Teacher Inquiry

"How can being aware of next learning steps help cognitive engagement?"

As a teacher at Point England School part of our professional practice is to carry out an inquiry. This inquiry is to refine, develop and learn within a particular area/topic.

My personal inquiry is related to awareness of learning steps and cognitive engagement e.g learning. This awareness relates to two areas, students and teacher. As I have reflected on learning and the process of learning I have become increasingly aware of the need for learning steps to be known. These steps are labeled as many things such as goals, aims, WALTS, and learning intentions. But the key similarity is that they all give the learner the focus/aim for what they are learning. In my inquiry I want to take the next step with these learning goals/aims and inquire into how can learning be accelerated by being aware of the progression of learning steps. If a learner is aware of where they are currently at, where they have come from and what their next steps are, will personal engagement and ownership bring increased learning and cognitive engagement?

As I am in a 1:1 digital classroom, visibility of learning is important and also more easily carried out. So visibility will be key within the implementation of this inquiry. A couple possible steps for this inquiry are to:

1. Establish where students are at in progressions and what the next learning step is.

2. Ensure learning steps are visible - on site with learning tasks, on blogs with published work etc.

3. Ensure students are aware of what they are learning - share and discuss.

4. Use learning steps to reflect on work - rubrics, conferences, peer feedback, blog commenting.

5. Publish reflections along side work on personal blogs.

A new path...

Three years ago I started this journey to become a teacher not knowing what it would really be like or how I would find it. Today, I now share a class of 60 amazing students who I get to spend the year unleashing potential and success in each one of them. I have had such an amazing teacher training at Laidlaw College in New Zealand. I look back and see how significantly I have changed and developed as a person and as a teacher in these past three years. 

I am now extremely blessed to begin my first teaching job at Point England School in Auckland, New Zealand. It is an amazing school which has a big heart for it's community and students. Being a decile one school with mostly Pacific Island and Maori students it has fought to give their students an education that is innovative, modern and excellent. These students are often 'last' in society but are now equipped with an education that is innovative, modern, digital and leading the way in society. Therefore enabling these students to achieve great success and be enabled to achieve in this world. 

As I reflect on my upcoming year I am excited for what will come and all that I will learn and grow throughout the year. I know that my teaching practice will change and develop significantly but that this is to be expected and prepared for. Throughout this year I will seek to become a teacher that everyday provides all my students with a positive success in social and academic excellence. Everyday I hope to provide an environment where learning is enjoyable, strived for and achieved. 

I know that teaching is such a privilege, yet a deep responsibility. And I know that the journey ahead will be one of many long hard hours filled with tears and laughs, but also one that I look forward to with great anticipation. 

Week Six

The final week of my placement and the final week of my three year degree has drawn to a close. Overall this past placement has been an enjoyable and successful experience but I am still so pleased to be finished and be able to prepare for my very own class next year. This placement has taught me many things and challenged my philosophy of teaching further. When considering the seventh Graduating Teacher Standard my goal for this placement was to further my philosophy, therefore have a solid foundation for when I begin teaching my own class. Even though there has been a number of differences in teaching style between my AT and myself, this placement has definitely sharpened my philosophy.

One of the biggest differences I experienced in this class/school from my past placements was the lack of technology. Throughout the past few weeks I was able to implement a couple of digital aspects into the class which I felt went really well and brought about engaged rich learning. During this placement I did not want to just rule out any positive aspects of being in a non-digital class but rather reflect on the matter with a balanced view. Over the weeks I think I have been able to do this but as I did preconceive my view for digital technology in class has only become stronger. A couple major positives which I observed in this non-digital classroom is the lack of distractions and the richness of hands-on activities. Everyday we completed hands-on activities which could be done in a digital classroom but would sometimes not be. Not necessarily because they could be completed digitally but rather because digital devices offer so many more different teaching/learning opportunities. And this is where I think a key understanding needs to be established. Digital learning most often will offer more ways to teach a concept quicker than older standard ways. But, sometimes I think the older practical ways need to be used even though they might be slower because they teach other key concepts at the same time. Whilst saying this there are many areas which I observed during this placement that would be completely transformed if digital technologies were implemented. For example Mathematics is a subject that I observed as being sometimes more about writing ability and often either ahead or behind of an individuals learning pathway. And this is where I think digital technology can and should transform learning. Learning should be efficient, engaging and give students opportunity to learn at their own personal level rather than being restricted by others around them.

In conclusion this placement has given me an understanding of what a well managed classroom can operate like while also challenging me to further refine my own teaching style. I am excited for the opportunity I will have next year where I will get to teach in a 1:1 device class and continually seek to transform learning with the aid of digital devices. But at the same time I want to remember this placement and continue to question my digital teaching and compare the learning to that which I have experienced here over the past six weeks.

Week Five

When considering the Graduating Teacher Standards standard five needs to be considered and put into action everyday. My personal goal for this placement is to systematically record learning daily and reflect on information to improve learning.

During this week I put extra effort into re-examining my maths lessons and small group sessions. Each day I gave students a set of problems to solve of which for the two bottom groups were printouts because they take too long to simply copy down the problems. During my sessions with individual groups I recorded down what students gained the understanding and who needed further time. This recording significantly influenced my planning because at the end of each day I reassessed my planning for the next day and made changes accordingly. Although this detailed recorded required significant time and effort I found that my small group sessions were more focused and students gained the concepts a lot faster than the previous week. Even still five weeks into the practicum I am still finding it difficult to pin down exactly what each student already knows and needs to learn next. Only this week have I felt like I have been able to present teaching to each group that is accurate to their learning needs. By recording their learning and revisiting planning daily I think I have been able to get to this point of understanding.

