I have begun to graph data on children's self confidence.
Feeling Listened To:
Speaking my Thinking
Kia ora, my name is Hannah West. I am the Creative Space and Extension teacher at Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. I began teaching at Pt England School in 2016 and am now in my 7th year here. During this time, I have been in the Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy, been a Manaiakalani-Google Class OnAir teacher, a Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher and a within-school Kahui ako (CoL) teacher. In 2022, I continue as a within-school CoL teacher.
I have begun to graph data on children's self confidence.
Feeling Listened To:
I have begun gathering some preliminary data for my target group of children. These children were selected due to being at the 'reading to learn' phase of their reading development. I have selected children whose reading ages are at 9 years and above as these children will be required to read from a script which changes on a daily basis.
Using my knowledge of these children as well as asking for teacher recommendations, I have selected a group of children who are noted as lacking some confidence or oral language capabilities, despite their confidence in reading and writing. These children are also children who show potential in developing their confidence. This information was found through anecdotal notes from previous teachers, conversations with teachers as well as my own knowledge of these children.
I asked these children to fill in a questionnaire about their own confidence and communication abilities.
I colour coordinated responses from this survey to create a picture of self confidence.
Example 1:
Example 2:
From this survey, I have created a target group of students. Students in the target group are children who scored orange and red across a number of their responses.
Their responses sat alongside the responses of a group of children who demonstrate strong confidence, oral language and communication. These children will not be in my target group as they always have strong self confidence. This will be some of my baseline data which will be compared at the end of the year.
Once I have found all children in my target group, I will use a standardised self efficacy test to which will be used to compare the responses of individuals in this target from the beginning to the end of the year.
Today I have begun creating a self assessment tool to gather evidence from the perspective of my target group of children. I have broken the assessment tool into confidence, communication and oral language. I will assess the children on this this term and will then reassess them at the end of the year.
I am SO excited to be participating in Te Ahu o te Reo Māori this year! I had the introductory zoom session on Sunday morning and was buzzing about the course at the end of it.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, my data collection will be focussed on confidence, communication and oral language. So how will I assess these three elements to create a profile of learners?
PAT Vocabulary Test: This will give me an idea of the children who need support in developing their vocabulary knowledge.
Observation: I have emailed the team 4 teachers to ask them to observe and recommend children who could benefit from being a videographer, photographer, presenter or editor for the news to support development of confidence, communication or oral language.
Reading Age: The idea is that the children who are presenters for the news should be reading at 10 years or above. This is because the news requires children to read from a script fluently.
Student Voice: Asking the child about their confidence, communication and oral language and about the their speaking and confidence at home.
Whanau input: Gathering data through conversations with parents about their child and their confidence, communiation and oral language at home.
PENN episodes: Comparison of children in term 1 compared to term 4, presenting on the news. How have they improved? This could be measured using a rubric.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have had some awesome examples where children have used film/videography as a medium for their learning.
These first two examples were learning experiences led by our Sport Coordinator, Sally Va'afusuaga. Sally worked with our 2022 House Captains to create these movies for the school. These are clear examples of film being used for the teaching and developing of confidence, communication and oral language.
The first movie was also edited by Finau and Jade, two Year 8 House Captains.
This next example was created when our year 5s & 6s had their fun day in place of the usual year 5&6 camp. I had some time where I took two keen year 4 children out to try out the video cameras. This is an example of developing confidence but also communication as the children had to ask questions to learn more about using the cameras.
These are just three examples where tauira are being given opportunities to use film as a medium for learning, developing confidence, communication and oral language.
How can I develop more confidence through PENN and how can I encourage more of this sort of learning to be happening through the classroom?2
At the beginning of the year, I sent an email out to our teachers at Pt England School. A large element of the Pt England Network News is sharing learning from across the school. During lockdown last year, it was challenging to expect each teacher in the school to do this. I would sift through the children's blogs to find great learning examples and share these daily on the news. Now we are back at school, it is important that I place that responsibility back onto the teachers so that each class and the tauira in that class have their learning showcased in some way.
Here is the email I sent out to the teachers to encourage this: