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...

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, ...

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...

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...

Title of Book/Reading/Study Programme Best Practices in writing instruction (2nd edition) - Chapter 1. Designing an Effective Writing Program Author/s or Lecturer/s or Speaker/s Edited - Steve Graham, Charles A.MacArthur, Jill Fitzgerald Motivation The motivation for this reading is the want to improve my Writing programme. As part of my role as a CoL teacher, I am inquiring into raising the achievement of my students in Literacy, with a specific focus on writing. How will it help me? How has it helped me? Key takeaways and what it means for me:  • Foster a love for writing. Establishing a good mood for writing in the classroom is important.  • Make student writing visible - display on walls, share to newspapers i.e. Toitoi • Have high but realistic expectations for writers • Provide enough support for my writers so that they can write i.e. use of models, teacher sessions, word banks, front loading, peer support, word cards   • Student Voice about topics they ...

Title of Book/Reading/Study Programme Effective Literacy Practice Y1-4; Deliberate Acts of Teaching Author/s or Lecturer/s or Speaker/s Ministry of Education Motivation The motivation for this reading is the want to improve my Writing programme. As part of my role as a CoL teacher, I am inquiring into raising the achievement of my students in Literacy, with a specific focus on writing. How will it help me? How has it helped me? Every time I read this section of the book, I learn something new. My key takeaways for this reading this time round are: Modelling; I need to do more of this and use more models of writing when I am introducing or teaching a new strategy/skill. GRR, Gradual Release of Responsibility is how I aim to do this.  I write . We write. You write. I Write is where I model effectively. Giving Feedback; Hattie describes feedback as the most powerful single factor that enhances achievement. If I think back to one of my hypothesis 'IF I choose specific ...

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...

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