Where am I up to as an "Action Researcher"

 Yesterday at our Kāhui Ako (CoL teachers) meeting, Russell Burt shared a thought invoking message which really supported pulliing me back into the reality that research as a teacher isn't going to look the same as research you may do in a university. We are, what he called, "Action Researchers." It is important in our jobs as teachers that if we find something that is working, we don't withhold this from other children (as you might do with a 'control' group in other forms of research). If something works, why wouldn't we give the opportunity to ALL students!? 

I am in a position where, since I am not in a classroom, I am not in a position to see a whole class of children. However, I am seeing a group of 14 children for an hour a week. These children are all getting equal opportunities in what they get when they come to see me.

Russell's korero made me ask myself whether what I am doing is beneficial to the children in front of me. My answer to this question is, YES. I believe that what I am doing is supporting these children with confidence and acceleration of their maths learning. I am using a strategy which is known to support acceleration for children in reading in our Manaiakalani schools: Mileage. Mileage in reading refers to giving the children lots of opportunities to read. Mileage in the maths sense, and with my inquiry group looks like the students being given lots of opportunities to apply their understanding in a variety of ways.

Is 'believing' this really enough? No. As teachers, we still need evidence to show that what we are doing is benefiting the children. In our meeting yesterday, I realised that I had such a focus on ensuring I had good pre and post data, that I hadn't put much thought into the formative assessment and data gathering throughout the process.

So how am I going to do this?

From now, I am going to make sure I gather up the work that each child is doing from week-to-week. This will support me in knowing whether there is an improvement in how students are solving the problems and showing their working compared to earlier in the intervention.