Literacy Exercise and Practice with Year 11

 The department has been working with Marc Milford, out literacy expert, for a while now and we have all been making literacy posters for our classrooms so we are presenting a similar approach across the department.

Hinerau wrote a blog post about  the department process here

My original blog post when I worked with Marc on the poster for DVC

Here is my version of the Explanation Poster fro DVC - this went through moderation with Marc so all the posters in the department were showing the same things and skills.

I had printed off copies of the NZQA exemplars and the students had looked at them and seen the difference between N, A, M and E. It is not only the quality of the drawings but the depth of the written analysis as well.

This is also where I got the example to put on my Explanation Poster.

After reminding them today of what we had looked at on these exemplars I gave them out a small copy of the poster on the wall and we read through it and picked out the noun groups and why they were noun groups.

They then had to read through the blank example that I had put together for them and colour in the noun groups that they could find.

We did this as a group and called out the ones we found so we could all share and colour in together.

We then looked for modals / opinions and coloured them a different colour.

Then we looked for the verbs.

The class had a really good try at this today and worked well together.

The next activity is to read information given about materials and write a paragraph about a given picture of a chair.

We did not get really into this today but we sat around together and did a description of the chair before we did any of the reading.

We will then compare the next description they do when they have done their reading about materials and when they use the skills we practiced today.

This is all on the class site here.

Sharing the Why

My Year 12 and 13 class are my inquiry group this year. To get the most out of them, I have had a day with Pippa, going over techniques we can use for the first standard we are doing. Blog post here.
After this day, we have been working on our first design element. Blog posts here and here.

As this is a definite change to the way we have been working in the past and from what they are used to, the students have been looking at me a little aslant and think I have gone a little off.

Today, I decided to show them the spreadsheet that I have been keeping about the DVC results since 2013. We looked specifically at the NCEA Level 3 external results. I explained how the result change in 2015 came about, with me getting support from the ministry DVC specialist and from a teacher in another school. This resulted in the students that year starting the work for the external again and working through the new plan. This was successful and we got out first merits at external for DVC.
Since then, the results have slowly declined again. There have been changes in the expectations for this external and I needed help again to make sure I was going in the right direction for the students. I explained to them that it wasn't about my ego or feelings about my planning, but about making sure that what I have planned is going to get them what they need.

The students response to this was positive. They understood and appreciated what I was saying and why I was telling them.

Here is the total spreadsheet with all of the results on.




Here is the specific chart we were looking at today, which like I said to the students, doesn't make for great reading but we need to look at the reality and plan accordingly.
I didn't talk for too long to them today as I didn't want to bore the pants off them with spreadsheet stuff but it was enough for them to understand the why.

NCEA DVC Results comparisons

Last year, I did a results comparison of my Year 11 class over the last few years. I just did this class as it was my inquiry group last year. Blog post here.

I have decided this year to do a similar thing to track all year groups.
Link to spreadsheet here

I have been trying to see patterns. I have failed at that to be honest.
At Level 2 and 3 the conceptual design standard continues to be poorly attempted. This is on my list to improve next year and I have already made a start on that by redoing the Level 2 planning and have sent it off to be moderated by another Technology teacher.
It is always GREAT to get another set of eyes on my planning as I am the only DVC teacher at Tamaki. When I get feedback that gives input and suggestions about what to add to improve the planning or pointing out tings that I have overlooked, I LOVE it. I always try to treat this planning moderation process as sneaky PD as I learn loads from it. (thanks Terry!) Getting the work externally moderated by NZQA is a whole other story though.
I am so disappointed with the effort overall in the Level 1 course. So much unfinished work. There is a lot in Level 2 as well and it is because of this I have finally got my head around using Workspaces as a means to keep on top of things better next year. My workspaces journey is on this label on my blog.

Things that I am taking forward next year from previous inquiry work.

1. Use of SOLO structure to support written elements of the design projects
2. The literacy structure for analysis writing.
3. The mindset work to improve confidence.
4. Clear layout of my class site to support project flow.
5. Rewindable learning elements so students can always look back on what they and the class have done.
6. Go back to using Google Plus communities (now that Google has decided not to bin it for education) so that students can see each others work and the work of past students. I only used it for my Year 13 class this year as I didn't start it with the other classes due to not knowing if it was going to go.

I find it fascinating that the things I really think will improve outcomes for my students are not related to drawing!

Manaiakalani Class OnAir Lesson 13 - Gears

Link to Manaiakalani Class OnAir to see the whole team.

Direct Instruction

We have a set of gears that have been made on the 3D printer so the introduction was about showing them the pieces we have and how to connect them together. There is also a worksheet to refer to for more understanding.

Class Site Content

Link to class site

This is activity 2 on the site.

Learner Generated Content

First Activity
To start with, they had to connect the gears together and see the motion that was created.

Second Activity
The students had to get the movement being transferred from one side of the board to the other.

Third Activity
The challenge was to get the motion transferring from one side of the table to the other, using multiple boards and working as a team.

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Lana

Beyonce

Alizhay

Inquiry Group - Number Crunching

My inquiry group this year been my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 Design and Visual Communication class.  I have already done an overall analysis of their results this year, link to blog post here, so I thought that I would do an analysis of the level of excellence grades. I think this will show if my work on literacy with them this year has had any effect as it is the level of analysis writing that gets them the higher grades.

This table shows the percentage of excellence grades achieved for each standard for this year and the previous 5 years.  I decided to show percentage as the comparison as I get a widely different number of students every year and this year was the largest class that I have had in a long while (13 students).

	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013
AS91069	15%	14%	0%	0%	13%	0%
AS91067	15%	14%	0%	0%	13%	0%
AS91066	42%	13%	0%	0%	0%	0%
AS91068	25%	13%	0%	0%	13%	0%

This next table shows the total entries for all the students for all the DVC standards against the number of excellence grades achieved.. This year has the most entries (50) as there was the most students. There was still the same number of standards.

Total Entries	50	30	34	25	32	38
Excellence	12	4	0	0	3	0
	24%	13%	0%	0%	9%	0%

The achievement challenge that I have been focussing on this year has been achievement challenge number 1 :-

Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13.

Because of this, I have broken down the achievement of the Māori students in the class.

Maori 2018	15	15	15
4 students	8 (E)	3 (M)	4 (A)
4 standards -1	53%	20%	27%

I am very pleased with the increase in achievement the students have shown and their willingness to go through the process with me this year. They knew I was focussing on literacy with them and why I was doing it.
The breakdown of my inquiry at the start of the process has helped greatly as it gave me a structure to work to and a target to aim at.
The section where I broke down what I needed to learn as the teacher has been a huge learning curve for me this year but I feel it has given me something that I can continue working on.
This whole process for me this year has really highlighted the benefit of using the skills of colleagues round you to great effect.
Thank you to :-

• Robyn Anderson for letting me visit your class room this year
• the Tamaki College English Department for letting me learn something about the asTTle marking
• Marc for all the awesome literacy work he has done with me and my class this year.

Link to all the literacy labelled posts here.

I can do the happy dance now ....

PS ... don't ask me about the Year 12 and year 13 results as that is a whole other story, but I have proved to myself that it works now so I have something to build on and use.