2021 Teacher Inquiry

My 2021 Teacher Inquiry at Panmure Bridge School

Blog Post 1

This year for my Teacher Inquiry the question that I have chosen to investigate is: 

Will a focus on oral language in maths accelerate student confidence and capability to use spoken and written maths vocabulary?

Developing a hunch: during Term 1 and 2 Maths testing and classroom teaching I noticed a pattern with the majority of my 25 students. When answering questions most students did not display confidence with new or learned math terms. this hindered their ability to explain their answers, despite sometimes having confidence with their answers. To see whether my approach for my Teaching Inquiry will be effective and accelerate student learning I will monitor a target group of 6 students who are tracking below their peers for their expected year level.

Here are the data for Time Point 1 for my 6 'Target' students below:

I am hoping that by explicitly modelling maths vocabulary and focussing on student voice and student baseline understanding of math concepts that this will accelerate my target students' progress. 

I also want to see an acceleration of my target students' understanding of number strategy.

Here is my Casual Chain Strategy that I will use over the term of my inquiry:

LINK - a large copy

I will be introducing vocabulary terms to my class each week and then reinforce them in my small groups. These terms will be known as focus words. We will attempt to learn this word in a variety of ways, particularly with student-led talk. Going over new words will be particularly important for my target students some of whom are ESOL students.

Developing my wall displays will be something I will do more of as well. 

iPad Professional Learning Group Session 4

This Month's iPad PLG focus was on using the Explain Everything application to further enhance my  digital capability as a teacher. We created a sample EE and shared it to a common drive. Creating an efficient 'work flow' for the students was a focus too, so that students have limited distractions in class.

T-Shaped Literacy for Juniors with Dr Rebecca Jesson

On Tuesday 22nd June I attended a talk about T-Shape Literacy for Juniors given by Dr Rebecca Jesson from the University of Auckland. The aim of the talk was to further explain the 'Big Ideas' contained in Junior School Ready to Read books. I found it useful as I can use my texts to create 'Text Sets' - a set of books that have a common theme - and to teach themes such as helping, of healthy eating that sit above the decoding element of each reading book.
 

Pause Breathe

On Tuesday 8th June, I attended a Pause Breathe Smile Professional Development session run by a qualified practitioner. The aim of the PLD was to introduce us as a staff to the evidence - based practice of Mindfulness and how it can be beneficial to our teaching and the learning of our students. Results show that participation in Pause, Breathe, Smile:

• Improves focus and attention for better learning outcomes
• Increases calm and student wellbeing
• Enhances self-awareness and pro-social behaviour
• Reduces test anxiety and boosts resilience
• Decreases teacher stress and burnout

There are 8 lessons to engage in and teach and I am looking forward to what positive outcomes this has for me and, in particular, for reducing stressful moments when teaching.

 

Manaiakalani CREATE Staff meeting- Term 2 2021

 

Manaiakalani Staff Meeting Term 2

Today, I attended the Manaiakalani Staff Meeting Term 2. The focus of the meeting was on the 'Create' segment of the 'Learn Create Share' model of teaching pedagogy used by the Manaiakalani cluster of schools. This meeting provided an opportunity to see what kind of 'Create' learning teachers are doing in class to support ākonga and for teachers to take away new ideas to use in their own classrooms. I attended the 'Creating Digital Floor Plans' session where we used an online application to create a house using ideas of standard measurement and 2-D and 3-D shapes. I found this useful for my students as this Term's math strand subject is Measurement and Geometry. I will attempt to have a lesson using this application once my students are familiar with the mathematical concept of area and have
confidence from having undertaken some measurement practice.

Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day Friday 16th April 2021

 

On April 16th, I attended the Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day. The professional development focus for the day was on literacy - and reading in particular. I attended three well run sessions with highly knowledgeable presenters. My chosen workshops were: Enhancing Reading with Explain Everything; Effective Reading Practise; and T-shaped Literacy for Juniors.

