Spiral of Inquiry

What?
For ELT today we shared our reflections on our collaborative spiral of inquiry about Maths problem solving.

So what?

We noticed that learners were able to work with other learners in a small group but couldn’t when we first started Problem Solving. The following reflection shows our Key learning as individuals, Key learning as a collaborative team, have we made enough of a difference, how do we know if we made a difference and what is next for me, my team and my learners.

1. Key learning as individuals (Priscilla)

• Keep problems short and succinct
• Give learners time to complete their task
• Open ended problems has allowed for more learner voice
• Allowed for learners to extend or simplify problems
• Kagan (alphabet groups)
• Logical way for our learners to attack problem solving

2. Key learning as a collaborative team (Radha)

• Learning from other LC’s
• Learning how to teach with different strategies
• Less time to design
• Sharing the workload
• Ensuring that the entry points are effective for the ability of the learners

3. Have you made enough of a difference? How do you know? (Talia)

• See if learners are able to do a problem solving task individually
• We enabled the learners to work together more both gender biased, ability and culturally.
• We’ve provided real life contexts for them to apply their knowledge and strategy.
• We’ve supported the ELL learners by personalising the delivery of our lesson by providing materials, using visuals and unpacking the problem
• We provided opportunities for them to present and demonstrate their learning in small group and whole habitat situations.

4. What is next? For you? Your team? Your learners? (John)

• Set up some tasks for learners to solve and see what learners will do
• Ways to measure learners understanding and individually
• PMI
• Recording conversation
• Ensure that we give them the knowledge they require to help them access the problems
• More and varied ways for them to understand and present their learning i.e. blog, learning pathway, response partner.
• Trialling out this structure in other parts of our curriculum

Now what?
I will continue to reflect on how I teach problem solving in Maths and use this reflection to help me to continue to do what is working and change what is not working.

Managing behaviours and restorative justice

What?
Managing behaviours and restorative justice

So what? Consistent application of restorative practice in school results in:

• a calmer school environment, with less classroom disruption and more time for teaching
• an increase in the engagement and learning of students in the classroom
• growth in relational and problem-solving skills, both for adults and students across the school community
• improvements in attitudes and relationships across the whole school community
• a consistent best-practice approach across the whole school community that aligns with the school’s shared values.

Now what? My aim is to:

• Provide ‘consistent’ best-practice techniques to restore relationships when things go wrong.
• Build and maintain positive, respectful relationships between staff and learners.

Understanding Behaviour - Responding Safely

He moana pukepuke e ekengia e te waka

A choppy sea can be navigated

What?

The training covers how to understand the ‘why’ of my own behaviour and the behaviour of the students I work with, so I can respond constructively to them.

So what?

Physical restraint should only be used if there is danger to the learner or others around them.

Take care of yourself first before you help someone else. Heath, the principal, to fill in the form and send it to MOE. Seclusion is a NO, NO. We work towards de-escalation.

We have a range of learners in an educational setting. They are expected to get along with other learners and teachers. We need to build positive relationships - what we say and how we say it helps to develop the relationship.

We need to understand why the behaviour occurs- it isn’t always obvious. It would be good to have perceptions & what the child is bringing. Relationships are also important. Looking for signs to know if the child is angry is important.

It is important to understand yourself and work towards understanding others. Think about "What’s gonna trigger my anxiety and how others perceive me."

If a child refuses to do something we need to think about why the child is refusing and we need to have a talk about it. Find our why & try to work it out together.

The student & staff will experience stress responses.

Adrenaline helps us to react faster. Cortisol helps our body to survive the response to be alert. A person in a heightened stage will trigger quickly.

As an educator I should understand Managing safety & create an environment where all learners can learn.

I should spend more time on teaching rather than managing behaviour.

How can we create a safe environment? If I experience a Personality clash with a learner I can let another LC deal with that. I can explicitly teach & reinforce behaviours I want to see. I will reward learners when I see change in behaviours.

Come down to their level. Give them space. Turn to your side. Invading personal space will increase anxiety.

There are 6 stages in the escalation.

