Bursts and Bubbles Presentation 2024

 The focus of student learning for my inquiry work this year was continuing with the literacy work that I was doing last year. This seemed to be an important thing to continue as the actual intervention was only done in a small amount of time last year.

I identified this as my focus as there is a continuous need for literacy skills in both DVC and Visual Art as both subjects have to do a lot of research reading and writing based on this.

To build a picture of my students’ learning I used the usual PAT and asTTle test results and for the seniors, their previous years NCEA results. I also did student voice about how they thought about literacy.

Last year when this was my inquiry focus, I worked closely with Marc and focused mainly on information transfer. It was important that I continued to do this again this year and it has been built into the planning of the project work on both of my class sites now. 

What has been new this year, to build  on my literacy skills that I can use with my students, is scanning and predicting. With the help of Marc again this year, we have done a lot of work looking at the reading that students have to do to learn about different artists in Visual Art.

It became clear as I was looking for texts online that we could use, that the language used in art texts is really hard in terms of structure and the language and words used. When Marc and I were planning on a reading session with the students, a lot of time had to be included with vocabulary work and visual links to aid understanding of what they were reading.

I have a lot of students in my two Year 11 classes who are English as a Second Language students so I have been doing a lot of reading about supporting English language learners. As part of that, I sent a Google form around our staff at Tamaki asking about their experiences as people whose first language is not English. This came about through me watching a colleague talking to her family members at school. They were sliding smoothly between their native language and English while talking and it was fascinating to watch. This introduced me to the concept of code switching and I have done some reading about that subject thanks to Janee. 

The easiest things for me to change were how I approach literacy as we are blessed with a lot of in house help with this at Tamaki who are always willing to help with the subject specific problems that come up. This means you never feel left in the dark about where to go and how to move forward.  

Moving forward, as a result of realising how hard the online texts are to understand, I have started a website of my own which I am starting to use. I want to write on this website specifically for the students’  needs at the time. For example, the only thing on it at the moment is information about different materials as this is what my Year 11 DVC students needed at the end of term 3 when I started this. It will be a big job so it will only be added to in a just in time manner till I build up more of a library there.

Some learnings that would be relevant to other teachers are inquiry is not always a short task that is over then you move on. I always seem to choose something that never ends! For example, I have never stopped using the SOLO work that I did a few years ago. 

The last post on my blog is 5 examples of writing from my Year 11 Visual Art students. This was the last standard they computed this year if you want to go and check out their writing.

CoL Inquiry Thoughts for 2024

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2024 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise

Achievement Challenge 3 - Lift the achievement in reading for all students.

This was my inquiry focus for this year. I did a lot of learning, research and trialling before working with my inquiry group on the intervention. We focussed on a very particular piece of research to support, which was materials research. This meant that the actual intervention time was quite short. I would like to start next year using what I have learned this year straight away. I can then use this time to work with Marc more to learn more reading support methods. He has talked often this year about skimming and predicting. I want to know from him if this is something we can do with the research we have to do about artists and design eras.

I will be able to try. any new learning next year in two different curriculum areas - Design and Visual Communication and Visual Art.

In both areas, the students need to do a lot of reading about designers, artists and design eras. Their knowledge of these things is then used in their own work so a solid understanding is needed.


What learnings from the 2017 - 2023 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

While listening to Robyn Anderson talk about how she gifts words to her students and they have to use these words in contexts throughout the session, it got me thinking about the very specialised, subject specific words that the students come across in all their subjects at secondary school. I must be quite overwhelming at times when they are coming in to secondary school behind where they should be in terms of words that they know then to have all these really specialised words used in lessons all the time. This has got me wondering how I can think about this in DVC. I had started this year to pull out some of the words that were in a specific reading and we looked at them in advance but I see that i need to be much more purposeful in my use of technical jargon. One of the things that the HOD English said to me at the start of the year was to have a focus on subject specific "jargon"


How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa?

There is a Manaiakalani wide focus on literacy,  reading and writing so my inquiry focus would fit in well with this. Trying to have a more cross curricular approach will help the students learn how to apply approaches across all of their subjects and not just think that is an "English" thing.

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

The first thing that my Year 11 and Year 12 students do when they start DVC is a research project. They have to do a lot of reading. They are coming out of the junior school with lower than the national average PAT and asTTle scores so they are not in a position to cope with the demands of NCEA Level 1 then Level 2. The Manaiakalani research shows the increases that the students have made in Manaiakalani schools compared to non Manaiakalani schools but it is still hard for them. when they get to NCEA below where they should be.


