SparkMIT Reflection on my inquiry

Firstly my apologies for neglecting to post regularly about my inquiry journey.  I will add a few screenshots of the innovations I have tried so far (I have given myself until the end of Wednesday to do this).  I'm super excited about sharing these snippets of my journey so we can see the progress in real time and I can get some feedback or tips from everyone else.  Why I didn't think of this earlier is a mystery!  Actually I did think about it, I just haven't done it.  Second time lucky.

Another successful day with the SparkMIT crew.  We discussed the SAMR model and how it relates to our inquiries as well as sharing the progress we have made so far.

Quick recap
My innovation is a resource site that students could go to, to develop their vocabulary skills thus improving comprehension and fluency in reading.  My target group is Year 4 and 5 Samoan students but the innovation is purposed to serve all learners far and wide.


Purpose
To acclerate learning in reading.  It will have student and teacher made resources purposed to develop vocabulary and evaluation of a text.  Data from reading assessments (probe) has highlighted these are areas of need.   Students will be creating resources as research shows the learning experience is enhanced when it occurs between students ie students learn more effectively from each other.  What better way to engage our aiga [family] than to have their own child's voice, pictures and learning in video form?  I would love to hear if you have any other suggestions for aiga engagement.


Challenges
Three key students have transferred away from my school. They were students who had entered into a digital classroom directly from Samoa.  Even though they have left, it has been a great reminder that my innovation will be a resource for all students to access.'

I added a new page to my class site focussing on the digital literacy aspect of 'metaliteracy' . This was a trial where I was going to add screencastifies created by students and myself.  They would be serve as 'go to' video that help students and parents understand how to use their chromebooks and apps, hopefully building vocabulary around our devices.  This was a challenge because of time.  I also became preoccupied with adding a voice over to my class site.

Time.. time..... time!


Successes... Challenging Successes
Power of conversation.  Discussing my innovation with colleagues and getting feedback from them has been fantastic.  With my digital literacy page a colleague reminded me about the importance of the 'why'.  Making sure that the videos explained why we use such apps or chromebooks.  How they help us on our learn, create, share journey.   At present the videos are basic step by step instructions.
I am a Term 2 flyer.  This time last year is I was panicked, believed students shouldn't blog until Year 5 and running substitution tasks day in and day out.  By the end of the year I had been accepted to participate as part of the SparkMIT group, had a fully fledged class site that was being used as a model, presented my own toolkit and had a class of Year 3/4 students with their own individual blogs. So with this in mind, I have a really positive outlook on Term 2.


Where to next?
I really want my innovation to be easily adapted into everyday planning.  There are so many innovative ideas I came across at the GAFE summit but finding the time to impliment them has been diffiuclt.  With this in mind, I want to streamline my innovation to work alongside the teacher.  I hope to do this by making it responsive to reading texts.  For example finding a way to enable my innovation to develop vocabulary, comprehension and fluency based on articles sourced from Kiwi Kids News.  These articles are free to access and have a generally wide range of engaging topics.

Measuring for Success - Springboard Trust

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to Dr Cathy Wylie (NZCER's Chief Researcher) and Mike Bazett (KPMG). Two question they addressed were

• How do you know you are achieveing?
• Are you collecting the right information?

Here are my top takeaways
The importance of using objective and subjective data. Subjective data alongside objective data can provide indicators of success and provide a warning when needed. Cathy Wylie likened this to the formative student data (student voice, student engagement data) and school culture data. These need to be valued and monitored closely as they will effectively be our indicators that will serve as evidence of our success or alert us to the ‘cliff’ if need be. By cliff, I am alluding to a downward spiral or decrease in effectiveness of strategies etc.

Mike made it explicitly clear that our measures need to be fit for purpose. We need to make sure we measure what counts. Don’t focus on the HOW. Unpack the WHAT and used this develop a shared clarity and language to get everyone on board.  This reminded me of my first Spark MIT meeting where Dorothy and Juanita really helped me unpack my inquiry allowing me to pinpoint the data I need to collect and utilise.

