Teacher Induiry-Further research

As I am the sole teacher of reading in our team I am constantly thinking about reading-how it's going, what's working/what's not, getting feedback from the students, changing/improving things and also updating. Over the year (last year 2015) I began to form a hunch that things just weren't quite working. And after focusing further with my reading students I started to notice some common things. At the time students were grouped by ability and this caused the problem of student 'knowing' if they were good readers or at the other end of the scale in their eyes bad readers. This then lead to two other problems some students lost confidents in their reading abilities and interest and at the other end of the scale some students thought they were so good at reading they didn't need to try or work hard in this area anymore. Reading was mainly focused on Book club and students weren't up to date with there reading and the quality of their reading roles was a concern.

From these concerns I started thinking about the following things. Did they need to be grouped based on ability? Had I set high enough expectations at the beginning of the year? Could there be more to reading that just book club? How could I build confidence in the students who thought they were bad readers? How could I continue to challenge students who were good readers and encourage them to share their expertise in this area?

After reading John Hattie's ranking of influences on achievement-students being in ability groups is not the most effective way of teaching. Something I have always believed is that mixed ability teaches all students different things. There are different types of discussion, students can lead in different ways, they bring different strengths and weaknesses to the group, everyone has different skills etc. From this I thought with in reason for Book Bash this year I would group students by the books they wanted to read from the reading survey they did and regardless of their reading age mixed ability group the students in Marama.

Reading targets-teacher inquiry

This year for my teacher inquiry I really want to focus on reading targets. My aim is help student build more confidence in their reading ability and also to finds something they enjoy reading.

So far for my inquiry I have got everyone in the Marama Team (including targets) to complete a reading questionnaire about themselves. I have also used the information gathered on here to make groups for Book Bash or other reading activities based on interests. Here is the survey:

After looking at what this is really telling me I found some interesting things. I analysed our 19 target students Reading surveys and found the following things.

For the question How would you rate how much you love reading 1-10 (1 not very much-10 you love reading)
2 rated reading as 1-3  
11 said 4-6
6 said 7-10

For the following question I think reading is..... where they had to finish the sentence I got the following replies:
I think reading is not a thing for me because I don’t enjoy sitting down and read a book because I like to move around and use my body.
I think reading is _Amazing because it helps you in the future 
I think reading is Reading through book clearly to others.
I think reading is______4_
I think reading is___cool and fun.
What is reading?I think reading is when read a book
I think reading is nice to read by myself somewhere quite.
I think reading is-Reading is fun but you just have to find a book you like
I think reading,  is ok, I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.
I think reading is__Fun_if I am interested in the book I think reading is fun and interesting and gives you lots of information  
I think reading is____Awesome_and_fun
I think reading is______AwesomeI think reading is__Kinda fun.
I think reading is a good way for me to be a good reader 
I think reading is_not fun because it’s just not something I like.
I think reading is cool

And two students didn't answer.

I found this very interesting. Only 2 of these students seem to dislike reading which showed through the ratings and the comments. What I found really positive is that most of these students don't mind reading and that some really like it. After thinking more about this it makes me think that most of these students do like reading but maybe they don't like how we do reading at school and that I need to do some further investigating with these students.

Agency and Ownership: why the how? Steve Mouldy

ULearn
*Agency-ownership and responsibility of learning
*curiosity enables students to find their own learning paths
*creativity empowers you to create change in the world around u live in
*wonder wall, curiosity tables-don't go back to that question a week later
*question storms-good way to find deeper q's
*formed 50 questions around medical artificial intelligence, then refine to to 8 really important questions, then change a closed questions to open and open to closed then choose 4 to investigate.
*throw prompts to help think of new questions-whats the silliest question you can think of? what is a should question etc
*inquiry-research not everything.

I found this breakout really interesting in terms of questioning. We were asked to look at a picture and write down as many questions as we can and it was really hard. He said to get to around 40, because after a certain amount of questions deeper questions start to come out. I think this will be a useful task for when we look at the students IMPACTS or inquires.

Learning without limits-Jumping in boots in all Peachgrove Intermediate School

I just found this blog post from last year at Ulearn. It's great to re-look at notes to refresh my memory.

I have really enjoyed listening to Peachgrove Intermediates "Story of learning and change-from the leaders perspective". A lot of things spoken about linked or connected with things we are doing at school.

Before change and new learning you must self review and be critical. Emerging adolescents-group of kids are still learning but are ready and are wanting to get out into the world.


BED/OAR/ORA-
you can go to bed-blame, excuses, denial
row the oar-ownership, accountability, responsibility
ora-

Peachgrove PRIDE

Positive
Respectful
Inclusive
Determine
Engaged

*John Edwards-mentor helped along their journey.
*learning, unlearning, relearning
*the schools original symbol was a lion-linked with the values 'PRIDE'
*pace of change-society cant cope with it-only way to cope is to be a good learner
*graduate student-by the time the are finished
*"it's not about the furniture"
*wake up everybody-things are changing

Marama Biggest Reader

The Biggest Reader Article-Great article explaining how it works.

I was looking for new ideas around reading and reading at home and this is a fun way to encourage reading but is based on time they read for rather than the amount they read. It is done in learning teams and at the end of the week we tally up the teams total reading time for the week to find a winner.

Island Bay School Wellington

Key ideas from Island Bay School

• Dogs in the classroom-Yay! Great way to see students caring for animals.
• Growth mind set-this was something new and exciting to Marama this year so it was really interesting seeing it at Island Bay. They had really positive 'kids talk' ideas for each.
• An integrated curriculum- Having an inquiry focus e.g- relationships, then using the arts, Literacy and maths to make more connections with their learning.
• P.E & Health, Science, Technology and Science as the driver of inquiry and then integrate the other areas of the curriculum through this. 
• Guardian group-like our homerooms. 
• First an idea. then new learning and then understanding.
• Karen-staff member who works a lot with inquiries. For example-refugees setting up a display in the learning hub/library, plants/nature-organising plant boxes and gardens etc. Awesome to work along side with teachers when working on inquiries and passion projects. 
• Prove it-I like this idea of learning and understanding something then proving it. 

Marama Wellington Trip-Russell Street School

Russell Street School-Palmerston North


                       

WOW What a school! Russell Street School was a great place to visit. The school was very friendly and welcoming. We met with  Nick and Elly who told us more about the school.

The visit was really insightful to see how other schools run different programmes. It was great to talk more about reading and see what they do. This year for reading I made a survey for the Marama students to fill in so I could learn more about them as a reader and so they could choose what books they wanted to read. At Russell Street school they got the students to choose 3 books they wanted to read and went from there. They also had a class blog where the teachers set up a goal for each day with a video to prompt them. This was really awesome in the way that as teachers we talk about little things throughout the day that may need working on and having a goal like this is a great and manageable way to do this. The students also have their own twitter accounts which means they can tweet their reflection for their goals just before lunch.

Other ideas:
*Book Bash
*Reading survey
*Reading workshops
*Workshop presentations
*Chook pen
*Goal of the day
*Team blog
*Art Fairies
*Buddy classes

Marama Learning Teams

Marama-Learning Teams

This year in Marama we have broken down our Home room teams into Learning teams which means the students are in teams with 6-7 students. These teams have been fantastic! They are great for checking up on work, sharing learning, introducing something new, building relationships and so on. It's also a great chance to get feedback or practice giving feedback as a group. 

Each Learning team had to come up with name, logo and motto. This was a positive way to get teams working together and being creative. They came up with some very original designs. 

 

Presenting at ULearn 2015

Presenting at ULearn was one of the scariest things I have ever done! I was so happy to be doing it with my Team (Vicki and Karla). At the same time I felt really proud of the things we are doing in the Marama Syndicate and it was quite exciting to show what we are doing and things we are trialling and working on. Some people had some really good questions at the end and were intrigued with what we are doing. Go NPS!

uLearn 2015

I was very lucky that our school staff was encouraged to go to ULearn 2015 in Auckland.

On the first morning a guest speaker that stood out to me was Grant-Lichtman. He had great ideas and shared his personal journey around school. He wanted to find out what the 'best teachers' were doing. He went to schools and said-"show me innovation, show me a teacher that you want every teacher to be like".  Along his journey he found many creative ideas.

Simple ideas such as Make it Monday and Tear it up Tuesday these were some of the ways teacher were encouraging students to be creative and curious.

Some other interesting thoughts he shared:

• At the end of the road- Dewey
• "Great learning is based on experience, which leads to passion which leads to learning"
• Cognitosphere- the evolving neuro network, what flows through this network is knowledge-transfer, sharing.....want to be part of this system.
• What holds us back from this change- fear, always looking at the downside, am I going to take risks?
• Risk doesn't mean danger/harm....you have to take risks to be innovative!
• We think we have to make a decision between experience, passion, risk and achievement
• Change is hard??!?!?! Changing schools is uncomfortable not hard.
• Educator-leader, we do not look to a leader to tell us what to do, we lead from where we are, teacher co-learner, co-teacher,
• Education is freedom- what are the skills we want students to have in the next century?
• words that are timeless-college students made this list in 9minutes: persistence, resilient,  confidence, patience, openness etc. Some school spend all their time finding words!
• Stop worrying about what the list looks like and just do it!!
• What if---questions 70% into same areas: 1.stop teaching the way the world doesn't work 2. student ownership 3.student assessment 4. daily schedule 5. differentiated  6. professional development 7. annual calendar 8.role of teacher.

