Improving Teacher Practice and Accelerating Student Learning in Mathematics (TAI 2023 presentation at Burst & Bubbles)

Since 2021, my inquiry focus has been on improving teacher practice and raising student achievement  in Mathematics. Over the past years, the Maths achievement data has been consistently concerning across many Manaiakalani schools at all year levels. Furthermore, the issue of students underperforming in math has captured national attention.

At the start of the year, I discovered that almost 90% of our new Y3 students were working below and well below their expected levels in mathematics. Their Term 1 PAT results confirmed the data I collected during other summative and formative assessments. This group of students became my target group, or I prefer to call them my control group, as I always strive to deliver the best teaching to all students. 

After analysing the school-wide T1 PAT results, I engaged in several professional conversations with my school leaders and teachers. We decided to adopt a more data-informed approach and redesigned and restructured our maths programmes across all year levels. We ensured a well-rounded focus on both Number and Strand, employing an integrated curriculum and fostering student agency.

I’ve been actively involved in supporting my school and other COL teachers by working on understanding various assessments, analyzing and using data for more effective planning. 

I've supported a number of teachers and teams by discussing and collaboratively reviewing their maths programmes, by selecting the best resources for teaching different concepts, compiling and sharing practical resources, for example, maths-integrated Matariki resources for L1 to 4 of the curriculum, by observing lessons, providing feedback, unpacking it and planning next steps. 

To share my expertise and passion for this subject, I provided in-class support by both modeling and co-teaching maths lessons.

This year, I’ve had the privilege of working as part of the Maths design group, with the goal of launching a new maths PLD program next year. I've already volunteered to pilot this program in Term 1. I really hope that this new Manaiakalani initiative will support our teachers in growing their capability and love for teaching mathematics.

To conclude my presentation, I’d like to share the end-of-year Maths PAT results of my targeted Year 3 cohort (Y3 learners in my class achieved 18.6 gain).  We filtered the data analysis by "same students only" to compare apples to apples. The group achieved a gain of 17 points, compared to the national average of 9.2. This difference translates to nearly 2 years of progress and means that, with my team, we successfully accelerated their learning in Mathematics.

Enhancing Teacher Practice and Accelerating Student Learning in Mathematics (TAI 2022 presentation at Burst & Bubbles)

My 2022 inquiry started at the end of last year when I noticed more discrepancies in Maths achievement data in different classes compared to Reading and Writing results. What could I do to reduce variability in teaching maths and accelerate student learning? I came up with my inquiry question: “Will developing teacher collaboration improve teacher practice, increase student engagement and raise achievement in mathematics” 

During the profiling phase, I used student voice from different classes, formative and summative assessments, lesson observations and had professional conversations with teachers. I noticed that many teachers felt more comfortable teaching literacy than Mathematics.  I wanted to effectively support teachers to build their confidence in maths. I was hoping to employ teacher collaboration to design and deliver an effective maths programme across our year 3-4 classes.

Interestingly, team teaching during hybrid learning at the beginning of the year helped with my inquiry as provided multiple opportunities for my team to collaborate. We improved our professional relationships by developing team trust, establishing shared values and goals and setting up high expectations within our team.  Having open conversations about teaching maths helped me identify areas for improvement. We worked together to unpack the principles of effective pedagogy in Mathematics, develop solid subject knowledge and effectively use manipulatives, visuals and technology. 

Last year, my inquiry was about the implementation of High leverage practices in mathematics and I managed to accelerate my students’ learning despite the lockdowns. I was excited to share my expertise and passion for teaching maths with my team. I’ve been helping my colleagues with understanding various assessments, analysing maths data and using it for planning, selecting the best resources to teach different concepts, observing, giving feedback,  and modelling maths lessons. Collectively, we designed a new team planning format to make sure that students in our classes were getting the same high-quality consistent programme delivered every day. Eventually, my team developed a habit of ongoing collective reflections on our practice constantly refining our programme and problem-solving. 

As a result of my team's commitment and productive collaboration, our students have been empowered through a structured, accessible and rewindable maths programme. We all noticed a great shift in student engagement and teacher confidence. Our students love maths and this resulted in their good progress which is evident from our assessment data.

 

Year 4 Maths PAT data - repeated measures - TAI #22

Yesterday, I administered a Year 4 Maths PAT. We started by talking about integrity when doing the test online. The cameras were on all the time with no creative backgrounds and no other people around them. We also had a conversation about how teachers use the test information in their planning. Practice makes perfect - that was our purpose for this test. I used filters to compare the results of the students who participated in Term 1 and Term 4 tests (comparing 'apples to apples'). 

