Literature Review

Week 17 OverviewThis week is focused on understanding the roles that research can play in education. It introduces the concept of education research and outlines various types of research in education.

You will also be exploring the principles of Kaupapa Maori and how they relate to research in education. You’ll find all the content from the Class Notes -tab.

Relating Practising Teacher Criteria

12(i). Systematically and critically engage with evidence and professional literature to reflect on and refine practice

12(iii). Critically examine their own beliefs, including cultural beliefs, and how they impact on their professional practice and the achievement of ākonga

Week 18

Using Research as a Practitioner: Finding Relevant ResourcesThis week is focused on understanding how to search for and locate educational research and how to critically interpret and evaluate research reports and findings.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the different types and formats of education research
• Know how to search for and locate education research
• Develop skills to interpret and critically evaluate research

Practising Teacher Criteria

12(i). systematically and critically engage with evidence and professional literature to reflect on and refine practice.

Week 20

Practising Teacher Criteria9(ii). select teaching approaches, resources, technologies and learning and assessment activities that are inclusive and effective for diverse ākonga

9(iii). modify teaching approaches to address the needs of individuals and groups of ākongaThe first week that I  worked on my own (with the two in my group) and away from the Wednesday meetings and support that Mindlab offered was initially a relief. However, it was very easy to forget to do the tasks for the week and as I am so busy at school, the time flew by and before I knew it, another week had passed. We met regularly and most of our meeting were about getting the assessments done. Every time we finished another assessment, we were really relieved but we couldn't relax as there was yet another assessment to be completed. As time has passed, I am wondering if I really want to continue with more post graduate studies when this finishes...I'm not sure.

Literacy PD

27th April

Working as a COL

Effective Pedagogies and Practices

Accelerating Literacy Achievement

AKO - Student Agency

Progress and Progression Tool (PACT)

Acceleration (below where they should be) making more than 1 years progress within a year

This will be those working below NS, but also those who are at the NS but can do better.

Everyone needs to be checked to see that they are reaching their potential.

What makes a difference?

Principles of effective instruction to motivate and engage

• Motivation and engagement
• Growth mindset - metacognition -children knowing about their learning
• Think aloud
• Authemtic audeiences
• Demonstration
• Students co-construct tasks fit for purpose
• Multiple and varies opportunities to learn
• Quality talk - TPS COMPARE (think, peer share, compare)
• Think share think - task I made
• Think, peer share, compare and explain why
• Keep writing interesting and varied  - also to engage boys
• Metaphor: Learners in the driving seat - Chris Watkins

Need to know how to spell otherwise children will only use easy words

Note taking and summarising are great skills

Motivation - Learners in the driving seat - main ideas for student agency

• You need to know what writing is
• What good writers do
• Learning goals
• Exemplars
• Check in to see if still on focus

Main reasons for Motivation

• Attitude - your feelings that predispose you to avoid writing -How well do you like to write?
• Interest - a positive orientation towards writing - what do you like to write about? What forms of writing do you like to write?
• Value - your beliefs about the usefulness, importance, and enjoyment of writing - Is it important for you to be a good writer?
• Self efficacy - your judgement of you ability to accomplish a task - how well do you understand to write?
• Self concept - self perception of yourself as a writer, your sense of competence - how do you think of yourself as a writer
• Goals - your reasons for writing - why do you write? Can you improve?

Engagement

• Choice
• Collaborative activities
• Authentic tasks - purpose and variety eg, after writng a report, write a quiz using evaluative, inference questions

List most common attributes of a ‘report’ after reading a range of exemplars

Struggling writers need to see the end result, then set goals

Student agency - students driving their own learning

• SC co-constructed
• Teach 3 ways to plan - students choose which plan to use
• Students setting higher goals
• Students evaluating their own work
• More effective problem solving (How might we do this? Rather than ‘do it’)
• Use smiley faces in first year of school, after that it does not work. Does not lead to improved outcomes for student - use 4 point scale. (from ‘wow’, we are not there yet) Give me 2 reasons why you are not a 3, and 1 action to get to 3
• Goal, actions, monitoring
• Groups can read own action plan, check in with teacher, then go off and write their own
• 3 goals written above writing, show evidence in work (number goals and add number on writing)

2017

Student agency

• Time
• Focus
• Resources
• Feedback

Shanahan & Shanahan’s (2008) model of the increased demand for specialisation of literacy development.

