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:

Key Competencies for the future

Last week I attend a conference put on by Greater Wellington Regional Council with @NZTAeducation

Below are some thoughts from Rose Hipkin's plenary

As always, stunning provocations from Rose.

Rose started her plenary by asking us...

Think of an an episode from your own teaching experience where you saw " lifelong learning" in action...
The instant silence in the room was not lost on us. This question stopped us in our tracks. We immediately needed to think and think hard.

My group shared examples like...
Things that interrupted us. Things that jarred us. Shocked us. Woke us up.

I then wondered if it was possible that
The conditions to enable life long learning... Perhaps, might be, Situations where certainty & uncertainty were in balance.

Rose then went on to discuss the take home messages. 
(a bit like serving dessert first at a dinner party!)

(I think about this...

The word 'take' has a jarring effect on me.

Is this the  language that supports us to work with a future focussed lens? I think this is worth us thinking about. Is 'taking' an action we can keep doing?

So, when I'm  wondering what does collaboration look, feel and sound like. I'm not sure 'take' is assisting in the conditions for collaboration to play out.  Has any one else thought about this? 

Perhaps... What might I contribute to the message today? If we asked ourselves this we might then need to think a bit harder than usual. 

So I'm listening to Rose and I"m thinking about how the Key Competencies contribute to teaching for complexity. That it is through the key competencies that curriculum knowledge might shift from static to action. Where curriculum knowledge is invited to become a verb. Where it's not what we know, but what we can do with what we know. To do this we need the capabilities.)


Rose discussed the following points:

The Key competencies are capabilities for life long learning.

Key competencies are critical thinking frameworks for everyday.

Key competencies are the lens to bring the 'So What' into our thinking.

The elephant in the room is - CONTENT.

It's not how we select content but how we develop content.

Rose asked us all to make sure we read:

David Perkins book Future Wise. 

Rose discussed David Perkins thoughts on the conditions for rich learning experiences

3 agendas that work against rich learning experiences 1.Push for achievement 2.Focus on knowing all the stuff 3.Focus on expertise Perkins

This does not mean the situation is hopeless, but we do need to think hard and dig deeper to understanding the role each point activates.

Rose finished her plenary asking us - that if nothing else...
Where in our planning and implementation of teaching and learning are the rich connections?
Where is the level of challenge?
How does each of these make a contribution to our future?

At the end of the day..
Weather you take something home..
contribute some thing to the space...

The one action that must happen is...
Re imagine the teaching, re imagine the learning so it is meaningful and future focussed for all students.

Game design creates collaborative ‘hum’

The following post has been copy pasted straight from  Interface Online Magazine

Game design creates collaborative ‘hum’

February 10, 2016 by paul548if

Wellington  teacher Diana-Grace Morris makes time for her students to design games in class because it fosters a unique interaction among them she doesn’t see in any other learning activities, writes Wayne Erb.

There is an energetic rise and fall of sound when a class of Year 7-8 students work together to design games, says teacher Diana-Grace Morris.

“When students are creating games, the classroom soundscape moves quickly from silent to slow talking, then to loud, fast talking. Then it drops down to silent and re-loops. I refer to this soundscape as the ‘hum’ and it reflects a real learning hum that is going on.”

Diana-Grace is Assistant Principal at Ridgway School in Wellington. She blogs and tweets about future-focused learning and is in the reference group of teachers for the NZ Transport Agency’s Game Design Competition (see sidebar).

Process of creation

She believes game-based learning can promote ‘strong collaboration’ amongst students – something that is evident both in the outcome and during the process of creation.

“When my students make a new game, they are creating something that they could not create on their own, and to get that result, there is tension in the group – a lot of it. We need our students to experience these tensions, as that is when students are busy putting their key competencies into play.

“So, in order to move towards strong collaboration, you need to plan for how the key competencies can be firmly anchored into  the teaching and learning process.”

Diana-Grace says learning within a key competencies frame gives the class a way to explore future-focused learning. This focus can emerge through thinking and doing things in such a way that learning includes not just what a student knows, but what they can do with what they know. Collaborating with others is often critical to providing such rich opportunities for students.

---

Collaboration observed

During game design lessons, Diana-Grace has seen her students

• highly engaged with the game design process;
• negotiating different social/friendship groupings;
• moving around the classroom to check each other’s work;
• playing each other’s games and giving fast, critical feedback;
• improving their game design quickly as they gain feedback and build their understanding of what makes games work well; and
• keen to support others in learning coding skills to achieve a particular functionality.

For more from Diana-Grace see her blog at exploriosity.blogspot.co.nz

---

Certainty and uncertainty

“After seeing the games my students are creating, and the experiences they have had with social good games, I think it is possible for game-based learning to be a vehicle for thinking about the present and future differently,” she added.

“For myself, to teach, act, and think differently requires the teaching and learning space to oscillate between certainty and uncertainty.

“The apparent certainty of curriculum knowledge gets applied into a variety of certain and uncertain spaces. An uncertain space might be a context that the class has not previously understood, where we are unsure what to do, but this uncertainty provides an opportunity for new learning to take place.

“I create spaces for my students to design games in class because I observe the students relating to each other in ways I haven’t seen or heard in other learning experiences.”  

Wayne Erb is a freelance writer.

---

Game Design Competition 2016

Got the best road safety game idea? Gather your team, make it happen and win!

