TAI - cognitive engagement and critical thinking during online learning - #21

It's been a rocky year with a lot of changes in practice due to the lockdown and adapting to prolonged online learning. 

During these times, I tried to continue to run a balanced programme for reading, writing and maths using high leverage practices and the Learn-Create-Share pedagogy. I was pleased with how students responded and participated during online learning.

I designed a number of integrated units using multimodal sites. I believe that this approach helped to differentiate during online learning but also raise students' confidence to participate and contribute. 

I continued with the main part of my TAI 2021 throughout the distance learning times - How will I change my practice to ensure my learners are cognitively engaged and develop their critical thinking skills across the curriculum - and can definitely say that my online learners deepened their critical thinking and stayed cognitively engaged during online learning. I recorded some Class onAir episodes and shared my resources to support these units.

Self-evaluation for Improvement - Taking Actions - TAI#16

How do I prioritise taking action?  Now that I am clear on what problem or issue I am trying to solve, what do I need to do and why?

As explained earlier, my inquiry was extended to the whole school. I initiated a number of conversations with the school leaders and I'm pleased that I was heard. We collectively recognised that we have a problem and we decided to address it at the school level.

What has been done:

- set up the expectations about teaching maths using the right resources 

- organised a PD about using manipulatives and visuals to teach place value at different levels

- did an audit of the class resources, re-distributed them according to the levels and needs. I'm placing an order to top up our materials.

- modelled number talk using ten frames to a BT.

- published Class OnAir episodes about number talk and choral counting

How big is the change that I've initiated? 

I believe this is a big change and it will help improve not only my teaching practice but help other GTS teachers to make a difference in their students' outcomes in maths.

Monitoring the Effects of My Intervention on Learner Outcomes

Identify informal and formal ways you are monitoring the effects of your changed practices/intervention on learner outcomes. Explain the reflections and tweaks you are making along the way.

My Inquiry: How can I change my practice to raise student achievement in literacy by promoting deep learning that requires students to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum using Learn-Create-Share?

My interventions:

• Putting my students at the very centre of their learning and making their learning experiences authentic by designing LCS projects based on their interests and taking into account their identities.
• Scaffolding my learners during their projects by implementing and consistently using the tasks designed to improve their vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing skills.
• Utilizing drama to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking and raise students achievement in reading and writing.

Monitoring the Effect:

• Student voice (evidence of their hight engagement and positive attitude towards learning -  collected through their blog posts, in-class & online conversations and sticky post-it notes in Term 3. In Term 4 the students will be asked to complete the same google form they did in Term 1 to compare the results/ changes)

• Photos, Videos, their Reading and Writing examples, online and in-class observations - evidence of my students' learning and progress (formative assessments):
• numerous LCS projects
• blogging and commenting, peer and teacher feedback
• maths word problems - incorporating Reading and Writing to gain a deeper understanding and new vocab
• Teaching of making inferences in a fun and engaging way: inferring from a picture, riddles and other activities - genuine interest, high motivation, critical thinking, etc 
• Introducing new vocab through topics of their interest and creating situations where they have opportunities to use their new vocab (Kahoot quizzes - students created, Film making, scriptwriting experiences,  use of S.Cameron and L.Dempsey activities)
• Drama (lots of reading and writing, problem-solving and KC) - Films for the Manaiakalani FF 2020 will be available on our class blog in T4.

• End of Term 3 data: Running Records and writing samples. All of my Year 3 target students moved up their reading and writing levels despite two lockdowns. All of them are now working at the expected after 3 years at school levels. I look forward to continuing with my inquiry next term and seeing my students' successes.

Whanau Engagement during Home Learning

Learn-Create-Share culture, Whanau engagement and Smart Footprint

The students were very active during our online meets and on their blogs because they felt proud of their learning. They knew that all of them were important and their contributions greatly appreciated! Every day we had our Talanoa time when my students had opportunities to share what they did independently pursuing their personal interests or passions. Sometimes I was blown away by my students' abilities and creativity! Ka Pai, Room 5!

Our home learning was great and we will take on board the best of our new experiences. But we are looking forward to coming back to school on Monday!

