How will my Inquiry Make a Difference?
I am determined to lift the achievement of my students in reading, to the extent that it makes a difference to their Star and PAT Comprehension test results. This is important as our year 7/8 results in both my school and the cluster have shown to be lagging behind the younger year levels.
I have started by looking closer into the tests themselves, as I noticed that our running records and in class observations do not always align with the results we get for PAT. I discussed the tests with other teachers, senior management and I've looked at some research. See my blog post about this here.
I know from my conversations with the other teachers in my team and Y7/8 teachers across the cluster that this is a common issue. I believe if I can try an approach and demonstrate shift in my end of year PAT and Star data, then I can take my findings to my colleagues. It is important to note that I am not looking for a new way to teach reading, nor do I believe that we have been doing anything but a great job teaching reading - you can see a lot of evidence of this on my colleagues blogs. However, if we can add or adapt some things in our programmes that enable our students to achieve without scaffolding, then our efforts could be more visible in our PAT data.
If I can successfully tackle this issue in my own class, then I can share my findings and resources with my team and other teachers across the cluster. This would also help the students as they head to college, where summative tests like PAT and even the NCEA external exams become more prevalent.
I have started by looking closer into the tests themselves, as I noticed that our running records and in class observations do not always align with the results we get for PAT. I discussed the tests with other teachers, senior management and I've looked at some research. See my blog post about this here.
I know from my conversations with the other teachers in my team and Y7/8 teachers across the cluster that this is a common issue. I believe if I can try an approach and demonstrate shift in my end of year PAT and Star data, then I can take my findings to my colleagues. It is important to note that I am not looking for a new way to teach reading, nor do I believe that we have been doing anything but a great job teaching reading - you can see a lot of evidence of this on my colleagues blogs. However, if we can add or adapt some things in our programmes that enable our students to achieve without scaffolding, then our efforts could be more visible in our PAT data.
If I can successfully tackle this issue in my own class, then I can share my findings and resources with my team and other teachers across the cluster. This would also help the students as they head to college, where summative tests like PAT and even the NCEA external exams become more prevalent.
Talofa Danni, thanks for sharing what you have. I can hear your passion so clearly around this inquiry. Am looking forward to seeing how this goes this. Extra blessing for me in that you are in my team - so we'll get updates and feedback all along the way.
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrea! I will keep you updated on the literature I am reading about the topic.
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