Deborah's- Professional Development: Teaching As Inquiry

Year 1 - 2 Collaborative Writing Inquiry

Spiral of Inquiry
(A Framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry - Helen Timperley, Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert, April 2014)

"One of the important differences in this new framework is the involvement of learners, their families and communities, underpinning and permeating each of the phases shown, from the beginning and throughout the whole process. This requires a shift from student voice to developing learner agency, as the students help to identify and address issues in their learning environments"

"The key to making the spiral of inquiry work is for everyone to approach the framework with a mindset of curiosity and genuine inquiry into what is going on for learners and then to move forward from there."

"We have also made it more explicit that engaging in inquiry if a process of developing collective professional agency..."

"Finally, the spiral of inquiry is focused on changing the experiences of learners through new learning and new actions. In this way the spiral of inquiry leads to innovative action; it is an ongoing spiral of inquiry, learning and action."

"What creates the coherence across the dimensions of the spiral is the focus on evidence seeking, framed by two key questions."

What's going on for our learners?
How do we know?

Scanning

"It is important to avoid restricting the scanning process to areas for which evidence is already available. The scan needs to be wide enough so that key areas - like the arts, physical activity, empathy, resilience and social emotional learning do not get missed."

Spirals of Inquiry Scanning Questions

Box 2. Questions related to each of the seven principles of learning (p8)

Learners at the centre

Can learners answer the question,‘Where are you going with your learning’?
Can they describe in their own words what they are learning - and why what they are learning is important?
Can they use a range of ways to demonstrate their learning?
Can they self-manage independent learning times?
Are they able to set specific learning goals and construct their learning through active exploration?

The social nature of learning

Do learners demonstrate the kinds of social and collaborative skills needed for teamwork, citizenship and the workplace?

Emotions are central to learning

Can each learner name at least two adults in the setting who believe s/he will be a success in life?
To what extent are learners able to monitor and manage their own emotions?

Recognising individual differences

Do learners feel their teachers know their individual strengths, interests and passions?
Do they believe their teachers know and understand what they find difficult or challenging?
Are the prior knowledge and cultural backgrounds that learners bring to the setting respected, valued and utilised?

Stretching all students

Are learners, regardless of their age, able to teach someone else and are they able to make a contribution to the community as a whole?
Are all learners experiencing demanding, engaging and challenging work without excessive overload?

Assessment for learning

Can learners describe what quality work looks like – and how they are doing with their own learning?
Are learners confident and comfortable in both giving and receiving feedback with their peers, based on co-constructed criteria?

Building horizontal connections

Can learners see and understand the connections across content areas?
To what extent can learners connect with and learn from the broader environment – and from members of their community?

Class Survey and Team Results

Each class teacher in our team used the above questions as a framework for conducting a class survey around learning. The results in each class were very, very similar. From this we were able to identify some trends.

What is going on for Lucas?

Anecdotal notes:

2015
Lucas started in Term 4 of 2015.
He had no pre-school experience.
Lucas has issues with speech articulation and can be quite hard to understand at times.
Socially and emotionally Lucas finds telling others what he needs a challenge and will often lash out at other children or leave the classroom upset.
If learning is perceived as difficult Lucas will leave what he is doing to play or refuse to participate in the activity.
Transition to school was difficult. He found following the routines and structures within the class and school as a whole hard (often wouldn't return to class after break times,instead opting to play alone in the playground).
For 2015 - 94.5 days present out of 108 days, 13.5 days absence.
Concepts about print and how books, writing and language are connected are very, very low.
Writing - Pre
Can write his name and the word 'I'. Writes random strings of letters across page.
Reading level at end of year Red 3?

2016
Lucas is more settled this year and is following routines and structures well. He is enjoying being one of the 'big role models of Room 13'. He is enjoying and wanting to take on more responsibility within the classroom
He seems very keen to learn and to get things right. He is noticing when making errors.
Speech has improved but can still be hard to understand in general every day conversations.
His ability to articulate what he needs from his peers has improved greatly and he has only needed teacher support a couple of times.
Lucas is very quick at identifying number patterns in maths and uses these to make connections e.g. tens frames subitising, tens frames to support basic facts, skip counting. He loves to draw and is able to add a lot of detail to his pictures. He loves listening to stories and connecting these to his prior knowledge and personal experiences. He finds retaining sight words difficult and is on the Early Words Programme. He enjoys science based activities and is inquisitive about what is happening. Will often ask very good questions or make connections.
For 2016 so far - 37.5 days present out of 56 days, 18.5 days absence.
Total number of school days missed since starting school up until end of week 1, term 2, 2016 = 32 days (6 weeks and 4 days instruction)

Learners at the centre:

Articulating what he is learning is difficult. He often seems to struggle to find the words to describe what he wants to say, will use his hands to draw what he is talking about. He responds well to very small steps in learning e.g. having one of the signs of success as his goal, this needs to be supported by a symbol (too much language loses him). Once he knows the goal and can show you where and how to use it, it becomes the goal for every subject e.g. when he mastered word spaces he said this was his goal in reading and maths. As he starts to master a goal he can find evidence of it in his learning. He is not aware of his next steps. Independent times are inconsistent. At times, he is very focused and will work to finish his writing well. Other times he is easily distracted especially if he is struggling socially.

The social nature of learning:

Lucas enjoys our buddy reading programme and he knows that good learners can copy and ask buddies for support. This works well if he is in the right frame of mind. If he has fallen out with his peers a social learning situation tends to wind him up and he needs space to learn.

Emotions are central to learning:

Lucas was unable to name at least two adults who believed he would be successful (even after re-wording the question he replied with "I don't know". He struggles to manage his emotions. If a situation (social, emotional or academic) becomes challenging, he becomes angry, lashes out both physically and verbally or withdraws and won't communicate. When this happens with learning, he needs time to calm and then adult input to work through the feelings of frustration.

Recognising individual differences:

Lucas responded with 'yes' to these questions but I know that he didn't really grasp what I was asking. He gave answers I think he thought I wanted hear but when questioned further didn't really understand the concept.

Stretching all students:

Lucas is able to help the younger children settle into independent tasks and listens to them read as part of our buddy reading programme.

Assessment for learning:

Our class culture places a big emphasis on learning about learning-' what good learners do'. He is able to articulate some of these. If I praise him for making a connection and link it directly to something he has just done, this motivates him to do again. He develops a better understanding when the concept is layered (part of the everyday insistent, consistent culture of the class) and has a personal connection to his learning. When he has really mastered a concept, has the language to articulate what is happening and feels really comfortable in his learning then he is an active participant in the assessment/feedback cycle. If anyone of the above are missing then he sits back.

Building horizontal connections:

Making connections is a strength for Lucas. However, the connections he makes with 'learning about learning', come from the daily work with the class around the culture of learning. I try to insure that I am pointing out the connections on a constant basis to embed this with the children. This is something that has to happen everyday in multifaceted and layered way for it to become both visual to the children and embedded in their learning.

Literacy Data:

Lucas is receiving 'Literacy Support' to help develop knowledge of alphabet letters. At the beginning of Term One Lucas knew 15 out of 54 letters of the alphabet. He knows seven lower case letters.
A Concepts About Print (C.A.P) test shows he is not able to distinguish between words, letters and word spaces.
At this stage he is able to draw a detail picture and talk about this. He is able to record random strings of letters across the page - showing directionality. When working the teacher he can use word space and find words he knows or can copy with direction.

From March to April Lucas has increased his sound knowledge by seven sounds.In the first test,he was checking with most letters by drawing them in the air and asking me if it was the right letter. In the March test he wrote the letters he knew and left the ones he didn't know.
Writing on Essential Spelling List One words has remained at three, however they are not the same three words.
Lucas is able to write a growing numbers of High Frequency Words (HFW's). These words have been a focus our of Symbol Imagery development (this is done during our B.S.T time (before school task - 10 minutes 4 -5 days per week). The words "I / am / going / to / the / are starting to be used in his independent writing.

Lucas has mastered word spaces - this has been his learning goal for the first eight weeks of Term One.

