RPI Day 9 - Time to Share and Celebrate!

 Today’s focus was on SHARE: making learning visible and giving feedback.

Sharing only happens if it’s planned, and it needs both visibility and reflection. Kids learn so much from each other and with blogging we can create really meaningful opportunities for them to post their responses to texts, reflections, and thoughts, and also connect to their peers’ learning by reading and commenting on their blogs.

We also dug into the power of feedback when it’s specific, timely and focused on the task. Research shows that descriptive plus generative feedback is much more effective than evaluative. Naomi shared some great practical ways to embed this into daily practice. AI tools like Brisk can also help with targeted feedback. Kiri reminded us that it’s important to always review and simplify AI comments, keep only a couple of multiple AI comments, so they stay clear and encouraging to our learners.

A positive learning environment is huge for both learning and collaboration. J. Hattie measured the impact at 0.72, which is really effective! One thing I’d love to build into class sites is a kete of reusable resources: graphic organisers, rewindable resources and other tools that give learners choice and independence in how they respond to text. I'm actually thinking about what should be included in such a KETE for a maths class site...

Final thoughts on the programme. I’m probably cheating, but I copied and pasted my responses from the last evaluation survey:)

1. How did the opportunity to attend the Reading Practice Intensive impact you positively?

I wish I had attended RPI back when I was teaching and leading a team. It would have been so helpful and practical. Such a great programme with amazing resources - from the WHY to WHAT and HOW. Thank you!

2. Which aspects of the RPI have particularly impacted your classroom practice, planning and workflow?
I really appreciated everything across all 9 days. Some ideas I’ve already used in practice, but others would definitely enhance it, especially digging deeper into vocab and connecting with Te Mātaiaho, which is still new to me.

3. What aspects of the in-school mentoring and coaching have impacted you positively?
N/A for me, but Naomi, Georgie, Dorothy and Kiri are always such great role models in their facilitation! I feel very fortunate to learn from the best in this space!

4. How do you think we could improve the RPI or better support the next cohort?
Honestly, I think the programme is fantastic just as it is.

5. Is there anything else you would like to say or let us know?

A HUGE thank you to the RPI team - you’re amazing!

Across Schools COL Teacher 2024

 Kia Ora wonderful Manaiakalani educators

This year, I'm excited to continue collaborating with Kahui Ako teachers and sharing my knowledge and skills as an AS COL teacher. I'm particularly passionate about Maths and will be focusing on effective teaching practices in Mathematics across Y1–6. However, I am always happy to support teachers with all of their questions across the curriculum. I can offer:

• Working with you on developing and implementing a balanced classroom programme 
• Developing student agency/ student empowerment. I'm happy to explain the approach we developed at GTS and support implementing it with your class.
• Designing engaging LCS projects (integrated curriculum)
• Unpacking curriculum progressions across the curriculum 
• Planning lessons or units
• Understanding and using various assessments (formative and summative)
• Analysing assessment data and using it for planning
• Selecting the best resources to teach different concepts in Maths
• Co-teaching, observing, feedback and modelling
• Number Talk and the use of various manipulatives and digital tools in maths
• Creating multi-modal sites 
• Support with your movie for the Film Festival

I truly look forward to collaborating with you to create engaging learning opportunities for our tamariki and to help them achieve their full potential.

I'm available to work with teachers during their class and release time. This term, I am part of the MPI (Maths Programme Intensive) pilot program on Thursdays but available every Friday. 

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.