Where to for next year?

 In 2022, I inquired into developing confidence using videography roles within the Pt England Network News programme. There were some great things I learned through this inquiry, particularly the value roles like videographers can provide to develop confidence in some children. Going forward into 2023, I want to continue to utilise roles within the Pt England Network News programme to develop confidence in children. I will continue to think about what the role of videographers may look like and add in more opportunities for children to do movie editing. I will work through challenges. One of the big things that played on my mind during 2022 was that I was very conscious not to have the same children out of class too often to video at sports tournaments as, even though there is huge value in leadership, creativity, problem solving and making decisions when out as videographers, I didn't want their role as videographers to hinder their progress in classroom subjects.

Next year, as I continue as a within school Kāhui Ako teacher, I want to look into a very different challenge. I want to use learning opportunities provided in the creative space to look at developing persistence and success in children who find focus and success a regular challenge in their schooling. How this looks, I will spend some time developing over the first term of 2023, so watch this space!

Making my own Curiosity cards

In response to learning about the Fertile Question cards (Curiosity Cards) by the National Library which support my inquiry focus and implementation this year, I have created my own curiosity cards around our Term 4 topic about Marine Biology. 

The children responded really well to these cards and were encouraged into deep conversation around the topic. 

In a future post, I will share some of the responses I have got from the first of the curiosity cards in this pack.

Fertile Questions and the National Library Curiosity Cards

While looking into resources for term 4, I found that the National Library had these fantastic cards which have been created around the Fertile Questions model by Yoram Harpaz and Adam Lefstein. 

What are fertile questions?

Fertile questions have a number of characteristics. They are open, undermining, rich, connected, charged and practical. You can read the definitions of these characteristics here.

The idea behind this is exactly what I have been aiming to achieve in my inquiry this year so I was very excited to find this awesome resource backed by research. 

The National Library provide two sets of Curiosity Cards based around the history of Aotearoa. Each card includes a photograph or image with a short title. Below is the template for creating your own Curiosity cards. You can find this on the links to the pre-made Curiosity cards. 

Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia - Encounters 250

Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga

I am really looking foward to using these cards with my year 7 & 8 extension class in term 4. I am also looking forward to beginning to create my own curiosity cards going forward. This will be a skill that will take some developing but I am excited for the potential of using them in the extension classes.

Lockdown: August - September 2021

We have spent most of this last term in lockdown due to Covid-19. During my time working from home, I have been responsible for the continuation of PENN, our Pt England Network News. I have been really fortunate to have an amazing team of children working with me to make this happen. Daily email correspondence with the children has been essential. Rather than me selecting which children are going to present each day, I have made it the responsibility of the children to commit by putting their name down to present each day. This has been really successful and there have only been a few occasions when I've had to follow up on children who have forgotten or find replacements when I can't get hold of someone.

Here is an example of the finished product:

You can see that another big part of my job from home has been to put together examples of learning that have been happening at home during lockdown. It has been great to share so much on PENN each day and to document this time in our lives! As well as looking through many children's blogs myself, I have received regular emails from some teachers with children's work they want me to share but I have also received emails from children who are proud of something they have done and want some of their learning shared. Celebration of this has been a huge part of what I have been working on from home. 

In addition to producing the news each day, I have taken my year 5 & 6 and year 7 & 8 extension classes weekly and have run Creative Space meets each week for Team 4 (year 5 & 6) and for Team 3 (year 3 & 4). On Fridays, I have run an elective class for Team 5 (year 7 & 8).

Year 7 & 8 Controversial Topic Brainstorm: Which country should some Olympic athletes compete for? Click on the link to see the children's work for one of our google meets.