1. Ready to learn

2. Out of sorts

3. Escalating

4. Out of control

5. Calming down

6. Ready to learn

Now what?

‘He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.’

‘What is the most important thing of the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.’

Dual language books

What?

For iExplore in Term 3, 2017 a group of learners worked with me on exploring their culture. As part of their learning they created a dual language book with information about their culture in English as well as their first language.

So what?

Dual language books have been designed to help children learn to speak, read and write English well, by building on the strengths of their strongest language to do this.

Children start school with different strengths in language:

Some children may speak their first language strongly, but their English language may not be quite so strong.

Some children may speak English well and be able to understand their heritage language but not speak it strongly.

Others may be able to speak some of their own language and some English, but not be strong in either. 

Now what?

When children create dual language books they are meant to take them home and read them to family members, in their strongest language. That could be their first language or English. 

My taking action individual plan

What?
My Taking Action - Individual Plan

So what?
Our HUNCH is: ….If we co-teach mixed ability groups in Problem Solving then we will be cultivating a Utopic Problem Solving culture for our learners in order to contextualise maths.

My taking action plan is to use the Five practices model for effectively using student
responses in whole-class discussions that can potentially make teaching with high-level tasks more manageable for me.


Now what?
Anticipating learner responses 
Anticipating learner responses is quite useful to me as it help me to think about strategies that learners could may use to solve the problems. It also gets me to think about some misconceptions that the learners could have when solving the problems.

My next step: Anticipating solutions requires that I have to do the problem as many ways as I can by considering how students might mathematically interpret the  problem.


Monitoring engagement
Monitoring student responses involves paying close attention to students’ mathematical thinking and solution strategies as they work. I found that the more able learners are generally more engaged and the less able learners in the group sometimes are not so engaged.

Next step: One way that I can monitor student engagement is by circulating around the classroom while students work either individually or in small groups. According to Lampert (2001, p. 140), paying close attention to what students do as they work makes it possible “to use my observations to decide what and who to make focal” during the discussion that follows.

Selecting learners to present
I find that sharing misconceptions can also be useful as this may help learners to learn from their mistakes. When selecting learners I try to select learners who use different strategies

Next step: I should find a way to keep track of which students present their work, so that all students have the opportunity to share their thinking publicly.

Sequencing learner responses
I sometimes start from the lowest strategy and go up to the highest strategy. Sometimes I start from the misconception or at other times I may end with the misconception.

Next step: I might want to have a student present the strategy used by the majority before one that only a few students used.

Connecting responses with key mathematical ideas
As the learners share their strategy I make encourage them to make connections with the different strategies.

Next step: I will  help students draw connections between their solutions and other students’ solutions as well as the key mathematical ideas in the lesson.

Reference
Lampert, Magdaline (2001). Teaching Problems and the Problems of Teaching. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Universal design for learning

What? 

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a research-based framework that helps teachers plan learning to meet the diverse and variable needs of all students. It supports schools to realise the vision of The New Zealand Curriculum.

So what?

This guide introduces the UDL approach and illustrates the UDL Guidelines in an Aotearoa New Zealand context. As a staff, we explored how hidden barriers to learning can be identified and minimised. In our learning habitat teams, we identified how to ensure all our learners can access learning in ways that work for them.

Now what?

LH1 identified that the potential barriers for learning was that some learners are unable to decode the text

The strategies that we developed to reduce barriers using the UDL checkpoint was:

Checkpoint: Representation

In order to: Ensure learners of all abilities are able to engage in set task

The learning coach could: Use short video clips, Pictures - use visuals, Act it out, Make it - using play dough

Spiral of inquiry: Learning phase

What?

Taking Action requires that we reflect on what we have noticed in Scanning

and Focussing, what we know about our learners, what we have learned in the Learning phase about our hunch and we identify a course of action.  

So what?

We first had to do some readings about encouraging mathematical discussions.

Our task was to finish the LEARNING Slide for our team, collaboratively and with more detail.  Then we began to map out our action plan to test our HUNCH.   

Now what?

