Woolf Fisher Research Feedback February 2017

We are lucky in the Manaiakalani cluster (CoL) as we have an external company who looks at what we do in the classroom and the outcomes for the students. This keeps us on our toes and keeps it all real and up to date.
All the teachers form the cluster met in the Tamaki College auditorium after school today for a feedback presentation from Woolf Fisher.

My main take outs from todays presentation are :-

• I need to focus on literacy and language skills that are subject specific - this is a good one to look at as these skills will help the students at NCEA raise their level of achievement into the merit and excellence range. It is the notes and analysis skills that are key to do this.
• Bringing in the key competencies into the student's project work - this links so well with my inquiry this year, which is looking at supporting multi level NCEA classes with the class Google Site. Being able to include the key competencies in this will be the way to support it by helping the students to be more self managing and have more self control, so be able to work more independently. An interesting final note on this was whether to teach this implicitly or explicitly.

Here are some photographs of the board while the presentation was on.

Here are my notes from the presentation ...

Woolf Fisher Feedback February 2017

Manaiakalani Pedagogy

Aaron Wilson

Cumulatively, a high percentage of y12 and y13 have meaningful qualifications.

Not at expected year level but NCEA gives ability for cumulative achievement.

Provisional year by year results are inline with where they were last year. Bubble students will raise this later in the year.

Asstle writing - term 4 2014 - y4-y10

Very close to national norms. There is a gender difference, gets more pronounced as they get older.

Writing

The graphs match year levels from year to year, not the same students.

Year 9 and 10 show higher levels from the previous year.

The rate of gain is much higher than national gain even though the overall level is lower than national norm.

Gender difference is more pronounced from y6 onwards.

Writing - what is happening is working - needs sustaining and constant improvement.

Reading

Overall pattern - not accelerating relative to national. Size of the gap is staying the same.

Progress pattern was similar to previous year.

Parallel progress up toy y6 then leveling off after that, especially y8 onwards.

Gender gap - not as pronounced as it is in writing.

It is reducing where the gap in writing is getting bigger.

The big issue is the pattern of flattening out after year 7 onwards.

Maths

Similar to reading pattern - progress parallel to nors but no acceleration.

Y8 , 9 and 10 starting lower than previous years.

Maths gains - progress in y9 and 10 is a lot flatter than norm

Fewer gender gaps except in older years.

They will be looking at the same students over different time points so more detail can be seen, especially at transition points.

Results to be split in future in regards to year levels and type of school.

Y7 - Y10 classrooms with positive gains in reading to share practice.

Access to devices

They saw good access to devices.

Earning management

Instructions and task access - how do they get it, what is the blend?

Blended model is the most common.

Size of group

More whole class teaching in older years.

Small group is more powerful for reading.

Teaching approach

Conference and extended discussion - much higher than anything else seen. - especially in y7 and y8, much more than in y9 and y10, where more roving was seen but not extended discussion.

Literacy / language focus - more episode in secondary where no literacy or language focus.

They need to be able to access the specific subject literacy.

Promoting Key Competencies / Summer drop off

Stuart McNaughton

Using key competencies to get more out of the teaching to raise progress.

In digital environments - they are saying they are less self controlled - they are more aware of it - they need more strategies so they can approach this problem.

Research into students who read more books tend to be more empathetic.

Awareness of online presence will impact on online bullying.

Here are some ideas for inquiry that I took from the presentation today .....

• Literacy / language focus within a specific learning area
• Structured / supported reading within a specific subject - reading for understanding
• Cross curricular literacy skills - using the same skills across subjects
• Using key competencies in critical thinking
• Using arguing and reasoning within subject areas using collaborative tasks
• Using key competencies to improve self control and self management
• Giving students strategies for self control while online that they can take on anywhere
• Online empathy related to cyber bullying
• Explicit v implicit tasks to build empathy