Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

 A reflection on the year 2020 Did teaching practice change? What were the shifts in student learning? How do we know the shifts in teaching impacted the learning?

In less than a weeks time I will be launching into my reflections at Burst and Bubbles to talk about.  A sneak preview of my Burst and Bubbles for 2020. How I am using Learning intentions and Success Criteria The power of using  Teacher-created resources, including multi model texts  designed to support student reading and writing activities Ensuring the learning is visible and fluid through School Talk I will talk more in-depth about the images you see here at...

An observation of my writing lesson completed in September this year. Some insightful tips on setting learners up for success prompts to help gift language and build knowledge. Statements and comments show the scaffolding process to support learning.  Narrative notes Tawhiri-matea What words describe him? He is strong let's highlight  Power let’s highlight power yes it is a word that describes him He is forceful  Special a good one  Thrashes around the trees Thrashes was mis spelt  Give 2 mins sit with someone you don’t normally work with and take your buddy to find as many description words as possible Anita roved supported and timed  Did well in that two minutes great highlighting  What words really describe Tawhiri-matea?  Shared from pairs Clarity around vocabulary proud and pride word  What does he do with those 4 winds? Digging deeper than just the answer given   Special powers forceful etc affirming of all the contribution...

Some of the key changes in my teaching has been to create the authenticity of my learning design. Grabbing the situation and making the most of it. Covid Hit, forced lockdown, created an authentic and rich learning experience for writing. Below are some of the learners written reflections about the lockdown. This is evidence to show shifts in learners language development, chose of emotive language. A small sample of Learners Writing... "I had many yellow moments because I was having fun doing my art work at home. The blue times were sad because I missed my dad. My purple time was special because I got to spend time with my family". * * * "My days were colourful like a rainbow because sometimes my sister and I would fight. It made me red. Yellow was when I was jumping on my bed. I was green I was watching movies. My black times were when my sister was mean to me.  My blue time was nice because I got to get some seaweed from the beach". * * * "I was d...

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2021 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise Achievement Objective 3 Lif t the achievement in reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13 Evidence My noticings confirmed when completing a recent gap analysis in school talk progressions and Wolf Fisher that junior teachers challenges are in; Oral-rich’ literacy learning, and oral language capabilities Having a wide reading and writing (digital and print) Reading and writing links - The area I am interested in and want to investigate further. Fluency and automaticity Stonefields a need P Passion/expertise   Passionate in the area of literacy, I have experience across all primary year groups in literacy. I feel like I’ve spent some quality time and found an area of passion in the Junior area. I believe  my practise can help across all year groups....

Wow! What a year! A year of change, exploration and opportunities. Student voice is saying that the most effective tools and strategies for their writing is...the sharing of our success criteria , using  picture talk enable oral language opportunities, and writing frames eg words cards and other tools that  gift vocabulary.  Data shows through student voice, writing samples, Eastle Writing, Combi Tool results that learners struggle with what to do when in the learning pit.  With this in mind I continued to build on using the success criteria, using picture talk, relating the learning to rich authentic concepts of learning (local iwi stories) and gifting vocabulary through digital media, conversations, deliberate teaching practises.  Upon reflections and with changing the channel of teaching through distance learning I have made learning experiences hands on, about an experience and bringing pictures to life.  The images show how the learning design has cre...

Some key i nterventions to take place... Extra dosage in writing Benefits:  More milage in writing, one - on - one support, catering for needs and differentiating teaching  Peer up both Māori learners to collaborate   (mixed ability)        Benefits: Learners given high level learning opportunities that empower them to be successful. Student engagement in stimulating activities is critical for motivation, achievement, and progress. When students are given more advanced opportunities to learn, they can make more progress than they might previously have been thought possible. Motivation can come from collaborating from peers. Increasing Oral language capability through gifting vocabulary Benefits: Children who can articulate their words and thoughts clearly have an advantage in learning to read and write extending vocabulary to increase communication efficiency, and expressing self. 

Providing feedback for my learners by looking at learning gaps. School talk provides this function from learning gaps to learning design and differentiated guided teaching sessions.   

  How Maori Learners can articulate through talk and conversation by building their language capability of what, how and why they are learning in writing? My teaching practise is evidence of how I am unpacking my Inquiry Goal. Reflections are to continue with differentiating learning for our student support learners.  A good range of learning experiences linked to the writing process, Stonefields School learning process works in conjunction to manaiakalani's learn, create, share philosophy. 

  I have created a video explaining the slide show of how to use the strategy bookmark. This can assist our learners, parents, teacher aides to work through strategies of when children are in the learning pit during when they are reading. There is a correlation between reading tricky words and writing them too. By learners using this strategy will also support our learners during the writing process and coming across words that they may find tricky to write. I have shared this wider with colleagues as it is important to share practise that is working and creates consistency through out the year levels. 

Padlet's have created opportunities for learning to shared, for whānau to celebrate success  I encourage you to go to my learning padle t TWO from this second lockdown 12th of August 2020. Such rich learning linked to our concept of 'Our Local Iwi Stories'. A Junior team's conceptual understanding has been through Māori myths and legends. After our first lockdown on 25th of March 2020 the learning has continued to flourished, adapted, new possibilities and new learnings shown our learning padlet ONE