using Spirals of Inquiry

5. Simple Habits for Complex Times by Jennifer Garvey Berger & Keith Johnston

I've taken a while to start writing my inquiry because, actually it's exactly like last years!

Inspired by a workshop I went to run by Jennifer Garvey-Burger
One of the writers of Simple Habits for Complex Times. 
There was a slide that I have been constantly thinking about.

I spent all of 2015 looking at the gaps - in student learning.  

So, the one difference for my Inquiry this year is, I will not be singularly focussed on the 'gap in learning.' Instead, I will be attempting to focus on the 'system of learning' and how this impacts on the student's learning. 

I'm going to try and do this by looking at the bigger picture of what is going on for the students. To look at the bigger picture I am going to use data from Positive Behaviour For Learning. (PB4L) To look at student/class behaviours and student / class academic achievement. 
At the start of April I attended a PB4L Tier 1 and 2 workshop. Our facilitator asked us:
"How can we set up the student to fail? then try the opposite." 
I instantly knew I had to give this a go. 

I am also going to work on something about my self.
I am going to attempt to listen to learn  rather than convince.  I want to see if its possible to listen to my students in a new way. 
The idea of listening differently has come from Jennifer Garvey-Burger.

I am reminded of John Hagel's  words:

"In order to make a big impact, you need to think about small moves, smartly made. That means three things. Focus, leverage and acceleration.

Focus = sense of destination and direction.

Leverage = convincing others to contribute more energy than you have alone.

Acceleration = taking time for reflection, learning, and refinement to optimise for non-linear improvement."

John Hagel

 @jhagel

Leave those Resolutions 

So here goes trying something a little bit different.

I will be adding to this post over the next few weeks and writing throughout the year.

Watch this space! (as you can see - I have data to transfer!)

Planning to Achieve
Strategic Goals   All  students learn, progress and achieve to their highest level
Annual Goal Achievement targets are set for groups of learners based on robust achievement information.					Annual Target Where do we want to be at the end of 2016? Māori and Asian boys who are currently not achieving the writing standard for their year level will make above average progress towards achieving the standard in 2016. Above average progress will be assessed by moving 2 sub levels within 6 months.
Baseline data Who are the Māori boys in your class who are currently underachieving in writing? Who are the Asian boys in your class who are currently underachieving in writing? How do you know that these boys are underachieving
Name	Reading running record & or STAR results		Asttle range in results Writing	Spelling Peters & Pseudo		NS – teacher OTJs Reading & Writing	observations
Student 1 HA			T1: 3P T2: 3A				enjoying writing onto his digital portfolio.  Seeks assistance form teacher when required.
Student 3 NB						T1: 3A T2: 4B	T1:Refuses to read. will read car manuals!  T2: During 1:1 reading. Recognising difference sentence structures and able to discuss their impact on the story.
Student 4 OC			T1: 3B T2:				T1: Negative about writing ability T2: wanting to get to mid day writers
Student 5 PD			T1: 3P T2: 3A				T1: Quiet in class T2: Seeking learning conversations with the teacher.
Student 6 TE			T1: 3B T2: 3B				Increasing independence in classroom routines. Is able to tell support teachers what he is working on and why. Excited about his learning.
Student 7 ZF Student 8 EG			T1: 3A T2: 4B T1:2B T2: 2P				ZF: T1: always keen to write. T2:Has started reading for leisure! EG: T1/T2seeks assistance from peers& teacher
Notes:
Key Improvement Strategies What will you do to make sure that these boys make above average progress in writing this year? 3x a week 12:00 - 12:30pm Students will be part of a wiring program called Mid Day writers. 1:7 student teacher ratio. This is extra writing milage and instruction.
Describe the aspects of your whole class programme that will promote learning for this group.		T1: Starting Book Selling T1: Use of  GAFE T1:Use of youtube clips for repeated instructions T1: Daily reading T1: Publish onto their digital portfolio. Share portfolio with  T2: Students will attend an intensive writing group 1:7 teacher / student ratio 3x a week 'Mid Day Writers Guild' T2: 1:1 Reading with NB
Spelling: Will instruction in learning to spell help these boys improve their writing? What will you do to		* Al the boys need to be using the right click function on their devices * Discuss with students families to start using Word Q. Down load not their own devices. T2: Explore use of spellodrome
Reading: How will your Reading programme  support these boys to achieve success in writing?		Reading for pleasure T2: Students joining the Eggspedition program See link to Reading Eggs See link to Reading Eggsonline event T2: constantly  recheckin library cards /  access to Wellington Central Library  - issuing of books. T2: Sharp Reading
Goals: Do these boys have personal goals for writing?		List goals here See writing Goals on eAsttle - these are cut out and stuck on their books and laptop key boards. HA Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence KB Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence OC Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence PD Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence TE Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence ZF Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence EG Paragraph writing. Topic Sentence
Other  notes:
Resources What do you need to be successful in raising the achievement level of this group of boys? Reading books that capture the students interest. Mirror texts. Text that reflect the students world. Explicit planning, that collects qualitative and quantitative data.