Home Learning Round 2

Here we go again... Home Learning round 2! Level 3 caught us in the middle of our exciting LCS Book Week project! The children were disappointed as they were so keen to write a script and perform their new play! I know that some of them continued working on the script during the first days of Level 3. It clearly shows their engagement and genuine interest in their learning.

I'm grateful to our school management as they decided to distribute free loan devices to our Year 2-3 students. It definitely reflected in an increased number of children that I've been seeing online during our Google Meets or working on their learning programmes. Out of 20 children in my Y2-3 class, I normally see 12-14 students twice a day and 18 are actively busy working on their programmes. What a success!

This sudden change in learning environment made me stop and rethink my professional inquiry again. After some consideration, I am determined to continue with my focus on promoting deep learning that requires students to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum using Learn-Create-Share.

When designing my lessons, I try to ensure that activities are personally meaningful for my students. Last week, we focused on making inferences and sharing our experiences. I believe it helped connect the online learning tasks with students' previous knowledge and experiences in personally relevant ways.

During our google meets I usually focus on questions that encourage deeper reflection and personal responses from my learners and stimulate real, authentic conversations, for example: 'Why do Zebras have stripes?' or ' Are dolphins smart? Why?' I also use these conversations to develop active use of specific vocabulary, collaborative and questioning skills and foster their confidence and curiosity. 

It is so rewarding to see that my students initiate authentic conversations by sharing their topics of interest. They ask questions and give feedback to each other and even plan for the next activities that we could do together during the home learning period.

Examples of student-driven collaborative activities:

- Creating our class digital library (students created read-aloud).

- Creating and playing Kahoots of their interest (rugby, Te Reo, maths, rhymes and alliterations, etc)

- Blogging. Sharing their personal presentations like cooking,  dances and songs, art, stories etc)

- Commenting on each other blogs leaving smart and specific comments.

Learning, Creating and Sharing - week 2

During the week following our first collaborative session, we continued to talk about our favourite books. One of my inquiry focuses is on making students' learning experiences authentic by designing LCS projects based on their interests and taking into account their identities. During this project, we put students' interests at the centre of their learning and I believe this approach inspired our young learners to create many wonderful written texts, art and digital objects.

Reflecting on our class identities, It was very interesting to observe how different classes focused on different aspects of LCS. One of the classes discussed the story elements and created their own characters and settings in response to the book they'd selected. I believe they now aim for rewriting the 'model text' and creating their own book! The students started to work on some illustrations. How exciting was to see such creative writers and artists! 

Another class focused on descriptive writing, unpacked new vocabulary and dug even deeper talking about characters' feelings in the book. The students presented their descriptions to the audience and received well-deserved Pakipaki!

My class decided to use one of the famous book characters and completely change the settings of the story! We brainstormed a lot of problems and solutions, wrote a number of short plays, acted them out and performed to the other classes last Friday. I promote the use of drama techniques to support literacy learning. I believe it makes reading and writing activities more engaging and meaningful for students,  enhances critical and creative thinking skills, thus I hope it will help my students to formulate and express ideas and opinions. 

Our Y2-3 students were highly engaged and motivated. They were proud to present what they had created and tried their best sharing authentic learning experiences. Our next step is to do some blog posts sharing our project with a wider audience and connecting our learners online.  Teachers will plan for shared writing lessons to write smart comments on the other class blogs and then allow our students to leave more smart positive personal comments.

Profiling: understanding the nature of my students’ learning strengths and needs in detail

There is a complex of factors that influence student's learning. Getting to know your students is extremely both for their well-being and academic achievements. 
The more we understand our students, the more efficient we can ensure their learning successes. When we have an in-depth understanding of how our students learn, there is a major impact on diagnosing student needs and planning effective programmes and supports. 

I combined the data gathered during in-class learning in Term 1 and the formative data collected during distance learning ('Covid-19 data'). 