I have developed a number of lessons to support children to be Creative in their learning at home:

This activity was designed for year 3 & 4 children working on Scratch. Here are some examples of children who completed the challenges from this lesson:

Hunter

- Challenge 1

- Challenge 2

- Challenge 3

- Challenge 4

Jackson

- Challenge 1

- Challenge 2

- Challenge 3

- Challenge 4

- Challenge 5

- Challenge 6

For Māori Language week, I ran a Scratch session on creating a digital pepeha/mihi. I ran this with both Team 3 and Team 4. This was a model I provided to the children for this activity:

The week after this, with the Team 3 children, I introduced the extensions that came on Scratch. Some of the children who had been doing lots of Scratch from home were really interested in this. Here is a project which Jaxon made to show how he can make his sprites draw in Scratch.

With Team 2 (year 2 children), I took google meets for each of the classes where I taught them how to do Stop Motion Animation. 

I created this 'How to' Video to support the children (and teachers) in a rewindable way:

Here are some of the fantastic finished products by children in year 2 and 3:

Tomorrow I will run this session with Team 1 (year 1 children). I will also run it with Team 3 (year 3s and 4s) and will include support to children on chrome books to teach them how they can do Stop Motion in google slides.

Restating my Inquiry Question and Chain of Events

We are now half way through the year. In this post, I am going to restate my inquiry question to ensure I am still on track with my inquiry focus this year.

Inquiry Question: How can I change my teaching to support oral language progression towards the level of language which children can comprehend when reading?

Inquiry Goals: To improve oral language.

To reduce the disparity between the level of oral language and vocabulary used and the level of language and vocabulary they can read and recognise in written texts. To increase confidence when speaking and presenting.

Challenge: There is a disparity between the level of oral language and vocabulary which the year 5-6 extension children use and the level of language and vocabulary they can read and recognise in written texts.

Hypothesis: Giving children many opportunities to speak in front of each other (through sharing and presenting their ideas and learning within a small and a larger group), with the support of prompts and scaffolds will improve their confidence to speak and therefore improve their use of oral language.

Implementation of a new tool into my practice

This term, I have begun implementing my new tool for the year 5&6 extension class. Using a range of conversational and discussion prompts from online, I have made a set of speaking prompts for the children. During each session with me, the children will be given a laminated card with a prompt. Their job is to respond to the work from the session using the prompt they have been given. This could be in response to a video they have watched, a discussion point or a text they have read, for example. 

From today, I would like to start giving them their prompt at the beginning of the session so they have a longer amount of time to prepare their response. We will finish each session 10 minutes before the end of the day so the children can share their responses. 

The initial implementation of this tool has been really successful. The children find the prompts useful and they appear much more confident when they have the prompt to support them in speaking and presenting. Here are copies of the prompts:

I have had discussions with a year 2 teacher at school who really liked the idea and thought her year 2 children could benefit from a similar approach. This began me thinking about how we could adapt the design for different age groups.

Student Voice: The Concept Box (Worley)

Today I gathered some student voice data in a google form about learning using 'The Concept Box' by Peter Worley. Below are the results from this. I have highlighted key words that were mentioned.

1. Explain what you have to do in this type of learning.

Key words from responses:
- Learn
- Words [Vocabulary]
- Making sense [Comprehension]
- Describe, explain
- Talk [Converse/Discuss]
- Think

2. How does this way of learning help you?

Key words from responses:
- Learn
- Words [Vocabulary]
- Listen
- Describe
- Understand [Comprehension]
- Deeper thinking [Critical thinking]

3. What do you get out of this way of learning? (Tick boxes)

Most popular responses:

- Introduced to new words (5/5 responses)
- Summarising - explaining the ideas in a text using a small number of words (5/5 responses)
- Adding more detail to my or others ideas (4/5 responses)
- Confidence (4/5 responses)
- Sharing ideas (4/5 responses)

What might this mean?

The children are implicitly aware that they are critically thinking. This is clear through the children's responses to their thoughts around the process of learning using 'The Concept Box' (Worley). Responses which include the concept of having to listen, explain, learn new vocabulary, making sense and thinking deeper suggest they are aware they are learning to think critically.