Something that I found really interesting was his ideas around change and taking risks. I think that with all the changes in education we are waiting for some new book for how we teach maths, or project based learning or inquiry etc instead of taken the risk to be that person who creates the "new way" of teaching. As teachers I believe we are natural problem solvers. If there is a problem at school we aim to fix it, if something doesn't work change it improve it. I think its also important to remember that all children are different and that just because something worked really well last year doesn't mean it can't be changed/adapted/innovated?? I believe there is learning in everything-try something, fail, reflect, learn. 

Reading Roles-Author's Purpose

Another workshop I have ran this week was on a new reading role we decided to make. After having learning conversation about reading we found that one of the main goals students were identifying from there reading matrix was identifying the author's purpose. So we decided (the students and I) that by making it into a role would be a more effective way of practising and learning more about it.

I ran a workshop based around Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. We focused our discussions around three questions and recorded our ideas on A3 paper.

3 Main questions:
What does the author want you to believe about the story?
Do you agree with the author on the main point?
What has not been said?

Reading

This term I have starting running some reading workshops. I have based these on the things they identified during our learning conversations. I have made a list of all the headings/goals they identified and then wrote the students names under the goals they choose. These will be some of the workshops I run. I have also run some workshops on Book Club roles they need more support with and also some new roles. One goal identified with all students is they need to work on is extending their reading mileage into a range of texts. So I held a workshop on peoms and fairytales. First we read some of the books then we talked about what makes a poem a poem and what makes a fairytale a fairytale. When then listed any similarities. I think its important students can identify the different parts of different texts aswell as the purpose of the text. Here are some of our ideas:

Student feedback

This term my goal is to improve on my personal reflections. I started ding reflections at the start of the year but slowing stopped completing them. At the end of Term 1 I got the students to fill in a survey about how I had started the year. I have linked the survey below. This was a really neat way to get feedback. I told the students to be completely honest. I also told the students that I wanted to be a fantastic year 7 & 8 students and that their feedback would help me towards this. Some of the questions are quite general and are on a range of topics.

How am I doing survey Students responses to survey

Teacher Inquiry-reflections!

Where has the year gone??? This year I have found that I have not made enough time to reflect on my teaching and own personal learning. So much has happened, changed, improved, failed, succeeded etc and I have not reflected on it how I normally would. So my goal for this term is to post on my blog at least once a week to regain my reflective skills. I find that working in a team we do a lot of verbal reflection but I don't make time to write this down or record this. Bring on the challenge!

Marama Team set up

This year in Marama we have tried to use our new/old furniture to create different space in our team. We have a collaborative space/creative space, meeting/collaborative space, quiet zone, outside learning space and also a cloak bay area we have transformed into a learning space. This term (term 2) we have changed the furniture again and have now made more of an 'Exploring area' where children can play games, create things using the clay, sewing machines etc. We are also working towards defining our learning spaces and naming them. So far it has been interesting to see what they've come up with.

Cricket World Cup 2015

What a great day it has been! The events team has had a successful day running a Cricket World Cup day for our school. Each syndicate got the chance to go out and get involved in the games run by the Events Team. NPS also had the chance to compete in their house teams within their syndicates. Each house team represented a country in the world cup. For example Patiki represented Australia. The Teachers were lucky enough to represent the Black caps. It was awesome to see kids who don't normally play cricket get involved today and show great sportsmanship. It was also great to see them working well as a team and cheering and supporting the other players. Good luck Black Caps!

Marama Camp

Surviving Camp!

Prawn fishing, High ropes, sailing, Kayaking, Paddle boarding, Confidence corse, Cricket, Soccer, Mountain biking, Hydro slides, Pools and more! What a week at camp. This has been an amazing experience. My highlights for camp were seeing teams come together to overcome challenges and also children facing their fears and pushing themselves. It was great to see lots of smiles and laughter and also children mixing and mingling with other children they wouldn't normally. There were some very tired children when we arrived back at school at 3pm on Friday and some great memories made. I can't wait to do it all over again!

Marama Team work/House challenges

Team building

So far in Marama, we have been doing lots of activity around building positive relationships between the students and teachers, student and students, teachers and parents and parents and students. We have done a lot of activities around team building. This year they have worked in lots of different teams: house team, learning teams, buddies, small groups, home rooms, and whole syndicate. It has worked great so far! We have also been prompting the children not to sit by their "weekend friends" and "lunch time friends" to maximise learning time. This has really helped with behaviour and also it has been interesting to see who does and doesn't do this. Coming up very soon we have school camp. This will be a great test for our students!