Self assessment of my teaching practice - with a focus on Critical thinking.

Task: Present findings from this inquiry about your teaching. Ensure qualitative data includes rich descriptions of your teaching and quantitative data is clearly presented.

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.

Self observation:
To undertake the self observation of my teaching, I audio recorded myself taking this lesson:

Observation Sheet Template:

I then listened back to the lesson, taking notes about the questions/prompts/statements I asked or made and whether they supported the children in making causal links and being critical thinkers.



Findings:

1. I use a number of talk moves, such as waiting, repeating and adding on, however I do not always use these to their fullest potential.

Waiting: often the time I waited was not long enough before I rephrased or repeated my question to the children.

Examples of successful wait time:
- Teacher: What does it mean to take something for granted? [Wait time]
   Student: Appreciate?

- Teacher: Does anyone want to add to what [student] said? [Wait time]
   Student: [No response]
   Teacher: What are they talking about? What are they saying we take for granted?
   Student: Water

Examples where I jumped in too soon:
- Teacher: What else on that page gives us information to answer that question? [Wait time - not long enough though]
  Teacher: Why is it important … why is it an issue if our rivers/streams are polluted? Have a look on here?
  Student: Because maybe someone will have drunk it?
  Teacher: How come? What is it about what we know about the science of how water works? [Pause].
  Student: Because it goes round?
  Teacher: What happens to water? Because it’s … re…
  Student: Reusable
  Teacher: Reusable / recycled

Repeating/rephrasing: In every example of this, it was me who repeated or rephrased what the children said. It would be better to ask other children to repeat/rephrase what their peer said.

Example:
- Teacher: So [Student] said something about ‘appreciate.’ It’s something that we appreciate...or maybe we don’t appreciate it. Maybe we don’t appreciate the fact we are able to do that and some places in the world can’t do that. Does that make sense? So we just do it...we just go and do it - this morning I just went and filled up a glass of water from the tap and I didn’t think anything of it.

- Teacher: So, try and make a connection between what you said and what I asked you. So you just said "because people throw rubbish in it"...yeah? What’s the connection to what I asked you? What did I ask you? What was the question I asked?

-Student: Because the soap gets into the water
Teacher: So [Student] just said because the soap gets into the water.

Adding on: There are three instances when I asked children if they could add onto another child's ideas. However, when these children did not provide any additions, I added on for them.

Examples:
- Teacher: Does anyone want to add to what [student] has just said?

- Teacher: What about you [student] and [student]? What do you think? Does it say anything in here to help you?

- Teacher: So [student] just said "because the soap gets into the water." Can someone add to that idea or put it into a different way?

2. I do a lot of the talking compared to the children. Many of the children's responses were one word or sentence/part sentence answers which then made me feel that I needed to lead the conversation to continue. The conversation was very much led by me.

Example:
- Teacher: So, what's a dairy farm?
   Student: Like a cow farm?
  Teacher: Good. A cow farm. So where they produce milk so they can then sell milk to supermarkets and things...ok? So if NZ is changing to more dairy farms, they have said that dairy farms use more water. If more water is being used, and needing to send more beef (cow) overseas, they will be using more water in NZ.
   Student: Oh because cows...yep…

3. The simple causal links that were made were responded to by me. I can tell as I listen back to the lesson that I still feel that as the teacher, I need to be the one in control of the conversation. However, this needs to change. Yes, this feels safe, but is it best for the children and their learning?

4. 10 uses of the word 'because' by the children throughout the entire conversation suggest that my teaching strategies are only supporting children to participate in a very low level of critical thinking and creating causal links. Statements from children which included 'because' only ever contained the one causal link before I either added my thoughts/opinions or gave more support.

Examples:
- Teacher: ...we just go and do it - this morning I just went and filled up a glass of water from the tap and I didn’t think anything of it. But what do we know about the world? Can everyone do that?
  Student: No. Because it’s pretty much like wasting water...a little.

- Teacher: Why is it an issue if our rivers or streams are polluted?
  Student 1: Because we drink out of some of them.
  Student 2: Swim in some of them.

  Student 3: Because some people are throwing rubbish in them.

- Teacher: Why is it important … why is it an issue if our rivers/streams are polluted? Have a look on here?

  Student: Because maybe someone will have drunk it?

  Teacher: How come? What is it about what we know about the science of how water works?

  Student (same as before): Because it goes round?

- Teacher: Why do you think us sending different foods overseas is changing how much water we use in NZ.

  Student: Because maybe they are taking all our food?

  Teacher: Because maybe they are sending water over there as well?

- Teacher: Why should we not wash a car on a road?

  Student: Because the soap gets into the water.

Lesson to be observed

This blog post provides detail on the lesson which I will be observed on to inquire into my teaching, with a focus on how I currently promote children to think critically and create causal links during a reading lesson.

The children: Children with a reading age of 10-11 years. This is at or slightly above their actual age.

The text: Water Worries by Rachael McMillan (School Journal Level 3, April 2012). This text provides the children opportunities to make connections between ideas on a topic which is relevant today with the water shortage that is occurring in Auckland as well as across the rest of the country. 

The plan: 

Inquiring into my current teaching practice - The Plan

Task: Plan and conduct detailed inquiry into specific aspects of your current teaching that are relevant to the hypotheses you identified in the literature. Inquiring into your teaching should give you:
- Formative information about your current strengths and areas for development
- Baseline information that you can use at the end of the year to provide evidence of shifts in teaching
- Use multiple tools such as self- or peer-observations, analysis of your class site, student voice.

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.

In what ways can I look into my own practice?

- Have someone observe me teaching a reading lesson with children reading between 10 and 12 years. Use an assessment tool that explores how I promote causal relationships and critical thinking. What sort of questions do I ask? How often am I talking? Am I providing opportunities for the children to do the talking and the thinking?

- Video or take an audio recording of myself taking a lesson and assess the above for myself. What are my strengths and areas to develop?

- If I look at the types of questions I ask and how these promote causal links and critical thinking, this would be a good measure to compare at the end of the year.

- Class Site: Analyse the types of tasks we provide on our team site and how well these tasks promote causal links and critical thinking.

- Student Voice: Their thoughts about reading groups. Do they feel they get to share their ideas? Do they feel they can include their own knowledge and understanding? Applying knowledge.

Here is the observation sheet that I plan to give to the teacher who I will ask to observe my lesson:

Techniques to assess my own teaching (as seen in the literature):

In the article, Collaborative reasoning: a dialogic approach to group discussions (Reznitskaya, Kuo, Clark, Miller, Jadallah, Anderson and Nguyen-Jahiel, 2008, page 33), a comparison was made between a recitation discussion and a causal reasoning discussion. It will be important for me to identify if I currently teach using a more recitation type approach or more of a causal reasoning approach.

"While teachers are encouraged to use CR strategies during the discussions, their ultimate goal is ‘to transfer the responsibility for maintaining the flow of discussion to the students’ (Waggoner et al., 1995, p. 584). The type and degree of teacher participation hinge upon the quality of argumentation displayed by the students." (Reznitskaya et al., 2008, p35).

In the study by Reznitskaya et al. (2008), they found that there was a difference in the questions asked from the teacher between recitation and casual reasoning discussions. 

- Recitation discussions: 53% quizzing questions

- Causal reasoning discussions: 9% quizzing questions

It would be interesting to assess what percentage of the questions I ask are quizzing questions. This could then be compared to the end of the year.

Use of baseline data at the end of the year

Task: Explain how some of the data you have used to build a profile of the students’ learning will be used as baseline data at the end of the year.

Developed hypothesis (supported by research and preliminary data): 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.

My preliminary findings are made up data from:

- Reading ages (from running records)

- Reading ages (from a PAT test)

- Writing overall 'age' (from E-asttle writing)

- Writing 'age' for ideas (from E-asttle writing)

- Blog comment level: Critical thinking and Interpersonal skills

- Evidence of causal reasoning being encouraged through tasks

- Observations through running record

All of this data will be able to be compared to that at the end of the year to compare level of critical thinking. Running record data is necessary to ensure that progress occurs when using collaborative reasoning during guided reading sessions.

When looking at evidence of critical thinking/ causal reasoning, I need to decide whether I compare running record data from the same test, even if they have passed that level during the next 6 months or whether I do a comparison between different tests. I feel that a sound comparison for progress in critical thinking would only occur if I compare children's responses on the same test. That is, compare HOW they answer the questions. I have made detailed notes on how individual children responded to the comprehension questions in running record tests, which would make this possible.

At the end of the year, I would hope to see an increase in reading ages, writing 'ages', blog comment levels and evidence of critical thinking (causal reasoning) in all of the above as a result of using strategies of collaborative reasoning in guided reading sessions.

I might need to consider how I can better measure causal reasoning in running records, writing samples and on blogs. Do I look at the number of times children have used language associated with causal reasoning/ justification of their response? Do I use data gathering tools used in studies that have looked into collaborative reasoning?

This video is of Professor Anderson explaining collaborative reasoning. In the video, he mentions the modes from which data was collected and how this connected to their findings.

Academic / Professional Research

Task: Share three pieces of academic or professional reading and explain how they and other sources helped your form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning.

Initial hypothesis: A focus on teaching interpersonal skills and critical thinking through reading and writing, will result in an increase in levels of interpersonal skills and critical thinking when children comment on each others blogs online.

Developed hypothesis (supported by research and preliminary data): 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.

Academic/ Professional readings to support the forming of the above hypothesis:

Collaborative reasoning: a dialogic approach to group discussions (Cambridge Journal of Education, 2009)
By Alina Reznitskaya, Li-Jen Kuo, Ann-Marie Clark, Brian Miller, May Jadallah, Richard C. Anderson and Kim Nguyen-Jahield

Summary notes:
- Pedagogical Approach - Collaborative Reasoning
- Controversial Issues
- The introduction of this article suggests an importance for dialogue to be thoughtful, meaningful and a skill that needs to be developed as teachers.
- There should be "meaningful feedback" during dialogue (p. 30).
- Important to look at the individual student rather than group interactions when looking at dialogue.
- Some measurement/assessment tools that don't measure collaborative reasoning - vocab tests, reading comp tests. Note, this is interesting as I was going to look at reading comp test responses as a measure. It does mention that with such little research, this doesn't especially mean these above findings are definite.
- Collaborative Reasoning is important to the success of individuals in the wider world.
- Monologism (one way) vs. Dialogue (two way) - important to ask ourselves, which of these are we using as teachers?
- Egalatarian
- Argumentation moves: "...taking a position on the issue, supporting it with reasons and evidence, challenging the positions of others, and responding to counterarguments" (p. 32).
- Internalised --> Externalised
- Argument Schema --> Argument stratagems / tools to use during argumentation: " ‘In the story, it said [EVIDENCE]’ " (p. 32).
- Collaborative reasoning: important that the topic is engaging and allow for rich dialogue.
1. Big Question launched. "Big questions address moral or societal dilemmas that are both complex and central to human experience." (p. 33).
2. Each student takes an initial position.
3. Speak (Reasons & Evidence); Listen (Evaluate & consider different view points)
- Collaborative reasoning pedagogical strategies:
"(a) prompting students for their positions and justification of reasons; (b) explicitly drawing attention to the use of effective argument stratagems; (c) modeling reasoning processes by thinking aloud; (d) challenging students with countering ideas; (e) keeping track of proposed arguments by summing up students’ contributions; and (f) using the vocabulary of critical and reflective thinking (Waggoner et al., 1995)." (p. 35).
- More talking during collaborative reasoning compared to memorising/answering questions.

- During collaborative reasoning, children pick up each others strategies (Snowball hypothesis).

- Link between collaborative reasoning and increased argumentation skills in writing.

- In the studies looked at in this paper, the focus was not on achievement or progress in tests but in quality of dialogue. However, there is proof of transfer / applying new skills to new activities/ tasks.

It is interesting that throughout the pandemic lockdown and during the return to school in level 2, I feel that we have reverted to a more monologist approach, where we as the teachers are in control. Why is this? Is it because we are in an unfamiliar situation at the moment where we are physically distant from the children and we feel we are more in control and can 'see' there learning better in this way? Is it that we are wanting the children to feel a great sense of success which we feel they can do with a task which is more closed and mono-directional?

This article really supports my hypothesis as it stated an increased level of argumentation in written responses even when the focus was on argumentation through speech. This suggests that a focus on collaborative reasoning with this reading group could support them in demonstrating critical thinking (through argumentation) in other areas.

Critical thinking is a 21st-century essential — here’s how to help kids learn it, article by Mary Halton

Summary notes:

- Summary  of Ted Talk by Brian Oshiro (Educator/ Teacher Trainer):

- Critical Thinking is really important to teach application of knowledge.

- Important that there is not one correct answer as this is more like the real world.

- Questions with a correct answer creates superficial knowledge/ belief of knowledge.

- Instead of 'what' , use 'how' and 'why' questions.

- Having evidence for a response to a question is important.

- Understanding different perspectives is really important.

- Providing solutions to a problem - make sure this is not too wide a question.

- The Role of the Teacher: "...direct their questions, listen and respond."

This speech by Brian Oshiro really highlights the importance of teaching using collaborative reasoning in the classroom. It gives some really useful tips on how this can be done. It supports my hypothesis of using collaborative reasoning/ causal reasoning/ critical thinking in the classroom.

New Zealand Curriculum

- Has a focus on equity and equality (as does collaborative reasoning, as mentioned in the above study).
- NZ Curriculum vision: "Young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners." - links to above article which mentions importance for applying skills from collaborative reasoning to the wider world).
- Vision for "critical and creative thinkers" and "Informed decision makers."
- Value: "innovation, inquiry, and curiosity, by thinking critically, creatively, and reflectively"
- "discuss disagreements that arise from differences in values and negotiate solutions"

Multiple areas of the curriculum suggest the importance for critical thinking. Therefore, I feel confident that my focus on critical thinking in the classroom is justified.

Preliminary Findings

Task: Begin to collect evidence and data. Share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence.

In this slide deck, there are some graphs showing some preliminary findings with possible connections to critical thinking and causal links.

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.