Term 2, 2023 Reflection

This term for my week of running assembly I had to run a Powhiri. I ensured I was organised by having notes so I would remember what needed to be said. I feel my pronunciation and phrasing went well despite internal nervousness. I met with Raechel who guided me on some corrections that I needed to make beforehand. 

In the weeks leading up to it, I had practiced daily in class, so it flowed quite well. I didn't feel lost at all and was able to look up and make eye contact with students, etc without losing where I was at. I think this shows my developing understanding of what the protocols and tikanga are. Therefore displaying growth in my capabilities and comfort in speaking te reo māori (Standard 4: Learning Focused Culture).

How things are going so far...

So far I have included more reo into my planning. I have mainly done this by altering my planning to have common classroom phrases and questions as part of our daily routine. It has become more habitual for both me and the students which in turn has created a more natural delivery of these 'mini-lessons'. My confidence has grown quite a bit due to this (Standard Building Relationships: 

The main area I have changed thus far is the Classroom Screen which is on display most of the day. I have incorporated greetings, asking the day of the week, and asking about the weather. When the students answer the question I type it in the text boxes and/or drag the corresponding images to the correct places.

Another area I am utilising is our behaviour rewards system Class Dojo. There is an award value for students using te reo in normal classroom situations. They are awarded 5 points for 'korero'.

Professional Growth Cycle 2023

The focus for my Professional Growth Cycle for 2023 is to integrate more te reo Māori and tikanga Māori into my classroom programme (Standard 1: Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership. Practice and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori). The reasoning behind this is for implementing the strategy ‘Building an inclusive, culturally responsive classroom environment’. (Standard 4: Learning Focused CultureCreating an environment where learners can be confident in their identities, languages, cultures and abilities).

I feel that incorporating, for example, classroom communication practices that include te reo Māori, will help to include and engage all students, and build mutual respect and connection with my students and their whanau (Standard 3: Professional Relationships. Engage in reciprocal, collaborative learning-focused relationships with learners, family and whānau).

So far this year, as a syndicate we decided to have our daily taumata together. This was in part a way to grow and bond as a team but also as a way to build relationships across the classes. The students and teachers who have a stronger understanding of culture and protocols can share what they know and support others.

My question at the moment is how do I measure whether this will be successful or not? I can collect assessment data from Te Reo lessons to see if there is an improvement in students' ability to use the instructions, etc. I can use IRIS to video myself to show any growing confidence in the delivery of lessons. I will post regular reflections to share how things are going.

https://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/supporting-akonga-maori/consider-ways-to-integrate-te-reo-maori-and-tikanga-maori-into-your-classroom-programme/

Guided reading session (with other students added to group)

 

For this guided reading session, my focus was to include other students, not from the cohort. This allowed me to see if the original group would model extended discussion behaviours with other peers.

Also, I wanted to guide my deliberate acts of teaching by using the teacher support materials. I hope it will become more of a natural progression as time passes.

Google form for getting feedback from cohort

I created a Google Form to get feedback from the students involved about how they felt about extended discussions and how it impacted their learning.

Here are the responses from some of the students involved.

Term 4 data and update

Recent assessments have shown an increase in all cohort students' reading levels. Comparing terms 1 and 4 shows a significant jump of 7 to 8 reading levels. There has also been an increase in the stanine level achieved in the most recent PAT Comprehension assessment with some of the cohort.

Guided reading behaviours have made some positive changes too. For example, the students are reading questions more carefully than they used to. They are not rushing to complete work as they used to, therefore taking their time to understand the text on a deeper level. 

This week during guided reading sessions I noticed if I use wait time the students tend to extend their discussions without prompt. 

Revisiting Extended Discussions

After a really busy term, we have finally gotten back into extended discussions. What I have noticed is that the students needed quite a lot of prompting and scaffolding. It appears they have forgotten some of the strategies we were using.

I think what would be best is to go back to revisit what extended discussions and reciprocal teaching are, to remind the students in hopes to get it happening again. We need it to become a naturally occurring strategy in order for them to benefit the most with their reading comprehension and higher-order thinking. Using these strategies will in turn support them in making connections by applying their knowledge to real-world scenarios.

"Teachers who plan to teach and extend students' higher order thinking skills promote growth for their high-ability students. Higher order thinking is often used to refer to 'transfer', 'critical thinking' and 'problem solving.' These can be defined as:

transfer - the student's ability to apply knowledge and skills to new contexts (for example, a student in year 5 learning about fractions applied her knowledge to a real world scenario)
critical thinking - the ability to reason, reflect, and decide what to believe or do next
problem solving - meeting a goal that cannot be met with a memorised solution (Brookhart, 2010, 2011)."

(https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/high-ability-toolkit/Pages/higher-order-thinking.aspx)