May 2016 - Lucas can now identify 31 out of 54 letters. His recognition of lower case letters has increased by 9. For most letters he is able to identify either the upper or lower case letter, however the following letters are unknown; Aa/Ff/Pp/Qq/Dd/Yy/Rr/Nn.
Lucas is writing with greater independence and words mastered through symbol imagery work are now evident in his instructional and independent writing. At instructional writing times he is starting to offer a few of the sounds he knows. This is a big step for Lucas as his lack of confidence around letters sounds has meant that he wouldn't' attempt this before now.

TEACHING VIDEO ONE:

What worked well:

Using all children's ideas - modelling what we can write about and forming the sentence
Teaching was explicit
Use of phoneme fingers made learning visible - how many sounds
Talking about what good learners do - most children knew to read back over their sentence and did this.

Next Steps:

The pace of the lesson was far too slow.
Using statements that help to build student agency - "what could you do, what have you tried, what part is tricky, what can help you with that?"
More talk / feedback between children around learning goal, signs of success and their work.

Team Feedback

What worked well:

-Focus on how to do the LG, explicit teaching

-Modelling of stretching out the sounds

-Using all students ideas

-Praise

Next Steps:

Increase the pace
Not using ‘and’ too soon e.g. the leaves are brown. The leaves are crunchy etc.

June - Lucas can now identify 47 out of 54 letters. His recognition of lower case letters has increased to 25 out of 28. Unknown lower case letters are b/h/u and upper case H/N/R/T

Lucas has almost mastered Essential List One, writing 'ad' for 'and'. He can spell three words from List Two.

He is able to identify and record 26 out of the 31 sounds tested, 'q/u/h' were unknown sounds. Lucas could identify the 'p' sound but didn't know how to write the letter.

Lucas is writing with increased independence. He is writing more than one idea and likes to stick to using words he knows. He will often write about a topic when working with the teacher, then go away and include an idea that is not related to the topic but using words he can write. When prompted and supported by the teacher he willingly adds another idea. During instructional writing time he is realising that he knows more sounds than he thinks and now is able to write them without having to check with the teacher (still struggling with h/n/p). When writing independently is just starting to attempt unknown words using sounding out.

What does this tell me about Lucas as a learner?

He is gaining the knowledge needed for surface features e.g letter/sound knowledge, the ability to form letters quickly and correctly and write an increasing number of HFW's.
He is gaining independence with the above skills and is starting to use them with growing confidence.
He is willing to 'have a go' at sounding out during instructional writing time (with teacher support) however when independent generally sticks to using words he knows. We are now including him in more than one of the instructional writing groups for sounding out (linked to Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve).
Small explicit goals are needed (e.g. the work with symbol imagery). Lucas needs constant, daily, deliberate practice to consolidate each step.

Next steps in my teaching:

Learning disposition - not a risk taker , so how do I develop this - have a go, learning pit, scaffolding - hand over OLM and teacher expectations, identify the hard parts etc...
OLM - the hand over add my notes, pictures of displays and videos of this in here.

TEACHING VIDEO TWO:

Reflection of video:

When asked what his learning goal was Lucas said "Phoneme Fingers" which is one of the signs of success. He knows he has to use them but is unable to articulate the other signs of success. He can find evidence of where he has used his goal.

When asked to continue writing independently at group table he sat for a long time before starting writing. He is easily distracted by others around him. He used the modelling book to find 'looking words'. He was quite happy to use/copy what was written in modelling book.

He is happy to use goal of sounding out with adult support but when working independently will look for sentences to copy or rewrite previous stories. When working in the group he is able to identify and record dominant sounds.

What is your question?
How do I build his confidence to take risks when working away from the teacher.

What is your hunch?
That he needs to time to have deliberate practice(lots of it) with sounding and writing CVC words.

What new strategies will you use to address your identified hunch?
CVC programme with Literacy support worker, make explicit links in CVC work between reading/writing, phonics sessions are now CVC focussed (again make links to writing/reading). Continue to include Lucas in more than one sounding out teaching group for writing each week.