This is really positive for going forward with a focus on critical thinking. The next step will be to analyse the children's online blog posts and/or comments to see if this level of critical thinking is also visible in their online blogging. I then need to ask the question as to why or why not it is present in their online blogging. 

The Concept Box - Session 3

Text: The Patience of Trees (Once upon an If, by Peter Worley, page 118-122).

During the free speech section of the comprehension stage of 'The Concept Box,' the children talked about freedom to do things. River - a statement was made about the river not being able to choose when to do things - Is this freedom?

During concept fishing, these words were brainstormed regarding the story:

Control
Weather
Determination
Freedom
Unfair
Happiness
Jealous
Wisdom
Mather-nature
Believing
Possibilities
Problems
Wishing
Movement
Gust
Friendship
Ability
First step
Misfortune
Courage
Confidence
Strength

During concept funnelling, the children reduced these words to the following words:

- Control - this was removed because they can't control themselves. It goes with freedom. The ones who were 'free' also were being controlled. What does this mean?
- Happiness
- Friendship
- Ability- isn't this a bit like control and freedom?
- Courage
- Confidence
- Strength - get rid of
- Determination - because little tree tried to get out when he had no hydration. Should be cut as was only in one part of the story.

Finally, as the children explored central concepts, the narrowed the above words down to these final words. Note: They added 'control' back in. A lot of the discussion revolved around the face that the characters in the story who appeared to have freedom were in fact being controlled. The word 'potential' was also added in to summarise a number of the words decided upon during concept funnelling.

- Control-freedom
- Potential (decided that covered ability, courage, confidence, determination)

The Concept Box - Session 2

Text: Matilda, the Fireless Dragon (Once upon an If, by Peter Worley, page 92).

In today's session of 'The Concept Box' by Peter Worley, these are the words the children reached during the concept funnelling time. For some words, I have made notes with children's responses, comments or arguments.

 
Bravery - dragon was brave to fight the water monster. King was brave to ask dragon to help. I don't think he was brave to fight the monster. Dragon tricked the water monster. The princess was the brave one as she went to the dragon in the first place.
Stereotype - plays a big part in the story. Dragon didn't breathe fire but villagers believed he did.
Manipulation - I would say trick. | But trick is like manipulation.
Ignorant -
Slay
Annoying - not part of the story. | Only describes a character. |

During the exploration of central concepts, one of the children added in the word, 'unique.' His explanation for this was that she (the dragon) was unique because she didn't breathe fire. Also, the werewolf didn't have teeth so was also unique. Unique is like a stereotype. The children discussed how they are opposite.

Through doing a 'Concept Box' session once a week, I am noticing that the children are extremely capable of thinking for themselves and pulling deeper ideas and concepts out of the texts they read independent of the teacher. This is really positive as I develop the learning programme for these children who are reading to learn.

Manaiakalani Create Staff Meeting

Several weeks ago, we had a Manaiakalani Create Staff Meeting. During this meeting, we each got to attend two workshops about creating digitally. Danni Stone and I ran a workshop on creating a times table quiz using scratch.

Coding is great in maths because of computational thinking - a skill that’s in both the maths and digital technologies curriculum. Creating a maths quiz in scratch is a great way to empower the students, encouraging sharing of learning and ako (teaching others).

Learning from this workshop (or these slides below) could be used by teachers to create a quiz as an independent task for the children to work on OR a task where the children create the game.

This was a great opportunity to share some knowledge, learn from others and to show some of the learning from the classroom.

Here are the slides from our workshop:

How am I going to monitor my teaching and the children's learning?

Task: Write a reflection in which you summarise your main learning about your teaching and next steps. This will prepare you to design an intervention next time.

Hypothesis: A focus on critical thinking and causal reasoning when responding to texts will support increased levels of critical thinking and ability to create causal links in online written interactions with others for year 5 children reading between 10 and 12 years.