I'm very proud of my students who have shown resilience, great engagement and love of learning during these lockdown times and kept improving their knowledge and skills despite the circumstances!

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.

Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day Presentation

At the end of Term 1, Ko te Kāhui Ako o Manaiakalani had a Teacher Only Day with a focus on effective pedagogy in Reading. We had a fantastic presentation by Dr Rae Si'ilata who briefly reminded us about the High-leverage practices.  Then she talked about culturally responsive pedagogy, her own experiences as a learner, and focused on effective bilingual/biliteracy practice for Pasifika learners in our schools.

During the day, teachers attended three other workshops to learn from our Manaiakalani colleagues - educators that know our tamariki, know our community, know our successes and challenges.  

I was privileged to present and share some aspects of my practice around Shared Reading and Integrated Learning. The feedback that I got from my colleagues and their enthusiasm during the workshop was very rewarding; Some of my colleagues said that I gave them ideas and strategies that they would like to implement into their practice in Term 2. 

The two workshops that I attended were full of practical ideas and resources. I look forward to using my new learning in Term 2. 

I think it was a great day to learn from each other, give and receive feedback and reflect on my own practice! 

Manaiakalani TOD website

Burst and Bubbles

The catalytic aspect of student learning my inquiry focused on this year was a strong need to improve reading comprehension and poor vocabulary in our junior classes.

At the beginning of this year, I identified this as my inquiry focus after analyzing my new class data and discovering that most of my Year 2 students were well below the expected levels both in reading and writing. My year 3 students were working at different levels; however, many of them experienced a ‘summer drop’ and required lots of support and immediate actions to improve their outcomes.

To build a rich picture of my students’ learning in literacy, I used Running Records, e-asttle, vocabulary and spelling tests, a range of formative assessments of their reading and writing across the curriculum, and student voice.

The weakest aspects in their literacy learning that I identified during the profiling phase were a lack of comprehensive strategies, poor vocabulary and limited general knowledge. 

The profiling of my own teaching showed that I had strengths in designing various cross-curricular projects and effectively pulling deeper learning out of them using the Learn-Create-Share pedagogy. 

After analysing and evaluating my students’ profiles, consulting with the literature research, reading blogs of my COL colleagues and reflecting on my own teaching practice, I finalised and implemented the following  interventions:

• Designing authentic LCS projects taking into account their cultural and personal identities 

• Using digital and traditional tasks designed to improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension at the appropriate levels. 

• Creating a culture of blogging and commenting (new to our junior school).

• Implementing drama activities that according to the literature research are ‘giving students the chance to use all skills in decoding and comprehension, expand vocabulary and build metacognitive knowledge’. I believe this led to our success during the Manaiakalani Film Festival.

These changes allowed my Year 2/3 students to take ownership and responsibility for their own learning, explore, take risks, make mistakes and learn from them.  For example, my young students created their own Kahoot quizzes and riddles. To be able to successfully participate in such high-thinking level activities, the students had to research, process, design and present their learning. They got so extremely excited that I couldn’t stop them even during the school holidays! 

Overall I would rate the changes in student learning as highly positive, evident and measurable. The evidence for my rating is supported by the data collected in Term 4 both in reading and writing along with huge improvements in their key competencies, growth mindset and achievements. All of my students showed great progress and the vast majority are working ‘at’ or ‘above’ the expected levels including four boys and two girls from my control group. 

Coherence in putting my students at the very centre of their learning and developing cognitive engagement and critical thinking across the curriculum was my hunch and it proved to make a difference during both in-class and online learning.

Comparing Reading data - Y2/3 (3 classes)

My students’ progress compared to two other Year 2/3 classes in my school. 
(Assessments used - Running Records Term 1 and 4).

2019 Inquiry Stocktake

During my last year inquiry about students' intellectual and cognitive engagement, I focused on providing real opportunities for my students to become interested in their learning. I believe that my cross-curricular approach led to their increased motivation, genuine cognitive engagement and the rewarding achievement data at the end of 2019.

I’ve used the ‘Inquiry Stocktake’ doc to reflect on my TAI 2019 and think about how I can improve my teaching practice this year.

