Keeping Up with Mrs Faalili

The domino effect  A causal chain is like the domino effect, if I make one change then I hope the rest will follow, you push the first domino over and the rest just topple down afterwards The focus of my inquiry is  How can I support my Year 8 students transition into Year 9 and achieve success? What changes in my teaching practice are going to lead to this change  Professional readings and research Collecting & analysing data - Observing what is currently happening in our setting that supports the transition for our Year 8 learners Observing Year 9 habits and movements Student Voice - worries and concerns for our Year 8s heading into Year 9, tips and advice from Year 9s for our Year 8s End of Year data for current year 9s. This will be compared to this year's end of year data. Use the comparative data to identify patterns and students who achieved accelerated progress.  Start the conversations of high school now! Don't wait for term 4.  Be proactive in Y...

Stock take   As a part of my data collection - I have put out a google form (as mentioned in a previous post) and wanted to get an idea of where parents are sending their children next year. This survey was pushed out last month and didn't get much traction and therefore decided to leave it open and remind again through our school app.  Currently 19 responses which is a big jump from when I first pushed out google form. - From this collection of information, Glendowie College has the highest percentage. Of our current year 8s, only 2 families are in-zone for this school.  -Observational data at local high school. Here, I observed and followed Year 9 students around their classes. I wanted to look at some baseline data of movements between classes to see if there were any barriers. Also collected some student voice to get their insights on how the year had started with them.  Three measures that I can use pre and post to compare the success of this transition support...

The causal chain - What is it?  A causal chain is when a cause leads to an effect and that effect becomes the cause of another effect A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D. Any intervention you design will (consciously or not) be based on a causal chain you have in mind - this is your theory of action. The image below highlights the causal chain to show flow for my Year 7/8 Inquiry Group - The Hiss Hass Hoos Boys. One thing that I haven't mentioned on my causal chain is address the issue of a group of them always late. I timetabled the group so that I see them first thing in the morning. This, I hope will encourage them to be at school on time, ready for learning. Milo with Mrs Faalili is also on the menu - breakfast club 8:30am as another way to build relationships with the group. 

Share 3 pieces of academic or professional reading and explain how they and other sources helped you form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning.  If I want my learners to be coming to school on time, motivated, and ready to learn, I need to make sure that I am being culturally responsive in my teaching practice and setting them up for success. "Culturally responsive teaching... strives to increase engagement and motivation of students" Michael Valvurs (2008) Culturally Responsive Teaching  Throughout this reading, the 'why' of a culturally responsive practice is unpacked. Increase in student engagement and increase of student motivation, transforming perspectives and empowering learners by using meaningful cultural connections, just to name a few. My target group are a group of Year 7/8 Pasifika boys who are all operating below, mostly well below their expected level. Not only are they operating behind their peers, ...

To in form my inquiry, I will be using the follow tools, measures, and approaches: Tools -  • A google form to collect student voice on learning and key ideas for Term 1 and looking forward, for Term 2. Student voice is essential in gaining an insight to how they are feeling about what they are learning. Student agency is important and is a big driver in 'what' is being taught/explored so it allows an opportunity for me to provide a space for my learners to be engaged in their learning and see relevance in it, therefore making connections.    • Collect  student voice  and  self assessment  through interlead (teacher practice and a structured set of questions). This self asssessment is important because my goal is to ensure that how I am teaching, my practice, is effective for my learners. My expectation is that my teaching practice will change and adapt to the needs of my learners - my students don't adapt to my needs. The importance of student voice,...

Identify informal & formal ways I am monitoring the effects of my changed practices on learner outcomes. Explain the reflections and tweaks I am making along the way.  Describe how I will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way The best way, I feel for me to monitor the effects of my changed practice at this point in time is to do so on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis. Each week, my writers are writing more and more and by choosing a sample from their weekly work, analysing it will give me an idea of their gaps and what I need to focus on for the following week. This will be done for the select students (my star writers) that fit in the groups identified from the end of year data for writing last year. 'Interleading' is a great way to monitor and reflect my own teaching and practice. The use of relevant templates and critical thinking allows me to really dig deep and think about further changes or tweaks I can make in my teaching practice. Collection of s...

Inquiry question and theory of action/chain of events  My inquiry for this year is 'What changes can I make in my practice to ensure that my learners deepen their understandings of key concepts and ideas in Writing?' Unpacking this has allowed me the time to think critically about what my students are able to do and also their gaps. Over the course of this year and the ever changing changes in the world, my inquiry has taken a slight change in its focus, however, still relevant to Writing. The focus this time round is around integrated planning and how planning rich authentic learning experiences can encourage students to produce rich pieces of writing.

Plan and conduct detailed inquiry  into  specific aspects of your current teaching  that are  relevant to the hypotheses you identified in the literature. Prior to lockdown, implementation of Daily 5 was the new intervention for me this year. Although it may not seem like an intervention as such, I wanted to develop independent readers and writers who had the stamina to be able to read and write for longer periods of time. It took most part of Term 1 before lockdown kicked in. We maintained this the best we could through online learning and intend to do so throughout the year, and if the unlikely events of another lockdown. A huge focus for me and my teaching has been on 'Work on Writing' and 'Word work' and how to use this time effectively during our Daily 5. Time was given to unpacking what it looks like for them, the learner and me, the teacher. Here's what we came up with (and are now constantly used in our classroom) a - Formative information abou...