During the lockdown, I experienced a new opportunity to look inside our learners' lives and observe them learning from home, observe their learning styles, reveal their personal interests, motivation and key competencies. Interestingly, I enjoyed a very high level of engagement in comparison to similar junior classes in my school. I believe that one of the factors that contributed to this success was a love of learning and self-motivation of my learners that we have been developing together during in-class learning.  Another factor was the use of personalised tasks that helped to keep my students engaged and motivated. Effective learning takes place when the amount of task structure by the teacher matches a student's level of development. 

My 2020 inquiry is about raising student achievement in literacy by promoting deep learning that requires students to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum. I decided not to change my inquiry focus. After the lockdown and distance teaching I witnessed and confirmed for myself that understanding of learner identities is not just important but crucial for effective teaching and learning. 

Pre-Covid data: 
I analyzed results of the beginning of Term 1 Running record in reading and e-asttle in writing and found that most of my Year 2 students are well below the expected levels both in reading and writing. My year 3 students are placed at different levels, however, all of them require to focus on reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. 

I looked closely at the RR and identified that while my Year 2's need to work on decoding and comprehension skills, my Year 3's students mostly require to focus on making inferences and improving their evaluation skills.
The e-asttle writing data and their independent writing exemplars also suggested focusing on ideas, vocabulary and spelling.
All of these findings helped me to identify and prioritize 3 main areas for developing my teaching intervention: general knowledge, vocabulary(meaning and wordbuilding) and spelling (phonics, H-F and word building).

Formative "Covid-19 data".
Formative data collected during distance learning also showed that my students have limited general knowledge of various topics. Based on various reports from Reading eggs, Sunshine classics, Kahoot topic games and completed tasks on Seesaw, I found that my students need to work on their inferential skills and vocabulary. Distance learning proved that taking into account their learner identities (e.g. personal identities, cultural and social backgrounds, academic performance and learning preferences) helps improve motivation and enhance students' learning outcomes.

My next steps:
- collecting student voice: their literacy dispositions, interests and self-evaluation in reading and writing.
- finding related literacy research
- making my hypothesis

Using Kahoot for instructional practices and formative assessments

Game-based learning is considered one of the most effective teaching practices.  Research and empirical data support game learning because it engages students in problem-solving and critical thinking while building up their content knowledge. 

Today, I’d like to talk about using Kahoot in my practice! I believe that Kahoot not only helps create a fun virtual learning environment but also motivates and stimulates the learning process. 

Every morning, I use my Class site and the Seesaw blog to introduce daily activities. Students have to work at their own pace due to various reasons (different age, levels, abilities, internet access, family arrangements, etc). However, after introducing Kahoot games as part of our Google Meets, more students began to join in on a regular basis and the amount of completed daily tasks escalated. 

Playing Kahoot with junior students looks different from games played with older children. I use Kahoot games not just for doing formative assessments (without students knowing it) but as opportunities to use various DATs depending on the situation and questions. There will be more explicit teaching when we play a new topic Kahoot for the first time, then, during the subsequent games, I gradually release my control and let students rely on their knowledge and skills.

For example, my class has been working on place value and symmetry this week. 

The first Kahoot game revealed their understanding of both areas:

Every day this week we played ‘the same’ Kahoot quiz, however, it was not exactly the same game as I kept changing the actual numbers and pictures for the questions. For example, the question stayed the same: How many tens are in this number? But each day I included a different number and its representation giving my students an opportunity to think and apply their knowledge rather than memorising the previous answers. I also assign related tasks on Seesaw and provide my learners with ongoing timely feedback on their completed tasks. 

4 days later, my students played this Kahoot with the following results, the number of engaged learners has also increased:

The report for each student and his/her answers for each question is also available in the Kahoot report section. This report helps to differentiate and design individual or groups tasks to improve student understanding. I always share the reports with my learners after the game and I discovered that they find it valuable. Even if they don’t come first, my students are reassured that their knowledge is growing along with their confidence.

I think Kahoot fosters student cognitive engagement, motivation and critical thinking. The analysis of data collected during Kahoot games provides the opportunity to identify areas of weaknesses and strengths and helps to inform my teaching in order to improve student achievement.

Tools, Measures and Approaches

TAI WFRC: 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.