When dealing with external stakeholders it is vital to engage others and getting a common language. This is something that needs to be strengthened between the board, and parents. I say these two groups because us teachers are in between and have the liberty of decoding and unpacking what each party is thinking. However our parents can often become disconnected to the board, with their only means of communication being through newsletters etc which often come from the Principal.  This is something to keep in mind when developing my shared innovation.  It needs to embrace a shared language between the school and whanau whilst strengthening this language between our learners and their whanau.

With any strategies in school, keep them simple and understand what you need to change. This will keep measure simple and effective.

SparkMIT Focus group and data

Focus group:

Year 4 and 5 students identified as Samoan.

Control group:  

This year's Year 5 students (who initially went 1:1 chromebooks with me last year).  I have chosen to have a control group as it will increase the validity of my data by minimising the opportunity for people to question any successes and link them to my teaching style and not my innovation. For instance if the data shows evidence of progress within my focus group, I could use my control group as comparative data to support the effectiveness of my innovation.

Priority learners are groups of students who have been identified as historically not experiencing success in the New Zealand schooling system. These include many

Māori and Pacific learners, those from low socio-economic backgrounds, and

students with special education needs.             ERO (August 2012)

We have Ka Hikitia as effective strategies to enable and assist our Maori learners, which we have seen has an impact on all learners.  The Pasifika Education Plan (PEP) works to address achievement, participation and engagement of our Pasifika learners.  I want to peel back the layers and focus on our Samoan learners. I've tried to capture these layers in a simple mindmap made via bubbl.us  

Data:

Data collected 2015 Term 1 and Term 4.  Endpoint data collected 2016 from Term 1 and Term 4. Supporting OTJ’s used to identify movement across the entire cohort.

Baseline Data:2015 Reading and Writing Achievement levels (Year 3-4 Samoan Students)

Baseline Data
Student names	Year 3 2015					Student names CONTROL GROUP	Year 4 2015
	Term 1		Term 4		EOY Writing		Term 1		Term 4		EOY Writing
	Reading OTJ	Writing Sub-level	Reading OTJ	Writing Sub-level	Sub level Movement		Reading OTJ	Writing Sub-level	Reading OTJ	Writing Sub-level	Sub level Movement
HPS A	AT	1A	ABOVE	3B	4	HPS G	BELOW	1A	AT	2P	2
HPS B	BELOW	1P	ABOVE	1A	1	HPS H	BELOW	1P	AT	2P	3
HPS C	BELOW	1A	AT	2A	3	HPS I	BELOW	2B	AT	2P	1
HPS D	BELOW	1P	AT	2B	2	HPS J	BELOW	2B	AT	2A	2
HPS E	BELOW	1P	AT	2B	2	HPS K	BELOW	1P	AT	2B	2
HPS F	BELOW	1A	ABOVE	2B	1	HPS L*	n/a	n/a	WB	1B	n/a
						HPS M*	WB	1B	AT	2P	4
						HPS N	BELOW	1A	AT	2A	3
						HPS O	BELOW	1P	AT	2P	3

*  students entered NZ directly from Samoa

This is baseline data I have collected for reading and writing. However my innovation will be centered around reading. It would be a bonus to see if there is any correlation between accelerated progress in reading and their writing (for this particular group). I am still refining the data and analysing the specifics. For example, this baseline data doesn't highlight vocabulary as needing improvement. I'll post about this again at a later date.

References

Ka Hikitia Documents

http://www.education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/overall-strategies-and-policies/the-maori-

education-strategy-ka-hikitia-accelerating-success-20132017/

Education Review Office, 2012

http://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/evaluation-at-a-glance-priority-learners-in-new-zealand-

schools/background/

How to add a 'voice over' to your class site

I am passionate about whānau engagement and have been thinking about different ways to get my class site into the homes of our whānau. I have decided to try a voice over method. 