I found the workshops helpful for some areas where i am focussing on my teaching practice. For example, I now use Explain Everything in my reading program when I see my reading groups and this is helpful for creating reading response tasks and also helps my efficiency and preparing resources and materials for my students. I feel I have a more digitally enhanced and more effective teaching practice based on attending this Teacher Only Day.

Implementation Report for the New Zealand Ministry of Education

 Our team discussed and shared our thoughts about the Early Literacy Project report written by Alison W. Arrow. We shared 3 things that resonated with us and 1 thing we would implement in our class. For me, the things that resonated with me were:

1) Reading should be taught using an explicit phonics approach.

2) Teacher's are more effective when they have the requisite phonics teaching knowledge.

3) Literacy Learning progressions should be phased out. but some good stuff should be retained.

Healthy Active Learning Workshop Day

 

I attended a workshop run by Sport Auckland that posed the question: Are ALL students at my school and in my class having positive experiences in Health and Physical Education (HPE), Sport and Play? 

The day provided an opportunity to answer this question, as well as reconsider the purpose of teaching Health and Physical Education in school. The workshops that were run all helped me reconsider and keep an open mind to ensuring that my Health and Physical Education teaching is inclusive of ALL students, including those with 'disabilities', and that HPE is taught for other reasons than for the sole purpose of winning games of sport.

I will attempt to integrate games, sport and play that always promotes inclusion and which the practice of 'adapting' HPE to suit the needs of ALL my students is evident in planning and teaching lessons.

iPad Professional Learning Group

 

The focus of this session was to use the Explain Everything (EE) application to create a short recording that can be shared on our class blog site.

My goal is to use EE as a tool for students to use to make responses to Learning Intentions in Literacy and Numeracy.

Toi Tu Toi Ara: Contemporary Maori Art

 

On March 18, together with some of my colleagues, I paid a visit to the Auckland Art Gallery to view the Toi Tū Toi Ara exhibition. This was an opportunity to view some contemporary Māori Art while engaging myself with Māori cultural histories and further understandning the role of Māori knowledge in contemporary art and wider New Zealand society.

Practically, I hope to do some Māori art with my students this year to build on the art teaching I did in 2020.

iPad Professional Learning Group

iPad PLG

Venue: Room 19 Pt England School

Date:  Thursday 24th February

Time: 3.30 -3.40pm

Device: iPad/Mac

The focus of this session was on 1:1 iPad workflow and Kawa of Care. I up-skilled myself around how to improve the learning experience for my students who use an iPad for their learning activities. My next step is to empower my earners to be able to make an iMovie using their iPads.

Wolff Fischer Manaiakalani Presentation 2021

 

The Manaiakalani cohort of schools met to listen to the results and analysis of Student Achievement
Data on the 23rd February, 2021. The cohort heard from Professor Rebecca Jessop from the Department of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. She spoke about how teachers use their Class Sites to deliver teaching and learning. We also heard about writing and reading achievement data and some proposals about our next steps.

Marie Hirst - Maths Resources PLD @Panmure Bridge School

On February 4th 2021 Marie Hirst facilitated a Maths PLD day with the staff of Panmure Bridge School. We were initially engaged in some practical statistics exercises, reviewed a range of resources and planning ideas to incorporate in our classes, and held discussions about updating our math teaching pedagogy in our classroom programmes. I found the practical exercises highly useful and relevant and I immediately used Marie's 'About Me' Statistics exercises to help build relationships with my akonga learners in the first weeks of Term 1. I will also use the resources to meet the needs of all my learners to differentiate my teaching when required.

Manaiakalani Orientation 2021

 

'He waka eke noa' - We are all in this together!

Introducing myself with a whakatauki proverb I selected at the Manaiakalani Orientation 2021. This whakatauki implies that ‘we are all in this together’. I think it can be a really useful one when working with groups on a particular focus. It can be unpacked in many different ways, but it encourages us to explore the most effective ways to work together and can highlight what is needed in order for us to make this journey as teachers focussed on accelerating student achievement through building digital capabilities of our tamariki.