My Inquiry: How can I change my practice to raise student achievement in literacy by promoting deep learning that requires students to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum using Learn-Create-Share?

Firstly, I've reflected on my 2019 Inquiry and Term 1 2020 and analyzed what had been worked well for me and my learners in the past. Based on my experience, discussions with other colleagues and professional reading, I decided to focus on the following tools and approaches to carry out my TAI 2020:

• an integrated curriculum (Learn-Create-Share model)
• collecting student voice
• utilizing student interests and prior knowledge
• partnership with whanau
• developing a growth mindset and key competencies

To measure my students' progress and knowledge, I plan to use both formative and summative assessments with a bigger emphasis on formative assessment strategies. I believe this will help improve teaching and learning simultaneously. I aim to actively encourage them to be cognitively engaged and take ownership of their learning.

I think that explaining the assessment expectations to learners before any summative assessment helps them perform better. It is the same important as giving clear instructions and feedback.

Surely, along the formative assessments (observations, student voice, conferencing, tasks that require students to use skills or apply ideas, etc), I'll be using the standardized tests to evaluate my students' learning:
e-asstle writing and reading, Running Records.

I trust that coherence in putting my students at the very centre of their learning and making their learning experiences authentic is crucial for their engagement and achievements.

Adapting to Remote Teaching and Learning

In my last post, I wrote that our school's Year 0-3 students are not part of the 1:1 Manaiakalani programme. My challenge was to establish accessible remote teaching and learning for my team and all junior students. Glen Taylor school decided not to change the term dates and we had to quickly adapt to the new teaching environment.

Emergent Stage: establishing online connections.
I decided to start small and assess what we had in place.  Our junior school had been using Seesaw and some families were connected to their children's blogs. During our Term 1 Talanoa time, we had updated the contact details of our parents and now we had to e-mail and/or call them to explain how they could access their child's Seesaw blog.
Tools used: 
-Seesaw blogs - to establish connections
-hard copy learning packs

Beginning Stage: implementing whole-class remote instructional teaching
My class was the only class from our junior school that had the class site. I also used the class site to reach other families of our Junior school and promote their Seesaw class blogs, Google Hangouts and other available online learning apps.
At the same time, we started to run daily Google Hangouts, engaging more and more learners.
It was a short period of whole-class teaching and I felt that it was not structured and engaging enough.
Tools used:
-Seesaw blogs - whole-class instructions (recorded videos of teacher morning greetings and daily instructions)
-hard copy learning packs (now with recorded video instructions on how to use some of the activities)
-Google Hangouts (3 daily sessions)
-My class site for the entire Junior school

Developing Stage: leading a change to improve remote teaching practices.

Reflecting on my remote teaching, I noticed that the change of my planning format and the constant use of my class site was a great tool to connect with my students and their families. It helped achieve a more structured programme and engage more learners. I felt that our junior school would benefit from having individual class sites and called for the syndicate meeting. I was very impressed by the GTS management and my team's dedication. However, some of my team members had no experience with Google class sites. I created a template of their class sites and ran a few online sessions on how to use their sites and implement our new planning format to improve our remote teaching practices.
In less than 2 days, our class sites were up and running! Well done, Team!

Current Stage: differentiated teaching, increasing student engagement and motivation
Everything described above happened within less than 5 days of our distance teaching.

My next step was making sure that my learners were engaged at the right level (differentiation) and motivated to keep learning.

The tools that I use now are:

• New daily planning format using Google Slides - easy to follow differentiated tasks.
• Google Hangouts - daily communication, oral language, feedforward and feedback, brainstorming ideas, students voice, sharing news and learning. A special thank you to Mrs Logan who was co-teaching during our online Meets and via Seesaw.
• Class site - design for learning - making learning differentiated, accessible, rewindable and visible.
• Seesaw - assigned individualised tasks based on their learning needs, ongoing feedback and feedforward, private messaging to improve individual learning outcomes.
• Hard copy learning packs - allowing more time for purposeful non-screen learning, providing video ideas of how to use some of the hard material.
• Learning apps - assigning group and individualised tasks, checking their progress, giving feedback and planning next learning goals. (ixl, SunshineClassics, Reading eggs, Hit the Button, Story Online, Matific)
• Class points based on their visible learning - drawing on my students' motivation and competitive nature. Constant reminders to bring all of their other work (on paper) after the lockdown to earn more class points.
• Learn-Create-Share pedagogy and the integrated curriculum have been utilised to keep my learners engaged, motivated and feel successful during these uncertain times.
• Students have been encouraged to pursue their own interests as I believe that this fosters the development of life-long learning.

