Colleauges reflection Week 5 Term 4

Term 4 Reflections

At the end of last term I received a whole set of IPADS! This rocked my boat in alot of ways and had to change my Inquiry focus quite quickly. The idea of having the self managing learner and IDL contract on the junior end can still be established as i wanted  however the use of the Ipads opened up new learning, understanding and pillars of practise which I wasn't quite ready for at the end of the year. 

I did have a plan in place of the link with comprehension and independence however I am now worried that my focus is on USING the ipads not the deeper READING skills that I wanted. 

So to be honest I feel uncertain that I will complete this initial Inqury this year as the skills I need to model for the children is around be Cybersmart and link this to my reading programme not the other way around… I am going to have to go back to drawing board and see where I can take this journey as so the children don't lose the drive they have around Instructional comprehension and allowing the unpacking the story to happen alongside enjoying the new tech.

My new question for my teaching is..

How can Comprehension skills be introduced into a balanced Reading programme using digital tools?

He patai? 

What feedback have I received after sharing and collaborating with my group? Pre Observations

Oral discussion in the group- 

The seniors are using a reading contact in some ways so I look forward to seeing that. My thoughts are that using similar language and structures as the Seniors I am preparing the older children in my class for learning in the Year 4/ senior end. Always having high expectations around self managing and being independent has to be a shared goal for teachers though.

Chapter chat- This must be like my instruction reading time or a follow on now seeing the teacher. I was excited to hear this as hopefully what I am doing with comprehension activities will also flow through and not be a big change. 

What are my next steps to develop my inquiry?

After a big couple of breaths I took the skills I have learned from DFI and my ongoing use of Google apps to think a little differently. So my reading contracts became a shared Jam board that the children have access to. This works well to support the collaborative nature of the class, as well as installing that very important self drive around learning we need to see in schools. 

This took about 2 weeks to establish and set up, but now the children are on board and it works well to keep my class running will I am teaching. 

The LCS piece is now done on Explain Everything.

For example… H.O.T Blooms- “Can you create a new title page for the story we read today?

or "WALT to dicuss our deeper thoughts using De Bono's hats"

These tasks are made by me, shared into their Literacy folder on Hapara. I have modelled to the children on how to open them using EE.I can check in with the children digitally (either on hapara or by screen mirroring) with this so again allowing for that independence by having high trust model.

Aother quick inderpendant high trust model...Word Work (heart words etc) so not changing too much from the self managing practise I expect- just changing it to fit our new ICT model. I find that the student of HLN have apadted really well and enjoy the use of bolder text, thicker wrting tools or colours to practise thier phonics. The record option is fanatisc for our OL.

Peer Observation

What was my indicators of successful me as a teacher and my students? Did I achieve this? How? Why ? why not?

Whaea Kristie Observation notes

The observation was good as it allowed me to have that view of my reading sessions- I wanted a mix of modelling, question, explicit teaching, discussion and high interest which I felt she saw. Then the take a risk…H.O.T LCS tasks were introduced and discussed for our digital learning, then a quick recap of the expectation of our Jam board tasks. I managed to get it all in, the children were on task, and asked question of each other and myself.  During the Instructional reading session I noticed that I wasnt talking which is PERFECT! They asked each ther about the Hats and what they meant and confirmed their answers , although different, were still postive or negatives that realted to the story.

Below are pictures of a reading group using HOt in their Ipad.

What feed back did I receive that was helpful? How can I use this to improve my practice?

I am happy with the reading programme I have in place…it is not perfect but I am getting there in taking my own risks with my own teaching. The children have adapted alot better that what I thought- I think this has come with me being firm around my views of being safe, but also keep my activities SIMPLE and achievable by all. They are moving around , talking, practising,reading, CELEBRATING. I have not let go of what I believe a programme should look like which is NOT all digital.  My passion for HLN students who i thought could be left behind is changing. With another teacher watching and talking to them I was able to actally see and be shown that ICT can make my playing field (classroom) and equal place of learning and allow even for HLN children to be the expert an celebrate just as much as children who areworking in Level 1 and 2.

By setting up a classroom culture of balance then children are prepared to take risks in areas however the foundations of the programme stays in place.

Self Reflection - Evaluate impact and Re-evaluate plan

He Patai? 🤔

What’s going on here? 

Is this what I expected? 

Is this good? 

Should I be concerned? 

Why?/Why not? 

Do I need to take a closer look? 

What is it about my practice that I need to have a closer look at? 

