Tuesday 5 May 2020

Critical reflection on my inquiry so far

1. Have I used a range of sources/ tools/ evidence about the students to understand their learning in a really rich and detailed way? Do these include: standardised assessments, student voice, whānau voice?

No, I have not yet used a range of sources/tools/evidence about the students to understand their learning (around my inquiry) in a really rich and detailed way. As a result of going into lockdown, I did not get to the point of assessing all the children I had hoped to. I managed to undertake a running record on one child from the group of children I'd hoped to follow. I did manage to gather preliminary data on children's levels of critical thinking in a blog comment however I had wanted reading data to support this. I did observe critical thinking in group work however I did not create a tool to formatively assess this.

2. Do I understand their strengths at least as much as I understand their areas for development?

Yes. I have data to support those children who also have a strength in writing and those that have more difficulty with writing. For some children, I have a record of their ability to show a level of critical thinking through speech.

3. Have I developed a strong profile of their achievement based on sound theories from a range of relevant sources?

I feel confident with some of the research that I have begun looking into on the topic of critical thinking, in particular causal reasoning. It was fantastic having the opportunity to go to the seminar by Richard Anderson on causal reasoning to learn more about how this looks. 

4. Discuss THREE measures you could use pre- and post- to compare students’ learning before and after your intervention.

Initially (before lockdown), I was confident with the pre and post measures I could use to compare students' learning before and after intervention. These were:

- Running records
- Blog comments (assessed using the critical thinking rubric)
- Looking at blog posts &/or easttle writing and assessing the amount of causal reasoning language used (e.g. because, as, so).




This could still be possible, except the running record data won't be attainable until the children return to school (from being in lockdown).

5. How has distance learning made a difference to my inquiry?

Distance learning has caused a challenge to my current inquiry, mainly because I cannot attain the running record data I hadn't got yet and difficulties around explicitly teaching reading whilst distance learning. Initially, my focus was on teaching the critical thinking through reading groups. As a result, I am going to have to reassess what my inquiry is for the year.

6. What opportunities have presented themselves during this time to innovate and collect evidence of students’ learning?

I have found that 100% of the children from this reading group have been present online throughout lockdown. As a result, there is a lot of online data on their blogs which I could use to develop a preliminary picture of the situation. I have seen all children on google meets. I am now back at school teaching in a bubble of 9 children. Most of these children I am teaching are year 2s. One of the children is from my class.

I had some thoughts about how I could inquire into the development of critical thinking throughout the year levels and the opportunities to support teaching critical thinking that have arisen throughout lockdown and teaching distantly. 

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