Based on the main learnings from observations of my teaching as well as articles by Richard Anderson that I have read, I created the following monitoring spreadsheet. Once I implement the intervention, this will allow me to efficiently keep track of children's levels of critical thinking and my teaching without taking away from the lesson. I will respond with a drop down response each week.  I have also created a tab on this same spreadsheet for my teaching, focusing on areas which I need to adapt, based on observations of my teaching.

Moving into Remote Learning

A week ago, I arrived at school to a class of 7 children. At 2:00pm that same day, we had heard that New Zealand was moving into level 3 of the Covid-19 response and schools would be shut to children by the end of the day. We are fortunate to be a 1:1 chromebook school for all children year 4 to 8 but we still had the challenge of getting these chromebooks home before New Zealand moved into level 4 on the Wednesday night. We managed it!

On Wednesday at 9am, we moved into our first day of remote learning, starting with a google hangout (also known as google meet) with our class. We pushed these hangouts out to the children via our school site.

Each of the teachers in team 4 now have their own remote learning page.

On this page (click the image above), the children can access their learning for the day as well as the links to the google hangouts which will occur throughout each day. The hangouts have been a chance for the children to connect, ask questions and to be shown their learning for the day.

While the children are working on their tasks, I have been opening up the google docs which they are working on and leaving comments to support them. When they post their learning to their blog, I have been leaving comments to encourage them and get them thinking deeper about their learning. 

I feel that the first three days of teaching remotely have been a real success. The children have been engaged, completing tasks and have picked up on the new structure of learning. Whānau have been highly involved and supportive in their children's learning too which has shown from the quality and effort being put into each of the tasks. 

A highlight of Friday was the holding of school assembly remotely. This was led by our Principal, Russell Burt. Routine and structure is so important and continuing to have all these normal school events is highly valuable to ensuring our children continue to learn throughout this isolation period. 

The Manaiakalani pedagogy has allowed us as a community to move seemlessly into this remote learning. Our children are continuing to learn, create and share whilst they continue to be connected with others, have ubiquitous opportunities, empowered in their learning and their learning being visible.

2. DESCRIBE: Evidence about the effects of my changed practice and intervention on desired learner outcomes.

Link to overview blogpost​

The Tool: Cybersmart Clips

Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices/intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these.

What methods have you used to collect information?​

- Start of Year/ End of Year Cybersmart Assessment


(as seen in previous blog post)

- Student collaborative planning/brainstorming docs

(See example on previous blog post)

- Student movie clips

- Student voice

In the last blog post, you will see some word walls which show responses from two other questions asked.

- Regular collection of blog comments/ replies to blog comments

I am currently analysing blog comments by comparing blog comments at the beginning of the year to blog comments now. This qualitative data is difficult to analyse and I am having to think of the best way to measure progress. I am wanting to measure progress in interpersonal skills and critical thinking in blog posts. On an initial look, it is clear that many children are writing more detailed and thoughtful blog comments compared to at the beginning of the year.

How have you been systematic in that collection?​

Each week, I have been collecting and updating data in a spreadsheet which is organised in the above categories. I am working on collating this data into graphs and noticing trends and patterns mainly around interpersonal skills and critical thinking.

What does the data/information tell you?​

Through the process of making movies in learning cybersmart skills and collection of data, I have realised that the creation of the movies and collaborative script-making is just as important as the sharing of the movies to a wider audience. This is where this method of teaching children to be cybersmart is effective in integrating the teaching of the key competencies at the same time. In particular, children are developing their ability to think (about the cybersmart topic given to them), relate to others (through the creation of the script in preparation for movie-making), managing self (to work through the process of creating a movie, from storyboarding to sharing of the movie) and participating and contributing (in creating the script but also in being confident to present/act in the movie or to direct and be responsible for the filming). Overarching the development of these key competencies (NZ Curriculum) is the final key competency of understanding symbols, languages and texts. This overarches the others in this process as the children are learning skills in being able to make sense of the online world and respond responsibly and appropriately.