By the end of Term 1,  my team prepared online holiday activities. We tried to select fun but educational activities that our students can do by themselves or with their families.

Please check out my class site and Seesaw blog.   Today is the 2nd day of the school holidays but my learners keep sharing their learning on our class blog. I believe it proves their engagement and motivation. 

I would like to acknowledge and thank the GTS leaders and teachers who have been working together to quickly adapt to the new learning environment.                                     

First Days in Lockdown and Distance Teaching

A day before the lockdown, my school was preparing for distance teaching and learning. It was more or less clear for our Year 4-8 classes because their learners had been empowered by being part of the Manaiakalani 1:1 programme and most learners had their own devices.
In Year 0-3 classes we had a different situation with the devices and online learning, so we urgently had to put a plan together on how we could make sure that our students had opportunities to carry on with their learning.

Firstly, I suggested preparing educational packs that were door-delivered to all of our students within the same day. My colleagues and I worked hard to include all individual passwords for the online programmes that we usually used in our classrooms: ixl.com, students blogs, Reading Eggs, Sunshine classics and Matific. We also made sure that we covered all the main curriculum areas and tried to make their activities engaging.

Later on, we received a lot of positive feedback about our learning packs from GTS whanau and students. Some of the activities have not just been used by our Year 0-3 learners but also by their older siblings.

We did what we could to support our learners during the very first days of the lockdown. My question was what to do next?

Teaching and learning from home is a big change. Without a physical classroom, how can I engage my learners and check that students are progressing? How do I stay connected with my learners?

First, I tried to connect with my students and families via e-mails, our class blog and phone calls.  Then, following our Year 4-8's successful example, I promoted Google Hangouts. I had a lot of technical difficulties to get connected with my students and whanau. For many of them, I had to present my screen during the Hangouts and teach step-by-step how to access students' blogs, how to do blog posts, how to find and login into the online programmes. To be honest, sometimes, I felt more a family educator rather than a classroom teacher. I am very glad that I managed to reach the majority of my learners! My distance teaching has begun!

My next steps are: help our junior teachers to reach more of their learners and establish a quality distance learning programme for my class, my team and my syndicate.

My COL Inquiry 2020

Inquiry: How can I change my practice to raise student achievement in literacy by promoting deep learning that requires students to develop cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum using Learn-Create-Share?

 As a Year ⅔ teacher, I've now got my new 2020 students who were part of Play-Based Learning last year or a year before. Play-based learning was introduced to GTS a couple of years ago and nobody really knew how to run it effectively. I didn’t feel comfortable with the new arrangements and, after a number of discussions, my colleagues and I began our inquiries into the effective pedagogy: Y0-1 were doing 'free play' for a year, Y2-3 used the Learn-Create-Share model.

 Earlier this year, I analyzed Year 1-3 data from the end of 2017, 2018 and 2019 school years and noticed declining trends in students’ achievements in Reading. Same patterns were found in Writing and Maths data. Most of my year 2 learners are well below the expectations and some of year 3 students are below. Being passionate about all GTS Year ⅔ students, I also looked at two other year ⅔ classes and found the same situation. It formed and started my inquiry with a focus on improving students' outcomes in literacy.

All of my last year target students made accelerated progress and all of them achieved the desired “at and above”. This year, I plan to continue to use the LCS pedagogy to improve outcomes for my and my colleagues’ learners.

I believe that coherence in putting our students at the very centre of their learning and making their learning experiences authentic is crucial for their engagement and achievements. My hunch is that will make a difference.

I will use the Manaiakalani TAI Framework: