Causal Chain 2024

 Part of what we have to do within our inquiry is to think about the chain of events that will cause the desired outcome to happen.

"A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect - A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D...start from D and work backwards Any intervention you design will (consciously or not) be based on a causal chain you have in mind - this is your theory of action.... To really understand deeply how teaching (as a cause) leads to a valued student outcome (effect), we need to know about more than just the first cause in the chain and the final - we need to know about each link." 

Dr Aaron Wilson

Link to Google Drawing

Planning for Visual Art AS91914

 My Year 11 Visual Art students have worked through their first internal standard and are now onto working on the external they are entered into, AS91914 - Explore Visual Arts processes and conventions to inform own art making.

We have been enjoying the experimental aspects of this standard. The first thing that we did was to try out the new gel plates  - link to blog post here.

We then started looking at the first of the two artist models we are using this year, Henri Rousseau. I am using this as a way to experiments with different media with the students. They have not had much experience of different art media so I made a worksheet where they looked at Rousseau's work and used a selection of different media to copy sections of it.

Link to document

The students have been doing some reading about Henri Rousseau - Link to blog post here , and they had to use this information to answer a series of questions and add this information into their sketchbook presentation. Here is the link to class site page with the Rousseau information, instructions and questions.

As usual, I always do an example alongside the students. Here is my sketchbook page so I can show them what I want them to do. We are only using 1 page for this work as we can only use 8 pages for this standard as a whole. I wanted them to. cut up the worksheet and present the Rousseau information and media experiments in a visually attractive way.

Next week, we have out Careers expo, so I have been photographing the student work to make an exhibition for visitors to the expo to look at. For part of that, I have made two posters of the student's Rousseau work. One of all the tigers that they drew and one of the different media that they have used. I have made these posters A1 sized so they look really good and you can see the student work clearly.

Link to media document

Link to Tigers document

Our next step is to go through tis same process with out end art ist model, Margaret Aull - link to site page

The students will then use the information collected from the first standard - link to site page - with the style of one the the artist models and produce a piece of work of their own design.

Reading for Identification in DVC

 My Year 11 DVC class are currently starting their seating designs. They have already looked at their design influence (the has to look at either Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright or Antoni Gaudi - Link to planning here ). They now have to think about their second design influence, which has to be Māori inspired. We looked at Matariki as a starting point for this influence and I gave them this presentation to start them off on their research.

After they had done their general reading, they had to decide on one star in the Matariki cluster and find the story of that star / character. This story was to be copied and pasted onto a Google doc and then they had to read it and highlight where something was mentioned that they could then find as an image.

They then had to find images to go with the story and put it all on the same doc ready for printing.

This is my example.

After their document was printed out, the students had to cut everything out and arrange it on a page in the sketchbooks.

We kept the highlighted areas on the written sections as it made clear the parts of the story that they were focusing on.

From here, the students have been drawing the images from their research. I think that drawing the images and not just using them to look at for inspiration, gives a greater insight into the shapes and forms as you are making stronger connections in the brain by physically working with them.

What we are on with now is design development. The students have their initial sketches based on the design elements of their chosen designer. They now have to take those initial ideas and use the drawings from their Matariki stories to inspire how the development goes.

Mono Printing with Gel Plates

 I have been watching videos on how to use gel plates for printing for a while now and I have bought myself some gel plates to play with at home. I have been enjoying my experiments and wanted my Year 11 Visual Art class to use this skill / technique on their work this year.

I have set up some videos for the class to watch on the class website - link here

I showed them a couple of techniques at the beginning of the week and we had a go.

These are some photos of the students from this first session.

Here are some of their prints from this first session - link to presentation here

We then watched some of the videos in the class and I sent them to them to watch at home.

At the beginning of the next lesson, we went for a quick trip down the creek to collect things that we can press into the gel plates.

I also had a go at cutting some texture mats out on the laser cutter for the students to use. We tried them in thin card to start with but they fell apart while we used them. Cutting them out of EVA foam sheet worked really well.

Here are some photographs of the work from this second session - link to presentation here

Artist Model - Margaret Aull

The Year 11 Visual Art class are doing focussed work on their first artist model. A New Zealand artist called Margaret Aull. Link to the class site. 