How would you like to be supported in 2024 as you undertake this inquiry?

I would like to be able to work collaboratively with other teachers to create reading activities and could benefit more subjects areas. I am thinking this could be within Tamaki College and across different schools.

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with their inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

This year, the CoL teachers at Tamaki College have been presenting our inquiry every term to the whole staff. During these sessions, we have been trying to get the staff to think about inquiry in a more open and unthreatening way.

All my planning work goes onto a public website and all my inquiry findings go onto a blog.

Inquiry 2023 - Evaluating shifts in Teaching

  Evaluating shifts in teaching

 

Aspect of teaching	Evidence of teaching before intervention	Evidence of teaching after intervention	Judgement about how much you shifted
Reading for research	Collecting resources about materials together in one place on my site so the students can go there to get the information that they need Link to page on class website I would do internet searches for information with the students and if we found something lele that was of use, I would add it to this page for everyone to access. Giving students a template to fill in that has questions to answer about the reading they are doing. These questions are structured around SOLO taxonomy. Link to page on class website With these two aspects, I would let the students read the links that they needed to by them selves and help them individually where needed when they got to the questions.	Information transfer Pulling the relevant information from the internet so it can be focussed on away from distractions. Giving a specific set of questions that are targeted to what information I am wanting the students to get from their reading. Getting the students to apply what they are reading to their particular design problem. Reading with the students Giving words from the reading in advance so they have some vocabulary before they start. Collecting words as we go so we can collate meanings of words we are stuck on. Summary of intervention to date on this blog post for a staff presentation	The main shift within me has been confidence. I feel that I can support the students with their reading in a much more meaningful way. I am now planning for reading within my lessons in a much more structured way. Examples of this are on these links. Blog post - Year 9 Food Blog post - Year 11 materials research Moving forward from this year, I will be able to plan our reading for the start of next year in a much more structured way. Year 11 have to look at designers and Year 12 have to look at design eras. This involves a lot of reading and my learning from this year will enable me to specifically plan for this within my teaching and lesson time.

 

Inquiry 2023 - Student Voice on Interventions Tried

 I have asked my Year 11 class for some feedback this week about the reading interventions that we have tried this year. They have already done a pre and post reading sample for me  - blog post here - so it was time to find out what they thought.

Here is the form that I got them to fill in

Here are the answers that the students gave

Please explain why you chose the options in the previous question. Please give as much detail as you can.

It is helpful for the teacher to explain

I have picked these options because they helped me.

Reading the information myself and answering questions related to my design helped me understand the task much more clear.

Because it's just easier and we will actually follow through the reading while the teacher is reading it out loud and then finding the words we didn't know and searching it up.

I find it hard learning bymyself sometimes and having the teacher read to the classroom and doing research all together gives me reasuring of what im doing and makes me feel confident in my work.

I feel more confident with my learning when the options above are given to me, it makes it easier for me to learn that way. When Ms. Ferguson or anyone else explains the work to me, I find it more simple to know than figuring it out on my own. Having the questions about the text is a very useful feature for me as it helps me to understand the text more rather than just reading it and understanding a little.

The reason why I choice these activities because I found all of these useful to me in a way. As for example when Miss Fergurson or our guest reader (Ms. George I remembered) read. It helped me to get in the zone, not only that but also help me to see words that I don't know. Which linking it to the looking up words as a class together. It was truly helpful because I learned new words when Miss Fergurson was defining and putting it into simpler words. I found those to be useful to me. But the other activies I also enjoyed doing it independantly because the information I read at first then answering was good. As I like the questions about the text relating to my design. Because it gave me indication on how I can improve, have thoughts, and how I can build up on my design.

Why i chose those options is because for me it is more easier and simple to do.

idk, i just got here

Things that I need to keep doing and expand on

• Reading with the students - either me doing it or convincing "guest" to come and do it with them
• Pulling out the words they don't understand as we go so we can all work on them together
• Pulling the text from the source but also having the source available as an option (linked)
• Having topic specific questions ready for them so their reading is targeted (information transfer)
• Giving them plenty of time to work on their own as well as working on it as a whole class.

It is very pleasing to see their confidence levels improve with the activities that we did. This will only help them to not disengage when we have to read in the future.