As identified in my previous post ( Blog post #5 - describing my process for developing my hypothesis ), my hypothesis were: IF I provide real life, hands on, authentic learning experiences, THEN my students will have rich ideas to write about. IF I see my target students 3 times a week for focussed sessions (deeper features for writing) THEN I can provide them with specific, structured sessions that will allow me to give relevant and timely feedback/feedforward. IF I teach my students at Level 3 of the curriculum THEN we are working faster to bridge the gap in their learning. IF my planning shows integration, THEN my students will be working across the curriculum, thus providing them with more opportunities to consolidate new learning. IF I choose specific features of writing to focus on for the week e.g. vocabulary, THEN this will allow them to see the progress/next steps of their learning in writing. The hypotheses about teaching that I decided were MOST worth testing have been high...

Throughout the course of the year (term 1, home learning, current) I've had many conversations with our Senior Leadership Team around what would best help our school and teachers. These conversations together with data analysis, talanoa with my fellow colleague and CoL teacher, Christine and teaching practice has shown me that there is a need to focus on making a change in my teaching practice to help shift student achievement in writing. To develop my hypothesis I used Aaron's 'What is a hypothesis?' to help me get in the right head space and to clarify my thinking about my inquiry. The 'If...then' formula shared on this slide helped me to identify the following as my hypothesis. IF I provide real life, hands on, authentic learning experiences, THEN my students will have rich ideas to write about. IF I see my target students 3 times a week for focussed sessions (deeper features for writing) THEN I can provide them with specific, structured sessions that will a...

Collecting evidence and data is proving to be much harder now that we're in lockdown and home learning. To help me start collecting data, I am using the Literacy Learning Map  from Gayle McIlraith from Learning Solutions and have used them to create a google form. This will help me collect student voice  Google Form - Literacy Learning Map . It's tricky thinking about the times that we're in and how we will collect evidence.  Here's what I aim to collect in the mean time ... (expect another post once things go back to normal - what ever normal is) 1. Collect student voice  Google Form - Literacy Learning Map . 2. Look at student blogs and analyse the work they're sharing  3. Look at student work (writing output) and analyse (identify strengths & gaps) This distance learning is definitely making it harder to collect evidence, but it also providing opportunities to be creative in finding ways to collect data. 

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. Justify why you chose these approaches and tools. With the current times that we have and home learning, I plan to take the following actions to get a more detailed and accurate picture of my students' learning in writing - collect student voice (using google form/padlet/google doc) about writing - I used this form last year to collect student voice >> Literacy Learning Map and will use it again with my learners (the questions). This will help me gain an understanding of my learners through a literacy lens. - integrate curriculum using the LCS model - talanoa - easTTle writing from Term 1 (recount). This provides a snap shot of independent, timed writing. When back onsite, unpacking student writing to identify strengths and next steps as I feel the pathway doesn't identify these specifically. - writing samples. By lookin...

In our recent meeting with our Senior Leadership team, we identified the priority groups for this year using data from end of year assessments 2019. The priority target groups this year 1. Reading - Maori 2. Writing - Maori & Boys 3. Maths - Maori, Boys, Girls & Pasifika Looking into my practice and what I think would benefit my learners and school, my focus for this year will be on Literacy, specifically Writing, and also the integration of Literacy across the curriculum. To be able to do this, I will firstly work on unpacking my current literacy programme and think about the following ....  1. What specific writing features are my students learning to do? And why? 2. Are my learners aware of what they are learning about? (Not the purpose of the task) 3. Are my learners able to articulate why they are learning this? 4. What progress are my learners making? How?  5. How can I unpack deeper writing features and teach these to my learners this year?  6. What ...

What changes can I make in my current teaching practice (Reading) so that I am more effective in addressing the WALT/LI? (Student learning focus) Hypotheses: Here are some of the things that I am currently doing in my class in Reading that I feel is making a difference: Speak pipe: recording of self reading. Building on fluency and clarity. Providing feedback specific to that. A.L.L group: a target group with 6-7 students seeing 3 times a week, using specific ALL strategies to promote learning Less able group being seen by either myself or Support Staff everyday for either reading or word building Trying to find a balance between hard copied text (book) and online resources (digital texts). Some of the things I aim to change in my teaching practice: To make reading strategies from LLP visible for all learners so that they have more ownership over their next learning step/goals. After having success with sharing the Maths School Matrices with my learners, I am po...

Talofa  Lava! My inquiry this year as a CoL Within School Leader is how can I change my practice to lift achievement for Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Maori students (both genders). I'm extremely excited to be able to delve into my practice this year and really look at how I can raise student achievement in Reading. Come on this journey with me. Malo Lava, Poto