Link to Visual Art on Instagram

They have been doing copies of her work, where their focus was on mixing the paint colours to match as we only have primary colours and black and white so they have to mix all their own colours.

They then had to come up with a piece of work of their own which shows it was inspired by how Margaret Aull works.

Here are my examples. I do these alongside them so we all work on it together. Link to document

Here are some of the students copies of Margaret Aull work. Link to document




Here are some of their own work that has been inspired by Margaret Aull. Link to document

Readings - Supporting English Language Learners

 

12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

10 Strategies That Support English Language Learners Across All Subjects

6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

Innovative strategies for teaching English language learners

What can I apply now?

• I already do help videos that I make myself, so I am going to look into how to create the closed captioning on YouTube to support them. I have noticed that this can be done on TikTok, but the captioning that I have seen in action on there is terrible and does not get the words correct a lot of the time.
• I am already aware that when I get excited about a topic, I talk too quickly. I am also aware that my accent from the north of England is also a barrier to understanding sometimes.
• I have had feedback from teachers of English and our literacy specialists that it is a good idea to have subject specific vocabulary on show in the class as a help / support to learn new words. This is mentioned in these readings a lot too so that is a really easy, quick one to work on for the classroom.
• I have been trying to include a multi-modal approach with my class site and workspaces so the information is given in multiple ways for a while now so it is reassuring to see that mentioned on these lists.
• I have been talking to the language specialists in order to get some instructions translated.
• The students are able to write the analysis of their work in their own language as there is no stipulation at NCEA for it to be in English. This will help them get the depth of analysis that they need and not worry about writing it in English.

Tools, Measures and Approaches

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools.

Link to Google Drawing

Country Flags in the Classroom

 One of the goals that we set as an Art Department this year was part of making the students feel welcome and visible in your classroom. We wanted to put up the country flags for everywhere the students are from in the classes we teach.

Over the weekend, I looked on the school system for all the ethnicities of the students and found the flags representing all the ones that were in the first column - ie the ethnicities that the students identify as. Some had 1 there and some had 2 or 3. I looked for flags for them all. It turned out to be quite a cultural mix.

I put all the found flag images onto a presentation, made a note of which ones I had found and printed them off.

I got two of my boys to help put them up today and they look great. I have already had a very positive response from the students that I have seen today in my room when they have seen the display.

Here is the link to the presentation

Bursts and Bubbles 2023

My students in DVC / Graphics choose my subject as they think they are going to draw and make things for the whole year. It is a bit of a shock to them when they discover the amount of reading and writing that is involved.

The aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was reading for understanding in the research tasks that they have to do to support their projects.

I identified this as my focus when I noticed that the resources and links that I was supplying for my students were not being used in much depth. There was a lot of copy and paste going on from the internet.

To build a rich picture of my students’ learning I used the PAT tests that my Year 11 students did at the end of Year 10. I also used student voice where I asked them what their thoughts were about reading. They felt quite negatively about it.

There were a lot of changes that I made to my own teaching. I had to learn how to chunk a piece of reading and use information transfer. I pulled the reading from the original source and used targeted questions that focussed the students on what they were needing to find out. I had to be able to give time during lessons specifically for reading activities that were planned and supported.

The expertise that helped me decide what changes to make was mainly the Tamaki College literacy specialist, Marc Milford. I worked closely with him to plan structured reading activities for my Year 9 food tech class which I tried out and assessed how they had gone. I then made changes with Marc’s help and used these resources with my Year 11 inquiry group.

Readings that have helped me this year are The Reading Book by Louise Dempsey and Sheena Cameron and various online texts about cross curricular literacy.

All of this helped me to realise that reading with students was not something for me to be scared of but it was something that I could learn how to structure in order to help them.

The hardest thing for me to change was my own mindset on reading with students in class. I have realised that it can be done as an activity within a design project. We can work on it all together and support each other with it.

Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as good. They made good progress over the period of time we worked on this intervention. Their written answers from their reading had a lot more depth and understanding shown. This came through when they were writing their material analysis for their design development work. What I was happiest about was their confidence level with the reading we were doing. They were feeling a lot more confident which is always good to hear when you have put measures in place to help them.

The most important learning I made about reading for research was to make it relevant to what their project work is about so they can see the point of what we are reading. Taking the reading away from the original source on the internet helped with focus and targeted questions for the content helped them to see the point.

The most important learning I made about inquiry was trialling and changing as you go and getting feedback that guides the changes.

Some learnings that would be relevant to other teachers are to do things that are outside of your comfort zone.

Reading by Stealth

 My inquiry this year is about reading. I have been working with the school literacy specialist with designing resources and ways for my senior students to get more out of the reading and research they have to do in DVC. Blog posts about this are on this label. 

I have involved my junior Food Technology classes in this inquiry work as they have to read the recipes and analyse how things went. I hve tried out the techniques and planning on my junior classes first and then tweaked them before using them with my seniors.

Part of what I have been doing with my juniors is what I have nicknamed "stealth reading". I started making videos for the students last year and putting them onto social media (YouTube, Instagram and TikTok) - Link to blog posts about this. I have continued this for my junior and intermediate food classes (Y7, Y8 and Y9). The videos I have been making for them have to fit in the 3 minute deadline for TikTok and I make them with a music background and no talking. I then put all the instructions for the recipes on the screen so they have to read as they are watching.

On the class site, I have all the information that they need and I also put links to the videos on there. These are then emailed out to the students the weekend before the week of the lesson. 

• Example Y7 and Y8 site page - Sweet and Sour chicken
• Example Y9 site page - Chocolate Brownies

I have been keeping track of the videos that I have made on this spreadsheet so that I can find things easily and quickly when I want to shre them to the students. I also have a tab on there keeping track of the views.

I have had some feedback from the students this week.

• Y9 Student 1 - comes into the kitchen and gleefully tells me "I never watch any of the videos you send Miss!!"
• Y9 Student 2 - comes into the kitchen, gets totally ready while the rest of the class are coming in and says to me "Miss, can I start? I have watched your video and know what to do."
• Y8 Students - I always ask if they have watched the videos when they come in. I asked this week if they read the instructions on the screen as they were watching. Mostly yes. A couple of no's.

As far as advertising the Social Media option, as relying on students reading their emails is a little shaky to say the least - I have the links on all the site pages that I have content on. I have links on the front of my class website. I also hav this poster up in my class window.

Inquiry 2023 - Where are we up to?

 As part of the Manaiakalani CoL, we are asked every year to think about a "Causal Chain". Previous year's causal chains can be seen on this link

I have decided to keep revisiting this year's causal chain and use it to check in where we are up to and also use it to log the evidence as we go. I have been including links to specific blog posts along with each step of the chain so I can see how it went this year when I am analysing it. 

Link to original document

Inquiry 2023 - Causal Chain 2023

 "A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect

A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D.
Any intervention you design will (consciously or not) be based on a causal chain you have in mind - this is your theory of action."

Link to original drawing

3D Printed Cookie Cutters

My Year 7 class this tech rotation are having a go with Tinkercad to design and make some cookie cutters that we can use to make some sugar cookies in the kitchen.

They are not my class at the college, they come from a local intermediate for their Technology lessons. Luckily on Tinkercad, you can make classes so it is easy for them them to get into the class and start work. 

It also makes it easy for me as the teacher to see the work they have been doing as I have access to it on the dashboard.

I had set the work up onto my class site so I could include examples, information and videos.

Link to class site

I have made some example cookie cutters for the students to see the process and we worked through the first one as a class.

We worked through the first, basic design together last Friday so I thought I would print out those ones for them before they come back this Friday to try the more complex ones. We will then make the cookies with them on Friday next week.

Inquiry 2023 - Question 3 - Tools, Measures and Approaches

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools.

Link to Google Drawing

Staff PLD - PB4L

 

This is what our team thought of the current PB4L chart and how it is used currently.

We then filled in the self assessment tool to see where we thought we were at in our own classrooms.

Social Media Update

 Here are the stats for the views on the help videos that I have been making since last year.

It is obvious that TikTok has the most views but I will continue to post on the other two so those students who do not have TikTok accounts can still access the videos.