What worked well in 2019: 

cross-curricular teaching, collecting student voice and building on their interest and prior knowledge, being observed by my COL colleagues and ALiM facilitators and receiving their feedback, working with data

Last year, I used a cross-curricular approach trying to extend our inquiry learning through various reading, writing and math activities and show my students a real purpose of each part of the Learn-Create-Share process.

I believe that I developed a range of teaching strategies and created tasks, follow-up and independent activities that supported my students not to just stay engaged and motivated during our projects but retain their new knowledge and skills and be able to apply them in real life for a real purpose.
Learning from observations: It was good to have a COL observation and numerous ALIM observations followed by discussions and feedback from my COL colleagues and the AliM facilitator.
Collecting my colleagues' voice was an interesting experience as I'd never done this before. It helped me to critically reflect on my practice, feel appreciated but also plan my next steps for improvement.
Collecting student voice in T2 about relationships and in T3 about communication helped me to identify the areas to pay more attention to. I'm glad that the students were feeling safe, happy and learnt a lot in my class (according to what they said:-)
Analyzing data and effectively using it for my planning. As a result, all of my students showed great progress in all areas of learning.

Challenges that I had in 2019: 

having a Y2/3 composite class and time challenge 

Having Year 2 and 3 students in a class was a bit challenging due to their age-specific differences (same as this year). Reflecting on my 2019 TAI, I need to better control myself in order to slow down as I don't want my students to rush through their activities as it will affect their learning outcomes and experiences. On the other hand, my advanced learners also have to be continuously challenged and engaged. It requires a lot of planning and preparations. I have to remind myself that although I have high expectations for all of my students, I must keep it less challenging for my younger students to make sure they are feeling successful and motivated.

As a professional, I am constantly learning. Whether we (teachers) are learning through PD reading or during internal or external PLD sessions, we are being exposed to a lot of new and important information that is supposed to enhance our skills and knowledge. However, there's a big difference between absorbing information and putting it into practice. Without applying newly gained knowledge, the training people have received will go to waste. It's important to have a strategy and time for implementing new learning.

The support I need in 2020

I am going to reach out to other teachers who proved to be effective practitioners, members of the Woolf Fisher research team and the Manaiakalani team to help me connect with other teachers who are passionate about the integrated curriculum.
Currently, I am meeting with GTS Principal and DP fortnightly to discuss what I’m doing to support other teachers and plan the next steps.

Looking back at 2019 LCS projects

Description - 'Learn Create Share' student-centred project learning. 
In week 1, I chose to read the book "Chinese New Year" as it was the beginning of the Chinese NY celebration. I hoped that my learners would ask many questions about Chinese traditions and the Chinese calendar. To be honest, I didn't expect that our learning would flow like a mountain stream with many unexpected turns. Following their interests, we first learnt about dragons using multimedia texts. Then my students noticed that the dragons looked like some extinct dinosaurs and we had to investigate more to be able to compare and contrast these creatures. After that, we ended up talking about palaeontology (later on, this led us to explore birds, etc).

 

Significance
Cognitive engagement is defined as the extent to which students’ are willing and able to take on the learning task at hand. “When children come home talking excitedly about the latest issues they are grappling with in class, this shows that something important has kindled their desire to know more. When students want to bring resources from home that contribute to the class study, do extra at home for the sheer pleasure of it, offer to lead a group of peers, start contributing in unexpected ways, make suggestions to the class on how to improve something or want to stay in when the bell goes because what they are learning is just so absorbing, then we know that students are taking learning to heart. We know that they are curious and inspired.” (Connecting Curriculum, Linking Learning, 2013, by Barbara Whyte, Deborah Fraser and Viv Aitken)
That's exactly what was happening in my class! My learners, their parents and friends were all excited and engaged in our learning.

   

Learning
Reflecting on my teaching practice, I believe that this project was successful because I was teaching throughout the project—not teaching and then doing the project. Every aspect of learning was purposeful and meaningful to my learners. They wanted to read and write to be able to find out what was interesting to them. The learners decided to find out what dinosaur was the most popular - we conducted statistical investigations learning how to collect, sort out and display data. The students asked how long is 30 metres (the average length of an Argentinosaurus) and we went to measure an imaginary dinosaur on the court learning about non-standard and standard units. During this project, I used a cross-curricular approach and a range of deliberate acts of teaching in flexible and integrated ways that led to the success of our project and increased my learners' cognitive and intellectual engagement.