1. Disciplinary literacy
2. Intermediate literacy
3. Basic literacy

Hattie - effect sizes

Writing programmes

0.40 is worth considering

0.82 - teaching writing process strategies (preparing to write, activating or/and building prior knowledge, KWV idea, use youtube and readings etc to gather more ideas, brainstorming , composing)

0.75 - working together to plan, draft, revise and edit (think, peer share, compare), Collaborative planning but go and write own.

0.70 - setting clear and specific goals for writing

A successful writing lesson has - Ako - care, motivation and engagement, student agency

Literacy Learning Progressions

Student speak literacy learning progressions

Adapt these for own context

Make progressions available to students, parents and teachers

Publishing: publish my best sentence, paragraph, words

Write a variety of text types

Students select genre that suits

If I control choices, then that does not allow students

Year 7 / 8 Writing needs to meet most of the demands of the curriculum.

Stay working at level 4 of the curriculum, and see what skills you can teach them to quickly reach the required level -  teaching them what they need to know ‘just in time’.

Use IT technology as tools to allow students to reach the demands of the curriculum at the level they need to work at. https://www.grammarly.com/

Unpack the language around analyse, evaluate, generalise etc

When marking writing, use two colours to mark (highlighter), one colour to indicate when they have writing something ‘working towards’ and ‘at’.

Quality over quantity -- it is better to take the time to do things well as then it will stick.

What is the barrier to learning? Teach chunks of the writing/focus on one bit at a time, even though you write the whole piece.

Activity to try: language used in progressions

Science Cluster Workshop

I attended the science cluster workshop in the last week of term 1 2017. It was the first time all the primary schools had come together to share ideas. There were only two schools who actually had ideas to share and those were mainly around working with scientists in the community, which I think is a bit too much for teachers who are just starting out. Some of the teachers looked quite stunned at what we were presenting so I hope they realise that we have been doing this for some time, plus we both had been involved in the STLP which helps as well. I won't get an opportunity to go to one of these meetings again with this cluster as I am moving schools. It has been both rewarding and frustrating working within a cluster that has just been set up. The school that I am going to is also part of a cluster so it will be interesting to see how that works as it has been going to a number of years.

End of Term Reflections

This has been a rollercoaster ride of a term. Camp in weeks 7 and 8 made for a busy first half trying to organise things for the camp. Since it was the first time going to this particular camp and because the parents were worried as there were a number of water activities like rafting and tubing on the river, I felt the first 8 weeks were intense. Since I pretty much organised the camp all by myself, I felt responsible for al classes and did not rest until the last class had returned.

I have not been able to do as much science as I would have liked. The camp took up most of my time, plus setting up a new class at the beginning of the year. I did get the student group up and running and we will make sure there is science in the playground next term. The middles are doing really well with the monarch butterfly project so that helps to keep science happening in the school. I guess I could say that by encouraging another teacher to take the lead helps to take the pressure off me. This year I have not had any release for science so that does not help when I am already snowed under with other things.

Mindlab has been pretty full on as well. We have kept up but I'm glad we are working as a group. It helps to bounce ideas off each other. This finishes at the end of term 2 (11 July).

Additionally, I have been applying for jobs and have had two interviews this term, one of which I got. So now in the middle of next term I will be teaching at an intermediate school, a level which I have been wanting to teach at for awhile.

Maths PD with Honor

Aligning the PACT tool and progressions in the numeracy project. This is about more consistency across schools. Long term planning will be different for us. We should be teaching bits of maths throughout the year rather than chunks of maths. I am not sure if this works as children need to be engaged in the same learning for a length of time to understand the new concept.

We looked at children's work and moderated the work against PACT. In the end we made a new sheet for tracking progressions which aligned with PACT and gloss in easy to understand language. This makes more sense when looking at children's work and having to make judgements on their progressions.