Organised by the NZ Transport Agency, the Game Design Competition 2016 is open to Year 7-13 students and runs through Terms 1 and 2. It provides an authentic context for students to design digital or non-digital games about road safety.

There are two categories:

Game Design Document 

Or Playable Game + Game Design Document. 

Entries are by teams of three or more. The competition website includes game design tasks linked to curriculum resources across several learning areas.

For more see centre pages or go to education.nzta.govt.nz/gamecompetition

or download it here Education Portal News – Issue 29 PRINT

#EdBlogNZ Leap Day Challenge 29th February

It comes around only once every 4 years. On February 29 an bonus EdBlogNZ challenge has been set. It's time to take a LEAP. It's time to stretch yourself and create an audio or video post about a passion of yours. You can upload a video to YouTube (or similar) or create an audio post using SoundCloud (or similar) and embed it into a blog post. Take the extra step of adding a transcription of the audio/video to make it more accessible.

Monday 29th February 2016

9:30am - 10:30am

Social Skills / PB4L and Game Design

I like...

I wonder...

What if...

Every Monday the class has an hour of Social Skills / PB4L and Game Design. 

We are currently working on a  Road Safety Game Idea it is part of a Game Design Competition, run by @NZTAeducation. 

I caught this conversation as I walked past a group of students today.

Thinking is not optional.

Why title a blog post 'thinking is not optional?'
I mean, many of us are educators and we get paid to think. Don't we? Do we?

I attended #educampwelly  yesterday. 

Yesterday  I had the absolute pleasure of being in conversations with educators from around Wellington. We were talking about Game Based Learning.  There was agreement amongst some teachers, that it is the school time table that stops them from being able to engage with Game Design in the classroom.

I've been thinking a lot about this. 

I know it's a reality - many of us in classrooms are shadowed by an internal voice that whispers "so little time - so much to do". 

However, I realise I'm tired of this response.

Our role as educators is to think. This is not optional.

In New Zealand we are working with an outstanding future focussed curriculum document. 

Are we actually reading this document?

Game Based Learning, Game Design is simply another vehicle for us to think, do and act differently in our classrooms. 

It is our task to think and to think hard.

Future focussed teaching is about thinking - perhaps working with another teachers recipe, but not using exact quantities. - We are not cooks. We are chefs.

We are going for a slow cook. Ideas take time. Thinking 'how' with our time table takes time. However it is possible.

 We must think and we must think together.

I am reminded of Robert Kegan's work. He talks about the process required regarding  that which we are subject to - we need to make object.

 Is it possible this is a key skill towards developing conditions for change?

“Successfully functioning in a society with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions rather than be captive of them. To resist our tendencies to make right or true, that which is nearly familiar, and wrong or false, that which is only strange.” 
― Robert Kegan

“At the simplest level, any particular expression of the immunity to change provides us a picture of how we are systematically working against the very goal we genuinely want to achieve.” 
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

Simple Habits for Complex Times

Written by  Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston

I have mentioned this book previously on this blog. 

I'm going to re read this book over the next couple of months. I'm going to do a slow read. The kind of read where you really sit with the flavours and wait in between chapters. I'm hoping to notice a deeper flavour.

I'm finding my self rethinking  the importance of asking different questions and the role different questions play in shaping feed back. I'm thinking this is more potent that I first thought. 

I am wondering how the ideas in this book can inform my teaching Inquiry during 2016. At first glance things like 'teaching Inquiries'  are treated as complicated. Almost as if they were a puzzle that with the right amount of knowledge and skills we will be able to solve. However, my thinking has shifted. Teaching Inquiries are complex. 

Over the next few weeks, as I re read,  I will add my thinking to this blog post.

See link below:

Dr Jennifer Garvey Berger and Dr Keith Johnston - Simple Habits for Complex Times

Chapter 1 - Leading the possible

Chapter 2 - Engage with complexity, but keep it simple

Chapter 3 - Say What you Think, Listen to the Ways You Might Be Wrong 
The title of this chapter in itself is a reason to read this book!

Chapter 4 - 

Chapter 5 - 

Chapter 6 - 

Chapter 7 - 

Chapter 8 -

Inspirational bloggers

#EdBlogNZ Challenge WK 2

3. If at Ulearn - Find 2 bloggers you admire, shake their hand and take a selfie with them to post on your blog. If you’re feeling really generous buy them a coffee! Write about it too!

I walked into Permission 2 Play.

I registered, turned around and hey -  three bloggers almost standing in a row!

Bloggers who inspire me...

Rachel Bolstad @shiftingthinkng

NZCER Blog: Shifting to 21st C Thinking

Rachel is my thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking and thinking about gaming chum. It’s all about the game, it’s all about the play, it’s all about the rethinking of the teaching and learning landscape.

Marianne Malmstrom @knowclue

Blog: Follow the Learning

Marianne dives in and out of tweets that I’m super inspired and excited about. Conversations that inspire me seriously influence my next action. Marianne is about action and making the learning humm. So as you might imagine I’m so there.

x-ray bex @paradisecreated

Blog: Millions of Thumb Prints

Becs is like my Welly Y 7 / 8 Bestie. We really cook up a storm when we are within wifi reach and face to face don’t get me started. Becs is one stunning educator. Two words to describe Becs. Grit and Style!