So I start on my spiral of inquiry journey...


Term 1

Scanning. Scanning constantly knowing the gaps. Wondering how I can nudge the learning system. 
Similar to last year, the students I am focussing on are quiet in class. Thanks to @BeccaSweeney 's comments in my 2015 Inquiry.  I'm going to talk to the students and ask them why they are quiet in class and what things do they think might help them improve in their writing.

Student suggestions that might help them improve in their writing.
1.  Have instructions written on the board.
2. Talk to the teacher 1:1 - not in a big or small group
3. Have more time to finish
4. Work with a friend.
5. Work in a small group on ideas for writing.

Why students think they are quiet in class.
1. Other students always ask the things they are thinking.
2. They put their hand up some times but teacher runs out of time to answer or does not see.
3. They have nothing to say.
4. Teacher talks too fast.
5. 

Based on student feed back and their honest reflection, a significant part of this inquiry as changing an aspect of myself. An example is I thought I was using 'wait time'. The experience for one student it is not enough.


Term 2

Circumstance:  As a school we are constantly navigating towards what does it mean to create a collaborative  teaching and learning environment. A key understanding around collaboration for us - is its not just creating something new within our team that could not have done alone, but creating teaching/ learning opportunities across teams. 
Action: 
'Mid Writers Guild' is established! 3x a week.  The students work on whole class writing in a smaller group with one teacher. The teacher they work with is from the Year 5/6 team. Whilst she works with the 'Mid Day writers', I am working with her whole class on 'creative commons - digital citizenship'.
Result:
So far, students are optimistic and arrive to 'mid day writers' knowing what it is they need to be learning. They tell the teacher what they need to know how to do. Each student takes their most current asstle results with them. Some of the students stick next learning steps on their key board. 
They meet in a shared work space in the library. Students are not needing to be reminded to attend. 


During Term 2 every teacher at my school will have two teaching observations. 
1x appraisal observation
1x peer observation
These observations must be relevant to our Teaching as Inquiry.
I am about to have my first appraisal observation. My colleague and I have decided to focus on the same thing. 
Focus: Clarity about what is to be learnt. 
We are using Evaluation Associates observation Template: Assessment for Learning Teacher's observation Notes - Guide to completion. Clarity about what is to be learnt. 

What am I noticing?
The teaching who leads the 'Mid Day Writers Guild' is not needing to rush to the group to get them started, the group can manage them selves and are ready when she arrives. This is a new experience for this teacher. 

Circumstance:
Based on learning conversation with my students, they have said they will learn better if they work in a small group with their writing. I am going to work with them on creating a mind map. This group are part of the 'Mid Day Writers Guild.' They all need to learn about topic sentences and the writing of paragraphs. 
Action:
We worked in a small group on creating a mind map together.  The focus of the mind map is to dig deeper in the topic so students have material for writing a paragraph.
The  mind map focus was. A neighbour has been told by Zealandia not to feed the native bird the Kākā. Some nights she has up to 100 birds visiting. Using the critical thinking tools. 
Whilst working I asked the students is this work easy? hard? or just right? How do you know? The last section of clarity about what is to be learnt was students have the opportunity to check their understanding of the learning.
Result:
Students all contributed to the mind map. Students who would not normal talk and give their opinions were extremely vocal.  They often built on each others ideas. When asked was this easy,hard or just right. 4/5 students said it just right and they know this because they can do it but they had to think a little bit harder. 1/5 students said its just right, but was not sure how he knew this. Upon reflection, I think the topic of the mind map was quite important. I gave them a real life community problem which they wanted to grapple with. 
I will definitely repeat building mind maps in a small group. 
Next time I will have the students doing most of the writing on the mind map.

What am I noticing?
I am noticing that the students are enjoying the extra focus on their learning. I notice as I scan round all students that my TAI students are at the for front of my scan. They often catch my eye. Because of this I have started to give them a thumbs up or thumbs down gesture. -  as to how they are going. They respond with one. This lets me know very fast (in a busy room) if they need me to check in with them. I notice I feel and am more confident that they know what they need to be working on.

Circumstance:
This week I  attended a workshop about Māori, Pasifika achievement and the conditions required to accelerate learning and watch a live webinar with Keri Facer about Futures Education.
Keri Facer asked:
What do we care about and where can we act. And, how might this open up possibilities of the present?
Lauren Tafa asked what will we change about our own practice and how will we interrupt our own assumptions?

Action:
Was determined to do something different with of of my target students. Chose a book and read 1:1 with him. We shared the reading. The setting of the book was WW1 London. Together we looked at London using google earth and talked about what it might have been like for the characters in the text. 

Result:
For the first time the student said I can see pictures of this story in my head. The studnet is wanting to have this time where we read together. Reading, this week, is not a tussle. I"m not sure how I am going to sustain this in a classroom of 40 students. However, I must ensure it continues.


Term 3

Circumstance: Some of the target students continue to not want to read.  One of my students asked if he could read 7 year old books and then he might get better. I said, he might just need to read smaller bites of information. Often off task  student behaviour in my classroom is the target students.   Today I withdrew a student from the main group of students, to work quietly on their own, next to me, whilst i was also working. This student also happened to not want to read 'stuff'

Action: Whilst talking with the student about the work they need to complete, I also asked him about what types of things they liked to read in the news paper. This student said technology and cars. So as he was talking to me I was printing out articles on stuff for him. I put the articles inot a folder titled:
Random Rapid Reading: Real Reading Real Time

Result:
I pulled one of the pieces of writing out at a random moment with a target student. It was hard to read but he really wanted to know what it was bout. He read it, I read it, we then discussed it. He enjoyed this. I think it was because the reading was, non fiction, relevant, and up to date. This student wants to know what else is in the Random Rapid Reading folder. There was tricky word. It was 'parabolic' - because we are using sharp reading, I was able to ask is the one of those road blocks. The student said yes. At this point the reading lesson turned into a Math knowledge session. 

Circumstance: I've been trying so many ways to engage students in writing paragraphs. The paragraphs are not sharp enough. I noticed all my target students enjoy playing with gifs. How can I use gifs as a vehicle to achieve improvement in paragraph writing?

Action: Starting Rapid Writing based on a Gif. Firstly, students will collect fun gifs about our Inquiry. They will them choose one and have 15 minutes to write a paragraph about it. 

Result:

Literacy Teaching Inquiry 2015

'The year of the HUNCH'

This year thinking for my teaching inquiry is anchored in...

Registered Teaching Criteria

Building collaborative Teaching as Inquiry teams using Spirals of Inquiry

Core Education's Ten Trends for 2015

Simple Habits for Complex Times by Jennifer Garvey Berger & Keith Johnston

This is a work in progress. 
Over the next couple of weeks I'm placing reflective and current written notes and thinking into this blog post. 

WHERE DO I START?

CHECK what last years Inquiry looked like.

I’m looking at the RTC's and the biggest gap stares me in the face.

There is room for improvement in the following two areas.