Data from student voice tells me really clearly that the children are really enjoying using movie-making as the medium to learn how to be cybersmart. I showed this in an answer garden. A higher frequency of the same response is represented by a larger word.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT CYBERSMART LEARNING?

I have also been collecting comments that children in my class are writing on other children's blogs. A continuing step in my inquiry is to collate these in a way that will show any development in the quality of the blog comments over time.

I also need to begin collating and making sense of the data which shows development of interpersonal skills and critical thinking through the children's collaborative scripts and movie clips.

What are you going to do with the data/information in terms of ‘tweaking’ your intervention?​

Currently, I am really satisfied with how the intervention/ tool is working. On the whole, the children are engaged, they are learning valuable skills in film making, being given opportunities to develop their critical thinking and interpersonal skills, and being able to share their learning with the wider world through the school news and their public blogs! How cool is that!?

As with anything in teaching though, there is always 'tweaking' that can be done to make it better! At the moment, my focus needs to be on continuing doing what we are doing and now beginning to make sense of what the data shows.

So...what am I going to do with the data to make sense of it?

- I have already analysed the start-of-year cybersmart assessment data (see blog post). This will be followed up later in the year (early in term 4) by children completing the same cybersmart assessment and seeing how the data changed over time.

- Student collaborative brainstorms/planning docs: I need to analyse these for evidence of interpersonal skills and critical thinking. As a result of a range of research (seen in previous blog posts) I plan to make a tally of the following when reading through the docs and watching the cybersmart clips:

• Collaborative plannning (all team members given a role and contributing to ideas; efficient planning in group)
• Communication between group members to produce a coherent and connected script (i.e. not different ideas per child but rather, a script that flows from one child to the next)
• Creativity (have they thought outside the box or just used class brainstorm ideas and copied it?)
• Critical thinking (thought deeply about how to portray the message in an effective way)
• Positive role play
• Perspective taking (each 'character' shares their own ideas)
• Empathy/interpersonal skills (evident through role play - rather than just saying lines without connection to others in the group; thinking about how others feel and how actions can affect others)
• Listening to each others ideas
• Questions asked
• Challenging each others ideas
• Reflecting/ making changes
• Summarising the main ideas

Final week of term 3 - What's the plan going forward?

As we go into our final week of term 3, I wanted to reassess where I am at in my inquiry. 

What have I achieved so far?

• A lot of research into what it looks like to be cybersmart.
• Narrowing all of the research down into a focus on the connection between interpersonal skills and critical thinking.
• Planing for a tool which can be implemented into the classroom.
• Creating a website on which the cybersmart clips created by the children can be shared.
• Altering my pedagogy when it comes to teaching year 5 children to be cybersmart.
• Supporting children in the filming, editing and sharing of their cybersmart clips.
• Collecting and documenting the data in a spreadsheet. 

What do I want to achieve in this final week of term 3?

• Sharing of "The words we use" Cybersmart Clips (that have been filmed)
• Time for children to comment on blog posts (to add to the data collection)
• Work with those children who have not yet completed any cybersmart clips.

What is there still to do in term 4? What are my ongoing challenges?

This term, my focus has very much been on altering my pedagogy and implementing the cybersmart movie clips tasks. In general, the children are loving learning how to be cybersmart in this way! This is a real positive. I have had to change the groups slightly to ensure when learning groups are out, others are not disadvantaged in their learning. The children have dealt with this really well.

A challenge I have is that there are a group of children who are having difficulty with the collaborative planning stage of the process, which is causing a challenge with getting their movies filmed, let alone edited. I really need to work with these children to ensure they have success in their learning and to ensure they are learning the important skills when it comes to being cybersmart and making thoughtful decisions online. These children need to become my priority learners for next term.

I will begin term 4 by introducing a new cybersmart topic: Reflecting on our own or others work and giving and receiving feedback.

KPMG Term 3

Today we had the opportunity to pitch our tool to our MIT colleagues. This was a great way of sharing our work so far this year. I felt confident with presenting my work and I had some really useful feedback and suggestions.