What evidence will you need to capture to show the impact of your new strategies?
Observations that he is doing this independently and confidently with literacy support worker, during phonics and at reading and writing times. Pre and post testing of CVC work. When writing independently CVC words written correctly. Greater variety of words used when writing stories.

What new tasks will your student/s do to provide evidence of impact on learning?

add notes in here .....

Notes from Chapter Six - the flow of the lesson: learning

Key ideas for me from the reading...

Learning is often 'in the head' and an aim of the teacher is to help to make this learning visible.
The operative requirement to enhance student learning is for teachers to see the learning through the eyes of the students.
Attention needs to move from how to teach to how to learn - and only after teachers understand how each student learns can they then move on to make decisions about how to teach.
The heart of learning to learn: it is about intention to use, consistency in appropriately using the strategies, and knowing when chosen strategies are effective (self-regulation).
Four overlapping considerations in learning. Don't necessarily link directly but all play their part in the learning processes:

Capabilities in thinking - capability, capacity, catalyst and competence - Piaget proposed four major phases relating to how students thinking develops over time. Sensorimotor (ego-centric view)Preoperational (becoming more apt at using language and symbol but can't mentally manipulate information and or adopt other viewpoints, Concrete operational (begin to think logically but in concrete terms)and formal operational (abstract reasoning and thinking more logically). Knowledge of the above helps teachers to optimise starting point and know next level with thinking processes.
Every moment of the lesson management involves the teacher being aware - being the adaptive expert according to thinking, processing, motivation etc...
The notion of teaching 'at or + 1 above' where the student are thinking is a major theme of this chapter.

Phases of thinking: surface to deep
Four phases of SOLO taxonomy -an idea/ ideas / relate the ideas / extend the ideas.
Teachers must know at what phase of learning the students is best invested - in learning more surface ideas and moving from the surface to a deeper relating and extending these ideas.

Phases of motivation
Students don't remain in constant state of being motivated - see a gap / goal setting / strategies and close the gap.
Often moving from the first to second stages that can be the most difficult for teachers and students.
To make the transition involves being aware of the goals of the lesson, nature of the gap and then developing which strategies (and motivation) to close the gap - this relates to Optimal Learning Model, handing over the responsibility!

Phases of how we learn
Engaging with students initial understandings / students having foundation of knowledge, understand the ideas in context of a conceptual framework / organise knowledge so they can retrieve and use it / developing meta-cognition to learn and monitor goals.
Need to have processes in place so that teachers can see learning through the eyes of the learner - videoing
What does this mean for my teaching/learning? ... finish notes here

NITS CLUSTER MEETING - 11th JULY:

GOALS FOR TODAY:

You will be:

Actively engaged in the learning phase of Spirals of Inquiry cycle
Making progress towards the taking action phase - have plans in place
Prepared to capture data that will allow you to check your progress
Able to talk about ‘what’s going on for learners’ and have evidence to say ‘how do we know’
Using the video monitoring process to identify your own practice and its impact on your learners.

Share the videos of children with the children- working with teachers and working independently. Get children to identify the positive learning behaviours.

Hattie Chapter 6 notes:

Need to have processes in place so that teachers can see learning through the eyes of the learner - videoing

Knowing learners and establishing relationships

Explicitly teaching learning strategies - making the learning and teaching visible

Best teacher for the kids is another kid - we need to teach them how to be good teachers

From practice to automaticity

Backward mappings - start with learning goal and work back from there

Need to empower children to ask the questions and lead the learning

Chapter 5

High effect size -students having high expectations of themselves

Still to add -
Spiral of Inquiry notes
Lucas - student voice

TEACHING VIDEO THREE:

Reflection of video:

Lucas and group able to talk about goal but still focused on the sign of success - "using phoneme fingers", missing the stretching word out to hear all the sounds. Children not wanting to sound right through the word instead as soon as they hear the first sound, they want to write.

Check: Where are we now with SoI?

Hunches

Alignment with school-wide questions
What further information is needed to check hunches?
How will you get this?

Learning - Research material to support/challenge hunches
Plan actions - chapter 6 Hattie, BES
Identify evidence that will show impact of new actions

Deborah's- Professional Development

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Teaching As Inquiry - Spiral of Inquiry