 At the start of Term 3 I felt postive about the class setting as a whole- not just target group. My growth in myself was taking a risk and scaffolding and modelling to children about different learning pathways and allow that rich converstation to just flow without me being involed hugely. Yes levels are progressing as I predicted, but for me its more that. It that the children are using a mix of vocab, HOT and comp skills in the week during reading time with high student engagement and willingness to take risks alongside making mistakes during this new comprehension learning. I also get excited thinking that children who are not functioning highly in Reading (Decodable levels) are invited, supported, enjoying the comprehnsion activites as well as those who arent 7 yet!

Sadly I have found out that our MK Teacher Observations arent vaild so that is a disapointment as that would have been a great way to hear/ read/ dicuss how my thinking has been going by using : Affording students choice Providing high interest texts Meaningful goals Social collaboration Manaiakalani Questionnaires Links- These will be due on Edpotential at end of Term 3

After Term 2 data collections for the 10 students: 6 exceeding the expected level, 4 are meeting targets within Reading Assessment on HERO. I look forward to updating the data after the assessment in Term 3. 

In regards connecting reading to other curriculum areas, we are seeing a very positive increase in this groups STAR staines, Phonics awareness stages and e-asTTle writing samples. This group are on track to maintain their upwards progress this year toward the top level of the colour wheel. We forecast that in Term 4, 3 tamariki will be off the colour wheel and be assessed on PROBE. 

 My next plan for this term is to create a more individual reading plan for my students to support student engagement, accountability and conversations as well as allow for assessment to show an increased understanding of comprehension strategies. I hope that my mahi from Term 1 and 2 can be trialled with our new beginning teacher in Karaka, and critiqued in our new PGC teams. 

 Term 3 and 4 Next steps  - Slide deck to promote IDL reading programme

Term 3 and 4 Next steps  - Whole class agency

Term 3 and 4 Next steps - Individual Contract for my learners

Student Input Reflection- Implementing my plan

He Patai? 

 What feedback do my students have? 

 Is this what I expected?

 Should I be concerned Why?/Why not? 

 What further feedback do I need to refine what I am doing? 

 What is it about my practice that I need to have a closer look at? 

 Do I need to make changes to what I am doing or plan to do? 

At the end of Term 1 and throughout Term 2 was a chance to try and fail and try again with my planning and ideas for the target group. The reading levels of this groups are high and I think this allows me opportunites as such to spend our reading sessions unpacking new ideas and activites...as well as reading...however they are such independant readers that they do this in our reading programme therefore some of the pressure was taken off me to keep up the milage side of things during this two term trial! 

Planning reflect and update-

Here is a screenshot of my planning that I have adapted after researching, collating and fine tuning using known authors like Sheena Cameron/ Loiuse Dempsey/ Sunshine Decodables/ Emma Nahana. I created new terminalogy to hook the children into the new activity- such as Zooming in and out and made sure the LI in childs speaks changes daily to obvioulsy match the learning to give the children a sene of fun and shared understanding. These group LI/ actions are exactly the same as my big book teaching so all the children are starting to scaffold the vocab and organiser with SOLO assessment PRIOR to the activity. So my prompt is ...Today we are learning to Make Connections to our text. Can you show me using SOLO how you feel about this stragery? Could you go and do this on your own...and the children self reflect.

Learning Intentions- for all levels in childs speak and matching the suitable level- 

Achievable, visible, measurable. I made these all colour coded for example Making connections is Yellow, so that again these are reaching all abilities. Again placed on board with Big Book as well as with group learning.

Then ...the actual doing...is this the LCS? :-) Well on paper it is!

Grpahic organiser and collaborative activites to show thinking

Above is an example G.O LCS tasks linking comprehension and SOLO. I focused on making one for each day according to the LI and Comprehension stratgy/ Vocab lesson. My plan also included branching out and including HOT to our lessons. I have used De Bonos for quite a while so great to refresh that with this group and then the whole class.

Student Input Reflection - Action Planning and Testing Ideas

He Patai? 

What feedback do my students have? 

 Is this what I expected? 

 Should I be concerned Why?/Why not? 

 What further feedback do I need to refine what I am doing? 

 What is it about my practice that I need to have a closer look at? 

 Do I need to make changes to what I am doing or plan to do?

Using our Literacy Diet (above) the we created in 2021 that was already in place I had very solid "must do's" during Literacy / Reading time. For my PGC it was playing with this and putting the target students in the forefront- alwasy thingking about the needs and wants of those children abilities in the classroom.

Then I wanted to align some PLD from MK ( above) to help me create pathways forward. I liked the statments about setting goals and generate steps to achieve that plan- perfect for my PCG. 

