Beyond a Blackboard

Our Manaiakalani cluster data for 2020 painted a very clear picture as to what we need to focus on this year: Reading and Maths. While our writing data continues to show accelerated progress, we are making the expected years progress in a year in maths and reading.  This would be perfectly fine if our students were achieving at the expected level, but this is not the case.    When I completed my honours dissertation I had a focus on maths and had strong results. Unfortunately the next year we had Maths PD which meant I had to stop using the intervention and try a different approach. This year I am able to go back to my original intervention and while I will modify it and add the new things that I have learnt to it, I am confident I will be able to increase my students achievement data. Therefore, it makes sense for me to focus on reading this year. A problem that our cluster has had consistently is that the rate of achievement progress slows over time, particularly in yea...

Kia ora, I'm Danni Stone! I'm a year 7/8 teacher at Pt England School.  Over the past couple of years my inquiry has focussed on reading. In 2019 , I was interested in generating more discussion about texts and used reciprocal reading, argumentation boards and debate as part of my intervention. In 2020 I looked at teaching my students to self-reflect in reading; to identify when they found something challenging and to stop and employ a strategy to support their understanding.  In my class I regularly integrate reading, writing and oral language, which was a focus of mine when I took part in MIT .  Prior to this I completed a dissertation at the University of Auckland. This had an inquiry focus on using digital affordances in maths.  Please feel free to visit my class site , or watch my lessons on Class onAir . 

 I have now 'completed' my 2020 inquiry. My focus question was: how can I support my students to monitor their own understanding of a text and their use of comprehension strategies? I have previously reflected on the impact that this inquiry had on my teaching and on student learning outcomes . In this post, I will be reflecting on the inquiry process itself - how well did I follow the teaching as inquiry framework? 1. Identify valued learning outcomes  I started the inquiry process well. I knew I wanted to focus on reading as our 2019 data illustrated a need to increase student outcomes in this subject. I had also been inquiring into the subject in 2019, so I was aware of research and other inquiries that could support my own. 2. Profiling student learning I was able to profile my students needs well. After using multiple methods of data collection, I developed a firm understanding of my students strengths and needs. This caused me to alter my initial inquiry focus. 3. Gener...

My inquiry focussed on supporting students to monitor their own understanding of a text. Ultimately, I wanted my students to recognise when they did not fully comprehend something and employ a strategy/strategies to increase their level of understanding. This came from analysis of their test results, in class observation, conversations with students and the recognition that I was not teaching them to self-reflect. In June I conducted a mini inquiry into my own teaching practice. I gathered student voice , watched videos of my teaching , gathered feedback and analysed my  learning design . Overall I realised that I frequently got students to self-reflect and discuss their level of understanding in maths, but rarely did this in reading! I also found that although I explicitly taught the use of comprehension strategies, I did not discuss when to employ them, or ask the students questions about their use of strategies. Changes to the way I teach reading I decided to include a time for ...

 This year my inquiry has focussed on supporting my students to monitor their own understanding of a text. At the start of the year, I noticed that my students would continue to 'read' or scan their eyes along a text, even if they did not understand what was happening. They did not consider stopping or employing a strategy. I noticed that this was particularly the case when they encountered lengthy or challenging texts, or when they were required to read several different texts in a short time period - such as on a PAT test.  At the start of the year My students PAT scores did not match up with their reading age or in class behaviour. I noticed that my students could unpack a complex text well with scaffolding, such as the conversation that occurs in a group reading lesson. They also performed well in running records as the nature of the test requires the students to re-read a text and verbally answer questions without a time limit.  My students also struggled with twist ...

 This evening we had the opportunity to share our 2020 inquiries in 3 minute 'bursts'. It was a fantastic experience and I left feeling motivated to use many of the amazing interventions that my colleagues developed. This was my presentation: My inquiry has been focussed on reading, specifically supporting students to self-monitor their own understanding of a text. I noticed my students would often ‘zone out’ and lose focus when reading, particularly if they had read a few different texts in a lesson.  To build a picture of my students needs I used running records, PAT data, student voice, observations and interviewed the students while they completed a short independent reading task.  This profiling confirmed that the students were not monitoring their understanding of a text; they might make sense of the text to begin with, but ignore information that contradicted their understanding later on. My students needed to learn to recognise when they were struggling to compreh...

After administering the final PAT Comprehension tests, I can finally determine whether my self monitoring intervention has been successful. However, I need to be realistic as I only had eight weeks in class to use my intervention with my target group, as I had a totally different literacy class in term 2! Despite all of the obstacles of the year, some of my students have made fantastic progress. Here are the results for the students who I saw in the lockdown and who returned to school for the full 8 weeks of intervention. The average progress at this year level is 7 points. With an average score of 55 for year 7s and 60 for year 8. While four of these students made less than 7 points of progress (three of these students are high performing),  seven of them achieved above this, with three making over 14 points. It is really tricky to compare the PAT results from 2020 with previous years or with other students - as we keep hearing, these are unprecedented times. However, when I looke...