In this video I explain how I envisage this happening and show you how to do the same on your own class site.

SparkMIT PLG @ Spark HQ

Welcome to my first official post as a Spark MIT recipient.  Today marks the day we all put a face to the name, a name to an inquiry and an inquiry to a clearly identified problem that is observable and measurable.

This process was completed as a group, beginning with introductions, hearing about each others strengths, a bit about ourselves and inquiries.  Juanita and Dorothy had an amazing set of probing questions that encouraged each one of us to zone in on our identified problem, the problem that fuels our inquiry. To some this may seem daunting, but in fact it is inspiring, thought provoking and comforting.  Yes comforting because it enables clarity and a clear direction of where to next (something we ensure all of our students have too).   Now for the nitty gritty... my inquiry.  

My inquiry is about ESOL students who are not achieving a normal rate of progress towards the national standard in reading.

My target group are Samoan students who are currently in Year 4 and Year 5. I have identified this target group through observation of running records and probe data from 2015. The data shows that decoding strategies are effective and in place but also highlights a lack of comprehension. The main areas being vocabulary and evaluation skills.

The evidence I will be using is reading data from 2015 and 2016. This data will consist of reading OTJ's and a running record or probe test for each student along with a breakdown of their comprehension. These tests will be administered each term to monitor progress in real time.

In addition to these I will also be using e-asTTle reading (formative), PAT reading (summative), blogs (monitor if vocabulary has improved) and the rate of progress for the 2015 cohort when compared with the 2016 cohort.

I would like to create a Samoan language resource site for my school, cluster and wider teaching community, to develop reading skills in a 1:1 digital learning environment.

Before I conclude this post I would like to express my gratitude and thanks to the wonderful Spark foundation team.   Andrew, Lynne, Mary and Sera you are phenomenal leaders in innovation and paving a way forward for many future generations to come.  Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the SparkMIT programme.

Class sites 2016

Tonight I stumbled across Matt Goodwin blog. It is a fantastic place to find tips and tricks for teachers who are in a digital setting. Tonight I reviewed one of his posts about this class site. He had created a screencastify about how his students navigate the site.

I thought it would be a great idea to make a screencastify to show the staff an example of how effective class sites can be and how user friendly they can be for our students.asil  I think this would be a great goal for 2016 as there is a lot of digital technology in school and it would be a waste if our sites were not user friendly for our learners.

This here is a screenshot of my comment on Matt’s blog. I thought it'd be a great piece of evidence to show that I'm growing my digital footprint and really put my name out there.

Yes, and...

Just a quick post today. I have finally set up class blogs for every student in my class (7 experts are already blogging). Anyway, it dawned on me, how much my mindset has changed!

EARLY TERM 2 
I recall speaking with James (Manaiakalani outreach facilitator) earlier this year.. Term 2 (I think) and discussing what he could expect to see in my class (e.g. no individual blogs). I asked about blogging at a year 3/4 level and James mentioned that their are very few Year 3 classes with individual blogs and that it would be ideal to have mine set up with their own blogs and ready for the following year. Deep down inside I was relieved, as I couldn't bare the thought of my class blogging and was mentally preparing myself for etting blogs set up and teaching my class how to log in, log out and access their own blogs.

EARLY TERM 3
Boom! I have 7 chromebook ninjas blogging already!

LATE TERM 3 / TERM 3 HOLIDAYS 
I have information about creating blogs, and as a result I have created a blog for each of my learners! The cherry on top is... I am excited about the challenge (my 'yesterday brain' was simply daunted by the thought of individual blogs).

Love reflecting without noticing, and then realising the gems and understandings that come from it.

                                                                  Image 1

References:

Image 1: Retrieved September 30, 2015 from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/01/30/how-improv-can-open-up-the-mind-to-learning-in-the-classroom-and-beyond/.  How Improv Can Open Up the Mind to Learning in the Classroom and Beyond. (n.d.).