 I started with: Purpose and Learning Intentions found in my planning and delivery 

 Then I wanted to look at Strategies of comprehension and H.O. T in term 2. 

 In all areas I really wanted to bring to the forefront self reflection/ self assessment/ Oral Language / class culture of support and taking a risk...again some more reading and investigating to be done. 

These goals required me to refelct on what worked last year for my learners and what new or tried and true approaches can I merge to assist my thinking in the classroom at reading time.

Self Reflection - Hypothesizing and Reflecting

He patai? 

 What’s going on here? Is this what I expected? Is this good? Should I be concerned? Why?/Why not? Do I need to take a closer look? What is it about my practice that I need to have a closer look at?

  Using what I had noticed in Term one and my reflective questions I started forming thoughts of how best to target in my PGC Inquiry. After talking within our Syndicate we discussed our needs within the classes as well was what was do-able. The concern was hanging over us about are we seeing a new Covid low absenteeism hit our school… however in the latter half of Term, we saw a certain group return in a positive mind sense. With this return we created our focus question for our Strategic Goal- forward thinking that our differing PGC will stem from here. Ngā Tipu Atawhai (Years 2, 3 and 4) Increase the reading comprehension levels of 10 students who are at a reading-to-learn stage by embedding and scaffolding identified Manaiakalani best practice strategies into our balanced literacy diet. Breakdown of tamariki 5 girls - 3x Year 3 Maori, 2x Year 4 European. 5 boys - 1x Year 2 Maori, 1x Year 2 Pasifika, 1x Year 3 European, 2x Year 3 Maori

What I hypothesize ...

 The 5 tamariki were chosen because they knew them, and their whanau, well enough to know that they will be back to school after the Covid isolations because they appreciate learning and value education. 

As mentioned these children are the minority, with no behavioral or wellbeing issues, so when they returned they had retained previous knowledge and could fit back into reading lessons with no intensive scaffolding. They are functioning at the end of Level 1 or within Level 2 of the reading curriculum. This TAI became a priority to not only offer extension, creativity and student voice but to give me the teacher an uplift of practice and mana within the very high needs of the mainstream classroom at the present time. The biggest challenge we face like many teachers across Aotearoa is having time to conduct an effective Inquiry. We have a massive workload with our daily teaching, and to be fair, TAI/ PGC is forming only a fraction of the deeper reflections and mental strength we are using every single minute to get our classes to function within the realms of MOE expectations and CRT time. 

Reading is only one small part of core curriculum teaching, however because of our Literacy diet and MK Reading scaffolds, we are multilayering and integrating literacy to make our efforts in front of learners the most effective. 

Questions leading to my next thoughts are: Am I able to do what I set out to do- am I putting too much into reading? Where can I start within what I already have got?

Self-reflection- Noticing

He patai? 

 What’s going on here?

 Is this what I expected? 

 Is this good? Should I be concerned? 

Why?/Why not? 

 Do I need to take a closer look? 

 What is it about my practice that I need to have a closer look at? 

 The first few weeks after completing testing and many observations in Term one, I found a huge gap in social and emotional needs- as well as the academic. It was doing things like sharing in the morning, undertaking art and Discovery that I realized how wide the canyon actually was! 

Not being a deficit thinker I started back at the very beginning again and allowed myself and the children to work through social and emotional confidence before undertaking academic learning. 

 In Week 3, I had a better understanding of the class dynamics and who needed more support than others in the core curriculum areas and my ideas started forming a plan ahead. 

Like many other teachers, Covid and other illnesses have played a big part both of our classrooms this year with interrupting learning and preventing our PCG from getting underway solidly in Term 1. As my reading groups became more structured and children returned to school I felt that I began to “take risks" on my PCG and reflect on what have done previously to begin this year's journey. 

I was lucky to work with MK on a few ideas and thoughts around Reading comprehension. This is an area of interest for a few reasons. 

Firstly Data has not been great here…leading me to think that Reading isn't giving the students enough deep connections into their text to explore vocab and meaning. Although we read read read everyday, am I diving into words and sentence structure enough to balance the DPA and phonics awareness learning. 

Next- are my WALTS child / parent friendly - are they allowing shared understanding and collaboration- getting children to take risks and understand its ok to make mistakes (Using SOLO or self review. 

Then- what is the impact of Comprehension for our very at risk learners who have metal disabilities that cannot allow them yet to broaden thinking comprehension…they have a voice but am I pushing things like fluency over again making connections for example. 

 

Lastly how can Higher order thinking look in a Year 2 /3 classroom with aspect on student agency/engagement.