I will really challenge myself, my approaches and disrupt my thinking to see if I can make an impact to my learners as I explore my LH hunch which is:

If we co-teach mixed ability groups in Problem Solving then we will be cultivating a Utopic Problem Solving culture for our learners in order to contextualise maths.

Mana Maori Mana Pasifika

What? 
For ELT today we discussed what evidence we have in our learning habitat to display bi-cultural awesomeness

So what? 
Our learning habitat had the following goals:
- Display current phrases and words

- Days of the week in te reo and Numbers in te reo

- Sing songs at the end of the day in a variety of languages.

- Display commands in te reo

- Ensure all learners have their mihi/pepeha on their Learning Pathway

Now what?

We have a wall with basic Maori commands and a display of the days of the weeks but still need to put up the numbers

We are working on a Habitat waiata - He Honore

We also need to check that all learners have their mihi/ pepeha on their learning pathways.

Supporting English Language learners

What? 

Today for ELT we learnt about what we could do to support English Language learners

So what? 
We discussed a reading called 'Assisting students who are new learners of English' by Dr Jannie van Hees. Some questions that we asked and answered were:

• What are we expected to teach these learners?
• Where did we start in English?
• What programmes are available to show leaning sequences appropriate to new learner's needs?

Now what?
I will need to do the following if I get a new learner of English into my classroom:

• have as clear an idea as possible of their strengths and gaps
• provide meaningful, relevant and needed language and learning opportunities
• have a clear idea and pathway of how to provided for these needs in an organised and informed way.

PB4L

What?  

For ELT today we focussed on PB4L - Being # Oresome 

So what?

Part 1 - In mixed habitat teams, we discussed Learner Engagement, Habitat Climate and Organisation, Positive Relationships, Fair and Consistent Responses. We were given 15 minutes to read, analyse, discuss, relate, feedback and 10mins to present our findings. I worked on slides 3, 4 and 5 on learner engagement.

PART 2 - In Habitat Teams we used the ‘Inclusive Learning Support Model’ and discussed ‘Step 2’ in relation to our habitat and learners. We were given 15 minutes to use today’s discussion to craft an intervention for our habitat. We decided to model the expectation around the tambourine being used in the habitat.

Now what?

We will go back to reteach, making it fun by adding a timer, next stage is to up the anti eg. sometime today. We will also get the learners to recognise and share. Learners who are doing the right thing get 2 tokens.

Inclusive learning

What? 

Inclusive learning

So what?

For ELT today we discussed the following:

1. What does inclusion mean to us as educators? Compare with MoE.

2. How are we inclusive in our daily practice at OrmPS?

3. Success for all - What does this look like & feel like?

4. Focus for Term 3’s learning…Using innovative & flexible practices to meet the diverse needs of all learners

- Universal Design for Learning

5. Making a referral for learning or behavioural support

Now what?

I will use the universal design for learning to help me to plan learning to meet the diverse and variable needs of all learners.

Teaching practices

What?

For ELT today we had to think about what we want to be visible to anyone regarding each statement, big idea what do:

educators do

learners do

ILE does

So What?

We unpacked:

#1 Being Oresome: How we live and breath the 4Cs through our Matrix including acknowledgements and consequences.

#2 Collaborative: Our educator learning design and delivery is intentionally shared and responsive.

#3  Personalised: Learning is driven by OTJs including academic evidence, cultural background, personality types, learner agency.

#4 Innovative: How we maximise and are responsive to the curriculum, our learning spaces and teaching strengths.

#5 Learner Voice: Learners can articulate what they are doing, why, and where to next. They are actively engaged in their learning choices and journey.

Now what?

We should ensure that our teaching inspires learners and actively-engages them through meaningful and purposeful contexts in order for learners to facilitate their own learning journeys.

We need to personalise teaching and learning that targets each learner's’ individual needs through differentiation, high expectations and clear success criteria.

We should be a school that provides many opportunities for extracurricular interests to be explored.

We should do Deliberate Acts of Teaching (DATs) and learning, in both group and independent situations, that shows progress by all learners.

We should create an environment that offers ample opportunities for collaboration, choice/ student-agency and curiosity-driven learning within a range of learning settings.