1. Criteria 11: Analyse and appropriately use assessment and information, which has been gathered formally and informally.
2. Criteria 3: Demonstrate commitment to bicultural partnership in Aotearoa / New Zealand.

SPIRALS OF INQUIRY

What I find engaging about the spiral is you start where you start. The important thing is to get started.

I starting at Scanning.

The data from my class indicated there was a small group of students who are under the standard in written literacy.

This group are of Maori and Asian descent.

This cohort of students is a school wide focus.

I am using a school wide table to capture what is going on for this cohort in my class.

Planning to Achieve
Strategic Goals   All  students learn, progress and achieve to their highest level
Annual Goal Achievement targets are set for groups of learners based on robust achievement information.					Annual Target Where do we want to be at the end of 2015? Māori and Asian boys who are currently not achieving the writing standard for their year level will make above average progress towards achieving the standard in 2016.
Baseline data Who are the Māori boys in your class who are currently underachieving in writing? Who are the Asian boys in your class who are currently underachieving in writing? How do you know that these boys are underachieving?
Name	Reading running record & or STAR results		Asttle range in results Writing	Spelling Peters & Pseudo		NS – teacher OTJs Reading & Writing	observations
Student 1 Y7	11-12 PROBE Asttle 2P		T1 3B T2 3B T3 3B T4 3B	Pseudo DNA		Enjoys writing. Enjoyed Pixton	Highly distracted. Avoids reading. Will do what ever possible to not read
Student 2 Y7	6.5-7.5 PROBE Asttle		T1 2B T2 3B Full Stops/Caps. Sentence work T3 3B T4 3B	Pseudo 18		Increased writing confidence due to use of laptop and GAFE. Enjoys writing. Is writng on same contexts as the rest of the class. Enjoyed Pixton	T1:Enjoys reading non fiction.  Lexia when rest of students are reading. T2: Absent for 3 weeks T3: Absent for 5 weeks Avoids writing Avoids reading
Student 3 Y8	11-12 PROBE Asttle 4A		T1 4P T2 4P T3 4P T4 4A	Pseudo 102		Is tentative about using GAFE. Prefers pen and paper. Enjoyed Pixton	T1: Avoids reading & writing T2: Caught the reading bug! T3:Wants a working library card. Asking to read instead of class room program
Student 4 Y8	11-12 PROBE Asttle 3B		T1 3B T2 3P T3 3A T4 3A	Pseudo 99		Will write but continues to be tentative. Thoroughly enjoyed Newspaper skimming and scanning program Enjoyed Pixton	Has not found a book that has captured him yet. Avoids reading. Avoids writing.
Student 5 Y8	Asttle 2P		T1 3B T2 3P T3 4B T4 4B				Will do what ever possible to not read
Notes:
Key Improvement Strategies What will you do to make sure that these boys make above average progress in writing this year?
Describe the aspects of your whole class programme that will promote learning for this group.		T1: Starting Book Selling T1: Use of  GAFE T1:Use of youtube clips for repeated instructions T1: Daily reading T1:Reading of class book - Eragon. Talking through elements of a narrative and getting hooked into the story. T1: Writing into shared slides using Google Classroom T2: Starting Current Events T2: Small pop up writing groups by Student Teacher of Classroom Teacher T3: Use of twitter - tweeting questions - sharing learning conversations about books. #kidsbookchat T3: Increasing learning conversations with another year 7/8 classroom at another school. Using Twitter. Using Hashtag #Rm278WellyNZ Focus: What does a 'good' tweet look like this week. all tweets to be simple or compound, complex sentences. T4: Exploring the possibility of Students blogging small batches of writing. - Need to think this through. Digital Portfolio's started T4: Writing in 'bites' with poetry focus. T4: Introducing a Ballad about an Out Law
Spelling: Will instruction in learning to spell help these boys improve their writing? What will you do to
Reading: How will your Reading programme  support these boys to achieve success in writing?		Reading will be linked to writing. Reading will be varied. Reading for purpose. Reading non fiction news events that interest them. Repetition so they know what is expected. Focus on News Paper skimming and scanning program Working on shared documents in google Classroom so students can observe, comment and read others writing. Opportunities to work together in different spaces. Visiting the Wellington City Library and ensuring they can get issue books.
Goals: Do these boys have personal goals for writing?		List goals here See writing Goals on eAsttle - these are cut out and stuck on thier books and laptop key boards. Student 1:  To write three paragraphs. (achieved) To confidently write + present a current event and book sell to the class. Write simple and compound sentences. Student 2: To write using Word Q. To confidently write a current event. Write simple and compound sentences. to start independently. Student 3:   To confidently present a current event and book sell to the class. Write simple and compound sentences. Student 4:  To confidently present a current event and book sell to the class. Write simple and compound sentences. Students 5: To confidently present a current event and book sell to the class. Write simple and compound sentences.To find a book they enjoy. If not, explain why not:
Other  notes:
Resources What do you need to be successful in raising the achievement level of this group of boys? Reading books that capture the students interest T2 News Paper program skimming and scanning - with Student Teacher T2 Master Teaching Student has this group as his focus too! T3 Follow up library Cards. Library fines T3 Wifi whole class using twitter. T4 Students set up blogger accounts,

