Te Toi Tupu - Leading Change Workshop

On the first Monday of the holidays I attended a Leading Change workshop run by Te Toi Tupu.  This was a really interesting day and it was brilliant having the four of us who are working in the leadership team there.  This allowed us to think critically about where we were at as a school and engage in critical reflection.  I have copied in the notes that I made about the things that I viewed as important learning that we went through and they are a very interesting read.  Lots of models that allow us to view the change that we are going through as a school in a new light.

Leadership and Assessment - Effective leadership of change

Video Observations

We have just completed our second video observation feedback session based on Michael Absolum's Clarity in the Classroom text.  Our first one was a term ago and we received feedback based on a rubric then and have just had to redo this now.  This second rubric highlights the growth that I have made in regards to student and teacher understanding of what they are learning, how and why they are going to learn it and how they will know if they are successful.

Closing one chapter - and beginning the next

I have been very lucky as a beginning teacher to have wonderful tutor teachers that have provided me with support and guidance over the past one and a half years.  Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for him) my tutor teacher has just become a principal at a new school.  The past six months have been a whirlwind for me and I have learnt more than I would have thought possible - and now that my final six months are beginning I have a new tutor teacher - who also happens to be my team leader.  In order to bring closure to the past six months I have compiled a written record of meetings and observations that have occurred in the first half of this year - in addition to this I also have pages of hand written notes, but will not put these up here as what I have recorded neatly summarises these anyway.  Over the past six months I also have records from observations from my team leader which I will post up here also as having all records of observations etc in one place will provide for an easy starting point for the rest of the year.

Tutor Teacher Discussions Feb - June 2015

Team Leader Observations Feb - June 2015

Looking Back

This evening I was going through my google drive having a look at the work that my students have been doing on google slides creating pick-a-path stories when I came across this video that the students at Pt England made me when I finished working with them as a student teacher.  It was just too adorable, and so I have posted it here so that I can remember that even on days where we might not feel subject matter has been as effective as we would have liked, we are still teaching little humans life lessons all the time - and they appreciate all of it.

Point England - Room 4 - Student Voice

Feedback from peers

I have recently had a colleague through my classroom specifically to view POGIL.  This is the feedback that she gave me.  

Hi Sarah,

Thanks again for the opportunity to see your maths programme in action on Thursday 4^th June.

All the students in your class were on task and engaged in their learning. The students I spoke to could verbalise their learning and the reason for this.  They explained to me that following a pre-test, they then identified their own learning needs; learning that needed to be reviewed and new learning, in the area of Patterns and Relationships. They explained that POGIL was fun way to learn. A group of students I spoke with agreed that they could support one another with their learning in a group situation. They enjoyed the autonomy provided by the POGIL way of learning, as it gave them greater ownership. They could reflect on their learning using the 4E’s and explained what each of these meant.

Next for me is to trial this method of learning  in my classroom!

Kerryn

I have found it really helpful to have feedback from a person who does not usually see this programme in action as it has reaffirmed for me that I am on the right path.  My next step for my inquiry is to look into how I can effectively help my learners with dyslexia within the POGIL programme.

POGIL and my Teacher Inquiry

It is week six of term two, halfway through the term, and therefore probably an appropriate time to do a formal reflection of my teacher inquiry for this term.

My teacher inquiry question was:

How can I, as the teacher of a year six class, use strategies associated with POGIL to help my students develop independence and autonomy over their learning?

When this inquiry came about I discussed with my tutor teacher the importance of having a variety of sources of evidence to show whether or not this is working and highlight areas that need to change/develop and so I endeavour to do so below.  I think that it is so important to have student voice as part of a measure of how successful I am in my teacher inquiry as realistically they are the ones whose learning it is affecting - and therefore they are the best people to be able to provide evidence.  At times this is formal feedback in terms of videos and PMI charts and at times this is in the format of questions that my tutor teacher asks my students when he comes to observe me.  As I will be referring to student answers to these questions throughout this reflection I have listed the questions below.

1. What were you learning today in …
2. Why were you learning that?
3. What tools have you used to ensure you are successful?
4. How will you know if you are successful?
5. When you are challenged in … what do you do?
6. How do you extend your learning?
7. What E score would you give yourself and why?

In order to do this reflection I am employing a variety of perspectives which I have attached as links either directly in here or in google drive:

 - A PMI chart from the point of view of my students

 - Video conversations with my students

 - The introduction of questioning cards to develop discussion for students

 - How blogging has provided a voice for my students
View the hyperlink above to see how blogging has given my students a voice - it has changed the class from our classroom where it is mostly teacher led to being there classroom where it is hugely student led.  Be sure to read the comments - it is heart warming to see the way that they support each other, both in terms of providing positive feedback and in the way that they help each other through providing appropriate and timely feedforward.  What is most amazing is the way that this feed forward and feedback has crossed from simply being an online tool and become part of how they communicate in the classroom - even my shy students are no longer hesitant to tell other students when they think they are doing well, or how they think they can improve.

 - The purpose of success criteria, and how these have influenced what and how my students are learning

 - Excerpts from professional discussions that I have had, both with my tutor teacher and with other teachers within what I consider to be my professional learning community

 - Reflections on my planning for this style of teaching and how these have changed week to week

Success Criteria
I have hyperlinked Reading Success Criteria that students have created since the start of this term.  This is entirely written in student voice with the children referring back to Sheena Cameron's reading comprehension strategy sheets when they get stuck.

I believe that success criteria tie in very closely with POGIL in terms of helping students have responsibility and ownership over their own learning.  The following quote speaks volumes about this:

" If learners are to take more responsibility for their own learning, then they need to know what they are going to learn, how they will recognise when they have succeeded and what they should learn it in the first place." (An Intro to AfL, Learning Unlimited, 2004).

Between the learning intention covering the what and the why - and the self created, and peer reviewed, success criteria covering the how students are able to gain insight and control over their own learning - and this is demonstrated both in the PMI chart and the video that are hyperlinked above.

Professional Discussions
When running a programme such as POGIL in a classroom it is important to consider what deliberate acts of teaching I am still doing as a teacher.  Recently we were video observed and these were some of the deliberate acts that were discussed:

My focus now is to move away from questioning as the students have the tools and the experience to do that and move towards prompting as my key form of feedback - obviously all strategies are going to need to be applied at different times.

Reflections on Planning
My planning has changed nearly every week that I have been running a POGIL based programme in my classroom.  The children contribute to the changes, telling me what they like and what they do not like - and what is beneficial to their learning and what is superfluous.  Based on my most recent discussions with my Tutor teacher I will be changing three things:

1. Writing the learning intention for the week in the format of 'We are learning to... because...' so that students can see immediately what the relevance is and therefore be able to discuss this.
2. Recording the way that I frame the activity and the learning so that students are able to clearly identify the difference between the two. This is where students have been getting stuck when asked the questions identified earlier - whilst my top students are able to highlight the difference without any problem some of my lower students struggle to and this is the group that I need to be specifically targeting.  An example of this is recorded below:
3. Giving students full control about what they learn and when based on appropriate data.  An example of this:  We are just beginning an algebra based unit.  The students have all recently completed a pretest - the level of which was determined by me from looking at data against knowledge and strategies.  The pretest has each page set out in the following format: 
   
   Each skill that the children need is recorded at the bottom of the page and once we have marked each page together they select 'not yet', 'kind of' or 'got it'.  The students work with other children in their skill level and determine their learning for the next five weeks.  They have decided to split their data up into two categories for them to focus on when they are with me: a revise category, based on the problems that they kind of understand, and a learn category based on the problems that they do not yet understand.  An example of this is recorded below
   
   
   
   This style of planning where students have such a high level of input develops feelings of responsibility, pride in what they have already achieved and a sense of direction and ownership in what they will achieve next.  Obviously I still have to make judgements based on their self directed pathways - but planning this way and letting the children access and read their data is very much personalising both the planning and their learning journey.

Overall - when I reflect on the question of "How can I, as the teacher of a year six class, use strategies associated with POGIL to help my students develop independence and autonomy over their learning?" the following things come to mind:

What I have already done and need to continue to do:

 - Continue to use POGIL sheets to structure students learning

 - Continue to use question sheets 

 - Adapt my planning to meet the needs of my students

 - Use the weebly to make learning interactive and engaging for students

 - Allow students to direct their own learning

What I need to do next:

 - Provide students the opportunities to have a real contribution to what they are learning

 - Use their weebly as a place where all students have the opportunity to view similar problems (for want of a better word) to the ones that they will be working with when they are with the teacher.

 - Move away from questioning and towards prompting

 - Change how I structure the learning intentions for students - especially in writing and reading.

Planning

Planning Week 2