Inquiry 2023 - Reflections and Tweaks

 

• Explain the reflections and tweaks you have made along the way and the reasons why you made these changes. Share your evidence for these decisions.

• What methods have you used to collect information about the tweaks?

• How have you been systematic in that collection?

• What does the information tell you?

• What are you going to do with the information in terms of understanding what needed ‘tweaking’ and why?

The main methods that I have used this year to guide the changes that I have made to made inquiry is student voice. I have asked them verbally, during the course of conversation within the lesson as they are working and  noted down what they were saying. An example of this is on this blog post here, where we had tried two different methods and. I was asking them what they thought of them.

Examples of student voice and how I used it.

"I preferred this week when everyone was working together. It gave me a clear view of the

work and defining the meanings of the words we don’t know." - I kept in time where the whole class is working on words that they pull out of the reading - we find the words and meanings together.

"I liked talking about it together instead of doing the slide but I also wanted to read the

reading myself." - I made sure there was time where we read as a whole class and time where they could go through it in their own time.  Not rushing this was key as there were students who liked one, the other and both so plenty of time to fir it all in was needed.

I have also asked them to fill in a Google form so that I could graph and compare their answers. Blog post here.

Key to asking them for their opinion on what I was trying, was me being open with them at the start of the process. I had made it clear to them what I was trying for my inquiry this year and why. I wanted them to be clear about how I was trying to improve what I was doing with my teaching to make gains for them.

Before I tried any of the intervention with my Year 11 inquiry group, I was working with our literacy specialist and trying things out with my Year 9 food tech class. This was great as it gave me chance to set up a structured piece of reading, get it checked by Mr Milford and then try it out on the Year 9 class. I could then see what worked and what didn't work in terms of the clarity of my planning and I could make changes and use what worked with my Year 11 group. It also gave me more confidence when it came to working with my senior class as this is my first year for focussing in on reading. Blog post - Reading for Planning (Y9).

Main ideas that came from trialling :-

• Having my students match words that are in the reading before they start the main reading activity.
• Using images of what is in the content of the reading
• Pulling the text apart - chunking it - to make each section easier to focus on
• Targeting the questions to each reading section and making them totally relevant to the work that the students are researching for.

Materials Research - Reading 3

My Year 11 inquiry group are currently in the middle of researching different materials that could be used for their design ideas of chairs.

So far we have read about different types of wood - blog post here - I took the information from the original source, chunked it and presented it to the students in a different way. We looked at some of the words from the text so they had some definitions to start them off and then they did information transfer and answered specific questions. They then related what they had read to their own design work. This exercise was done in the class but by themselves, in their own time. 

We next looked at types of metal - blog post here - We read directly from the source material on the internet this time and I read it out to them while they read along at the same time. They had to write down words that they did not know and we looked these up together. 

I asked them for feedback about the two sessions and they liked a mix of the two. So for this session I have tried to combine what we have been doing over the past two weeks. 

• I took words out from the reading to start with so they could have some definitions to start them off.
• I have taken the information form the original source and chunked it.
• Each piece of reading on the presentation has a yellow box on the outside of the slide so they can note down any words they are unsure of.
• The text was read to the class again, but this time it was done by our guest reader.
• We then talked about what words they had noted down.
• The class then had to answer the information transfer questions.
• They then had to relate what we had been reading about to their own designs.

Our guest reader was Ms George. I had been telling her about last week when it was me reading the information about types of metal and trying my hardest to make it sound interesting. She is an extremely experienced teacher of English and has lots of experience reading to classes. She agreed to come and read about plastics to put emphasis and interest into how it was read out.

When Miss George left after the reading, the students gave me feedback that they preferred her reading to mine. I need practice!!

Here are some examples of student work form today. They have had copies made so student names do not appear.

Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Materials Research - Reading 2

 

As part of my inquiry this year I am looking at how I can read in DVC so the students get more meaning out of the research they have to do.

Last week, we started our materials research where I broke the information down for them and presented it on a Google slide. Blog post here.

This week, I sent the students the link to the website - Metals and Alloys. I made sure they all had a piece of paper and a pencil and then I read to them from the website while they read it in front of them. If they came across a word that they did not know, they had to write it on the paper. At the end of the reading, I collected in the papers and scanned them to see where the main problems were in understanding and we Googled meanings and answers together while I wrote the answers on the white board.

I have not read out loud to students for a LONG time. I have been in the classrooms of English teachers when they have been reading to their class. They are able to put emphasis in the reading and use different tones of voice. After this lesson, I was laughing with an English teacher colleague, explaining how I was trying to make information about stainless steel and aluminium sound interesting as I was reading it. 

My Year 11 class already know that I am doing my inquiry with them this year and that I will be trying different things with them that I have not done before. We went over what we did last week and how it was different to what we did this week in regards to their research. I then asked them to write down what they thought about each approach.

Next week, we will be looking at different plastics, so I think a combination of approaches will be tried. I have also had a volunteer to be "guest reader".

Materials Research - Reading Template 1

 My inquiry group Year 11's are up to the point where we need to do research about lots of different materials so they can decide which ones will be best for their designs that they have been busy doing. 

For this template, I decided to take the information away from its source on the internet and present it on a document of my own. I could then control how much information is given at a time to read and I could take it away from all of the distractions that are on a website.

The Tamaki College literacy specialist, Marc Milford, has been working with us for a while about information transfer. I have tried some of this work with my Year 9 Food Tech class, with their recipe planning.

Staff PLD - Reading Skills with Marc

Reading for Planning

Today was the first time trying reading and information transfer with my Year 11 inquiry class.

Here is the template that I made for them.

Link to document

Here are some of the documents from the students today. I have included students who completed the most work today. We had a double period to do this work this afternoon and there was a wide range of completion, from done and completed really well to hardly started. My next step with them is to ask what they thought of this, how easy they found it and if this links to how incomplete some of them are.Student 1Student 2Student 3