	7th Nov 22				19th March 23
Year 13 - AS91627	TikTok	Instagram	YouTube		TikTok	Instagram	YouTube
Observational Drawing	1109	2	26		1538	2	57
Drawing Tracing Technique	1542	3	11		2118	4	18
Media	801	5	122		1037	6	181
Form	141	31	8		144	83	15
Pattern	160	12	3		162	17	5
Concept Ideas	139	10	5		143	13	7
Freehand Sketching	TikTok	Instagram	YouTube		TikTok	Instagram	YouTube
Product Sketching in 3D	2007	8	94		4224	9	95
3D Product Sketching with Curves	165	8	7		172	8	7
3D Sketching - 4 Techniques	19	9	72		28	9	72
Isometric Ellispes and Cylinders	125	8	4		133	8	4
Rendering Different Tones	34	5	5		45	5	8
Year 9 Food Tech	TikTok	Instagram	YouTube		TikTok	Instagram	YouTube
Dumplings	26	8	20		29	8	22
Cookies	32	15	17		34	16	20
Chocolate Muffins	165	8	15		167	9	19
Sushi	173	10	13		176	10	15
California Rolls	157	8	12		162	8	13
Safety in the Kitchen	83	15	173		92	15	188
Katsu Chicken	35	5	11		41	5	18
Lasagne	1407	1	5		1510	3	12
Butter Chicken					1766	4	15
Year 7 Food Tech	TikTok	Instagram	YouTube		TikTok	Instagram	YouTube
Sweet and Sour Chicken					739	3	45

Bursts and Bubbles 2022

 Bursts and bubbles 2022

Link to information about all of the Manaiakalani CoL inquiries here

The aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was how to keep the students engaged and motivated to do the work both in school and working from home.

I identified this as my focus when I noticed that the students were not connecting with the work very much and the momentum was lost when they were not in the classroom. Work was standing unfinished and they were not coming online to work through things with me.

In the first half of the year, I approached this by making worked examples of everything that I expected the students to do. This went alongside short video how to’s and step by steps on Google. This was presented on the class site and the workspace.

This approach kind of worked. I had one student at the start of the year who did not attend at all but managed to complete the first standard by using the resources that I had made available. I also know that some of the other students were accessing the videos as I could see the views on YouTube where I have them hosted.

Where this completely fell down was having to rely on emails as the method of communication. The students just are not checking their emails. It was ok in the classroom as I could nag them to open their emails and the workspaces, but at home, they have to be able to do this without being pushed. 

An idea to change this started about halfway through the year when I got some student voice about what they thought motivation was. I had an interesting conversation with a particularly unmotivated Y13 student about why he found TikTok so fascinating. He said he “learned new things” from it. I had not really had any experience of it before then and thought it was just dancing videos,  so I decided to make an account and take a look. It turned out to be like the rest of the internet and full of good stuff, interesting stuff, dancing, animals and complete and utter piffle.

Just after that, I was on a PD listening to Subash Chander, from Ormiston Junior College. He was explaining how he used his YouTube channel to teach Maths and how his students used it in a “just in time” way, to learn things when they needed to.

This pushed an idea to the front of my mind that had been ticking there. I decided to give Social Media a go as a way to get information / tasks / help / how to’s, to the students.

I used TikTok as the format, but also posted the same videos on Instagram and YouTube. This gave multiple options, depending on what accounts the students had. The format was good as it limits you to 3 minutes so you can’t ramble on for too long on each video.

I have made content for my Y11 and Y13 DVC classes and my Y9 food class.

Student feedback on this has been interesting. One Y13 student in particular used a couple of the drawing videos in a “just in time” way as she watched them when she needed those particular skills.

Unfortunately, I have been relying on email still to let the students know there is a new video to watch. That has been a problem. A lot of them report to me that they did not know about the videos as they do not check their emails.

I have a plan going forward with this next year that involves marketing the social media accounts in other ways - posters around the room - stickers on the student folders - getting them to sign up en masse!!

Another problem I have had is that the students don’t use their real names on TikTok and Instagram so I don’t know if it is them that are viewing and liking the posts. Except for the cookie recipe. They come and ask me my account name for the cookie recipe.

Link to Inquiry 2022 on this blog

Link to TikTok Account

Link to Instagram Account

Link to YouTube Account