Term 1

Circumstance: Looking at the data my students are writing below standard. Class is completely new to me. I'm in serious SCANNING Phase. There are 33 students in my class. I”m scanning fast!

When I scan I realise these students are quiet and tend to slip under the radar. How am I going to manage this? How am I going to manage up my expectations? I spent most of T1 scanning and catching bits of learning information. Then I focus on one small thing.

TAKING ACTION: Started Book Selling. This was inspired by Murray Blandford at Wellesley College. What is Book Selling? (link to come) I focussed on what where my target groups behaviours in the book selling context.

Result: The whole class increased their reading milage and book consumption. My target students did not. Book Selling became the vehicle to discuss books they did not like and why. The target students did not want to do book selling. I learnt the target students have plenty of avoidance strategies.

Term 2

Circumstance: I'm trying really hard to be in the FOCUSSING stage and find myself swapping between FOCUSSING and DEVELOPING A HUNCH. I'm focussed on what my target students are not doing (they are still not writing) and my hunch is they need a bit of a challenge. Through FOCUSSING I have noticed that they are not confident learners. How can I in some way nudge the confidence along? Is it possible to set up the conditions for students to write where there is no wrong answer. Where their thinking is the valued content. (and writing isn't writing a narrative as they don't like doing this)

TAKING ACTION: Introduced critical thinking skills through the use of weekly Current Events. 
This was inspired by Murray Blandford at Wellesley College.

Result: The LEARNING for me was the whole class were totally engaged as they were keen on real life stories and were in a position to choose the most topical and controversial events to discuss with the class. When it came to writing up thinking the target students wrote and answered the journalistic questions and thinking skills. Each student wrote small amounts, however did not engage with language features. This was evidenced in the class collection of current events curated in a folder.
During T3 two target students started asking to present their current events ahead of their timetabled time! Amazing!

Term 3

Circumstance: Students are writing with little attention to sentence structure.

TAKING ACTION: Initiated a literacy program with another classroom in Wellington. Program is based on twitter conversation about the books each student is reading. The focus is on what does a good tweet look like and critical thinking. We discuss what a good tweet looks like. eg. use of a simple, compound, complex sentences. The CHECKING of a 'good tweet' is measured through printing off the conversations for that period of time. Each tweet has the students name and the includes the hashtag #Rm278WellyNZ #kidsbookchat . I then highlight the target students tweet conversations and compare each week. I'm starting to get a bit more of a feel for this Inquiry Spiral and notice I'm SCANNING & FOCUSSING as I'm CHECKING whats going on with these students.

Result: 

Target students used books from their T1 book Selling. Almost like re mashing work they had done in T1. They had material to engage with. They are confidently adding images of their books to their tweets. I think I'm starting to SCAN again - I'm trying to stop myself so I can really marinate in the LEARNING this term. I don't want t move on too fast incase I miss what learning is going on. So I"m trying very hard to stay in the LEARNING space.
More to come...

During T3: Target Student 4 has completely caught the reading bug! I'm not so certain its because of the inquiry directly - I would like to think the learning landscape in my classroom nudged this along. End of the day the bug is caught and it's reassuring to know you can not unlearn what you know. Student 4 is now engaged in his reading! From my reading of Simple Habits for Complex Times by Jennifer Garvey Berger & Keith Johnston I understand that learning is not a complicated puzzle that can be assembled reassembled. Like some kind of rubric cube. Instead the system of learning is complex and I am not able to control every variable. The Inquiry Spiral is assisting me to move with and do something within this complexity.

Whilst TAKING ACTION something unexpected happened...
As I've been focussing on improving Maori and Asian student literacy I have also increased the use of Te reo Maori in the classroom, including individual mihi each morning. Completely unexpectedly 3 more students identify as Maori and have not indicated this on their enrolment or spoken about it up until now. One of the students is below the standard in both reading and writing. Quickly - I add this student to my 'formal' teaching inquiry'. Becoming Student 5! I am super interested that this emerged from my inquiry as I could not have planned for this to happen. 

Target students sit e-asttle reading test WK7 week.
 e-asttle  writing assessment in WK 8 (Watch this space!)

Term 4

Circumstance: Based on collected data I can see all the students have increased in their writing ability. However, movement in reading has been minimal.

TAKING ACTION: I decide to have four literacy focuses going on at once. Research project (reading researching interesting facts chosen by the student), initiating digital portfolio's to publish and curate own writing (student agency - novelty factor) Using Kahoot (speedy high energy reading novelty factor) and creating a poetry anthology. (write and read in small sharp bites) Each of these required working with student agency.

Result: 

Student 5 chooses his own context for researching light. Cars! LED /OLED (who knew?) I received the most intensive writing and quality work all year from student 5. It's getting close to the end of the year and this student is writing and choosing to write when there is down time.

Students 1/2/3/4/5 totally engaged with creating a 'Wanted' visual to go with a ballad about an outlaw.

Students 1/2/3/4/5 creating haiku, cinquain, diamante poems and contributing to shared slides. I'm not needing to follow up on their writing.

Students 1/2/3/4/5 totally engaged when using Kahoot

So now its December 2015...

Are there any shifts since January 2015?

Students:

1. Student 3 & 4 have caught the reading bug!

2. Student 1 has experienced steady writing achievement.

3. Student 5 is engaged in his writing. However still refuses to read. (unless its about cars!)

4. Student 2 is keen to use his digital portfolio and show his parents his writing.

Me:

1. I noticed all the students prefer to read non fiction text about real word experiences.

2. That data is exciting! (yes really - especially when there is change)

How might this inquiry inform my teaching inquiry for next year?

So now I'm re CHECKING and SCANNING the end of year outcomes.

I'm wondering about the next FOCUS. I will be teaching Students 1 & 2 next year. 

So...

2016

1. Focus on the active curation of learning on the digital portfolio. Ensure key member of the student's worlds have invited access, with comment functionality enabled.

2. I have a HUNCH. I'm wondering about inviting a maori male poet / writer into the classroom. Being Maori is important to these students and a role model just might contribute to increased learning outcomes.

3. Increase the amount of non fiction reading by focussing on Inquiry based literature and current events. In 2016 I want to graph the percentage of fiction and non fiction through the year. My HUNCH is these students need a much higher ratio of non fiction text.

4. I'm wondering about the role of emergence in the Inquiry Spiral. How can I at each point in the spiral set the conditions for the unexpected to emerge? The factor I can't control? Its almost looking and listening when you don't know what your looking and listening for. Yet if you know the direction you are going in looking and listening just might nudge me in that direction.

5. Based on the idea that collaborative networks are the key to teaching and learning It is important to me that my next inquiry is undertaken with another person or in a team.

6. Based on the importance of Student Agency. I have a HUNCH that the conditions are set for student learning inquiry. 

Possible questions to ask my Y 7/8 students:
Why do you not want to read? 
What can I do to support you in your writing and reading?
What do you want more of...
What do you want less of...