- We discussed the use of the word 'cybersmart.' We talked about how this word is a noun, not a verb. Therefore, we wouldn't talk about 'doing cybersmart' but instead 'learning about being cybersmart.'

- Dorothy suggested that I look at the latest Summer Learning Journey report which touches on the importance of interpersonal skills.

- It was also suggested that I use the word 'kind' rather than 'nice' when describing how we communicate online. Using explicit language which makes sense to the children is essential when teaching how to be cybersmart.

Implementation of changed practices and intervention

As discussed in our CoL meeting, it is really important that we have it clear in our heads as to what we have changed or done as the TEACHER to support the learning challenge. I will collect information about the implementation of my changed practices and intervention in a number of ways.

1. Record of prior planning (see 2017/2018 cybersmart planning and experiences).

- 2017 team site + class planning

- 2018 team site + class planning

2. "Repeated measure" of teaching over time:

- Planning notes and reflections detailing my lessons/ the learning experiences planned for cybersmart since implementation of the changed practices and intervention.

- Evidence through: Teacher planning doc, children's collaborative brainstorming/ planning docs, movies created (recorded on this website).

Restating my theory of action

The valued learning outcomes I want to improve for my students in this inquiry are …. 

Development of interpersonal skills and critical thinking, which are required when learning in a digital environment.

The changes I am making to my teaching to improve these outcomes are …..

Changes to the way I teach cybersmart. Each new piece of cybersmart learning is followed up by the children working in groups to participate in a collaborative and creative movie-making challenge where they have to share their new learning in a short 30 second to 1 minute long movie. I am also including the google site, Interland and the Be Internet Awesome Curriculum as well as the Manaiakalani Cybersmart curriculum in my teaching of new concepts. Through my explicit teaching, the focus is on the connection between interpersonal skills and critical thinking which are necessary when working in a digital environment. The movies which the children make will then become a resource which can continue to be used by the class as well as other children in future cybersmart learning.

The reasons why I think these changes in my teaching will be effective for my learners are …..

Engagement. Already, altering my teaching to including the movie-making challenges has made the children in my class excited to participate in cybersmart learning.

Rewindable/visible learning. The children are the creators - they are creating movies which are reinforcing and enhancing their learning and in the process, they are becoming the teachers for future lessons. This follows the Tataiako competency of Ako (reciprocal teaching/learning).

Deep learning. To challenge these children to extend their cybersmart learning, they need to be given opportunities to think critically and deeply about content online. This will come from having opportunities to create quality blog comments (currently, they can create positive comments, however being helpful and thoughtful as well is more of a challenge) and by critiquing what they read or see online.

Creating a tool to support learning

Kāhui Ako Achievement Challenge 5: Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/ key competency using symbols, languages and texts.

My Inquiry Challenge (updated): Children living in a digital world, where interpersonal skills and critical thinking are essential, require ubiquitous access to cybersmart scaffolds and resources which are not currently available.

I have begun creating a site which will house a bank of cybersmart clips created by a group of year 5 children. These clips will have the potential to be used in a variety of places around our community to support other children in what it looks like to be cybersmart online. I think it is really important that these messages comes from the children themselves who can be role models to other children. 

An example of one of these short clips can be seen here, on Adriana and Aye Myat's blogs. This is the concept I want to achieve, except with more drama and more selective videography. The length of this clip is exactly what I was hoping for and the enthusiasm that the girls show is fantastic!

The image above shows the 10 different areas which have been selected through the research which I believe incorporates both interpersonal skills and critical thinking. I will begin working through these as part of cybersmart from the beginning of term 3.

The process will need to include a thoughtful plan of my explicit teaching in the area of cybersmart we are looking at. It will include the children participating in activities which explicitly teach the cybersmart concept and then time for the children to work in their groups on their video to show their thinking. I will begin adding these plans onto the site over the next couple of weeks. Once these are added, I'll publish the site so it can be viewed by others as the children begin producing their creative cybersmart clips.