Beyond a Blackboard

 After consulting the research literature I came to the conclusion that I need to explicitly teach metacognition alongside reading comprehension strategies (particularly those involving vocabulary) and that I need to be aware of the amount of scaffolding I give my students when reading with them. So how does this fit with my current teaching? I used observation feedback, observation of my own practice (that I filmed and later reviewed) and an analysis of my reading planning to identify what I am already doing and what needs to be changed. 1. Am I teaching metacognitive strategies? Last year I began an intervention into this extremely late in the year. I had about eight weeks to roll out and modify my intervention. In that time I created a five point framework with my students to enable them to rate their understanding of a text. After reading a text, the students rate themselves and explain why they gave themselves this score.  This is something I have continued using and the ...

 Throughout term one, I collected and analysed sources of student data to identify what was causing my students progress in reading to stall. I used both summative/formative assessment (PAT/ Probe/ ARBs/ Student's learning in class) and collected student voice through an interview and survey.  I analysed some of these in greater depth and posted about them here and here . In this post I will be looking at the trends I discovered after analysing all of my student data. This will enable me to identify the aspects of reading that my intervention needs to address, as I will be aware of the things that my students struggle with. Low motivation/ confidence From my student voice collection - both my interview and survey, the students expressed a disinterest in reading. Only one student reported reading for fun outside of literacy class and shared that reading is their favourite subject. The other students all shared that they prefer other subjects and don't feel very good about read...

  Have I used a range of sources to understand my students learning in a detailed way? I have drawn upon multiple sources of data to inform my understanding of my students learning. It is important to use at least three sources to 'triangulate' the data and ensure that it is reliable. I have used two forms of standardised summative testing, a formative assessment and an interview/ survey of the students. As the students are only with me for literacy and we have multiple classes, I have not engaged with their whānau as much as my home class. While a strong home/school relationship is important for student success, I didn't identify whānau voice as a tool for gathering information about my students learning. Perhaps this is something I should reconsider in the future. Do I understand their strengths as much as I understand their areas for development? I have identified some of the students strengths; I was able to identify more strengths in some students than others, due to...

Over the last few weeks, I have been conducting a mini inquiry to identify trends in my current practice. One limitation that I have had throughout this inquiry is that I am focussing on my literacy practice but currently do not have my literacy class (and will have gone almost a term without teaching them). Instead, I have been analysing my literacy practice with my maths class, which may slightly alter what I notice. I am aware of this and will be conducting some further data gathering at the start of next term, to get some more baseline data for my inquiry and to reflect further on my practice. I used three sources of data to inform this inquiry, a student voice survey, an analysis of my planning/ student activities and an observation of my teaching. I have interpreted each of these independently and I am now making connections between them and the literature that I have read on this topic. My focus question for this was: how am I supporting my students to monitor their own unde...

The really annoying thing about collecting data to inform a self study, is that I am already hyper aware of myself and beginning to change elements of my practice. I know when I get my literacy class again some elements of my practice will have certainly changed from the last time I taught them in term one. This is due to a number of factors, from my experience with distance learning , the PD I have received and the literature I have read. To try and gather some data from my students, I tried to repeat some 'classic Danni lessons'. I gave my maths class some tasks that my literacy class had previously enjoyed (and that suited their reading levels) and followed the same planning as much as possible. One big limitation of this was that I am not teaching the students in small groups due to our furniture arrangement - instead we have half class groups and discussions. After teaching a week of these 'classic literacy lessons', I gave the class a survey to reflect ...