Week Four

Standard four of the Graduating Teacher Standards states how teachers must create a high quality teaching and learning environment. My personal goal for this placement in regards to this standard is to create a high expectation environment for all learners.
During this week I had a strong focus on creating rich reading and mathematics sessions. For the past few weeks I didn’t have rotation rubrics operating very well. Each day I would provide students with an activity to do and meet with only a couple groups. But this week I set up my own rotation rubrics' on a Google Doc and displayed it on the projector during the lessons. In reading I had 5 groups so set up a rotation of 5 steps. Within these 5 rotations I included a number of things such as Big Books, Library Corner, Literacy Games, Worksheet activity and teacher small group. This rotation rubric worked really well because it focused the whole lesson and kept students interested because they only stayed on one activity for a short period of time. This rotation setup also meant I could give students better and higher quality follow up activities because the students weren’t overtaken by worksheets. Some key points that I learnt from this setup was the importance of having shorter rotations, varied activities and richer follow up activities.

Another aspect that I introduced into my classroom this week to create a rich learning environment was a computer programme called XtraMath. It is a basic facts programme that enables each student to complete an individual programme for only 5 min per day. I set it up so that students take turns on the two class desktops each day. This is a very rich programme because it allows students to learn exactly at the right level and also keeps them engaged and focused on completing their learning.

It has also be very exciting to discuss this computer programme with a number of other teachers and see their excitement for its potential in their own classroom. For teachers who aren't within an already digital school I have observed that it is hard to become aware of such programmes and their benefits. The teachers who I discussed this programme with had never heard of such a programme but were totally impressed by it and that fact that it is free to use.

Overall this week I have been able to create a richer learning environment which has resulting in better student focus and learning behaviour. It showed me how important it is to ensure that in all lessons and activities learning is rich and focused.

Week Three

A week of full control completed with satisfaction but also joined by a head full of ideas, reflections and alterations to consider for next week. Throughout the week I had numerous challenges and celebrations with lessons which needed reflecting on and revisiting. But that is simply the life of a teacher; teaching, evaluating, planning and teaching again. Two personal goals which I have reflected on throughout the week are being connected to whanau and multicultural knowledge. Throughout the week I had many opportunities to consider these goals and question my practice.

Standard six of the graduating teacher standards states that teachers must develop positive relationships with learners and members of learning communities. Throughout this week I had a number of opportunities to interact with student whanau. Each morning a number of parents/grandparents bring their students to class. Over the week I made deliberate effort to connect with each person to discuss casually and also about their child. To begin it was quite uneasy but as the days went on the connections became easier and more natural. I was able to learn all about whanau concerns and considerations for their child each day. This would often be in regards to how the student is feeling and doing at home. It was really valuable to have these discussion and it showed me personally how important whanau to teacher connections are. A point which was further highlighted to me within this is the benefit of connecting with whanau right from the beginning even if it is awkward.
The topic for this term is globalisation so the plan is to each week look at a different country/culture and learn about about it’s differences. We began by looking at Maori culture this week and learning about some traditional crafts. When considering  Graduating Teacher Standards three my goal is to gain deeper multicultural knowledge of tikanga and te reo Maori. Throughout this week as a class we made a number of very cool things which are related to maori culture. It was encouraging to learn background information about some maori art forms and then teach them to my students. Then it was further encouraging to have students engaged in the learning by showing that they were interested asking questions and adding further information. It highlighted to me again the importance of connecting to the culture of my students in order to create a rich learning environment.

Week Two:

The first week of term 4 done and dusted. Over the past week I have reflected on a number of different areas within my teaching practice. A personal goal which I have addressed is in relation to knowing what to teach at level one, in regards to pedagogical, assessment and content knowledge.

Over the holidays I spent a lot of time planning and familiarising myself with the teaching content appropriate to level one. During the week I looked into the numeracy project to try and make clearer sense of the content needed to be taught at this level. My first reactions was that the numeracy project is not an easy, nicely laid out programme. I found myself getting confused between the names of stages and strategies. There is a number of areas that don’t overlap or connect nicely. After frustration and a lot of time I decided to stick to following the progression sheets printed of tki. These sheets are very handy but they are quite vague and do not break down the strategy very clearly. Also it must be remembered that these sheets to not show number knowledge progression only strategy progression. And a good numeracy programme must take into account both strategy and knowledge. From discussion with my AT I have come to an understanding that strategy is often the deliberately taught material during groupings. Whilst number knowledge can be easily taught during whole class teaching and also it is likely to be taught indirectly during whole class and group teaching. Another area which students must have daily learning is basic facts. From reflecting on this learning I have come to the conclusion that a numeracy programme needs to be very focused and include a number of different aspects, of which need to be clearly defined and deliberate. Group work must include deliberate strategy teaching because it is in these groups that a teacher is able to listen, discuss and critique a students working in order to direct them towards develop correct strategies. As a whole class, within groups or during follow-up activities number knowledge needs to be taught to in order to give students the foundations to being able to learn and complete strategies. And within this number knowledge, basic fact knowledge must be deliberately taught to give students speed and efficiency in solving strategy. Therefore from my reflection on teaching level one numeracy I have been able to understand what an effective numeracy programme can look like by breaking it down into separate yet deliberate acts of teaching.