My Spark Manaiakalani Inquiry Review

Its hard to believe its been a year since I began my inquiry but today was our last meeting at Spark HQ to reflect on the progress we have made.  As part of this, we recorded our presentation, with additional commentary on our overall thoughts on learner shift as well as personal learning.

The "Thinglink" below provides links to all aspects on my inquiry:



The opportunity to be a Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher for 2016 was amazing and I've grown professionally as a result.  Its been a privilege to join the other teachers involved this year (particularly given the Manaiakalani Outreach teachers were also involved) and I've thoroughly enjoyed following their inquiry progress and presenting with them all this year.

I look forward to continuing my inquiry journey into 2017 and have shared all my resources publicly so that other teachers (and learners) are able to also benefit.

Finally, a huge thanks to the Spark Foundation and Manaiakalani Trust for the opportunity.  Their generous support continues to open up opportunities for both learners, teachers and the wider community.

Presenting at ULearn 2016

Sharing gems and collaborating on the problem solving

Today in our inquiry groups we had an opportunity to share some gems from our inquiry as well as discuss things we might be struggling with and brainstorm some ideas.  It was an amazing session and we had teachers from different areas and year levels to contribute to the discussion.  Some of the things we discussed and shared included:

• Samoan Proverb: ‘Ia teu le Vå’ Va is the space between, the between-ness, not empty space, not space that separates but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together in the unity-in all, the space that is context, giving meaning to things. A well known Samoan expression is ‘Ia teu le va’, cherish/nurse/care for the va, the relationships. This is crucial in communal cultures that value group, unity, and more than the individual person/creature/ thing in terms of group, in terms of va, relationships.” Albert Wendt - respecting the same between us and the learner or group of learners and keeping this at the forefront of our practice, particularly when dealing with difficult situations
• creating a culture for your space - as well as creating this culture, make sure the learners feel ownership of the culture and also you, as the teacher, take ownership of the culture also.  Reaffirm the culture frequently
• ensure the learners know why they are doing an activity/task a certain way - at times you need to explicitly teach it, or teach the 'why' behind it
• feedback is important but needs to be manageable and sustainable - one suggestion was to give written feedback fortnightly on a cycle, to support the verbal/oral feedback in the classroom
• understand your learners and use extrinsic motivators (eg Class Dojo) to achieve desired behaviours - where possible make these visible but as unobtrusive as possible

While some of the things we discussed today seem "obvious" its great to hear other teachers' opinions  and hear some new ways of doing things to try in my own classroom.  Its great to have an opportunity to discuss things openly, particularly at a time of the year which can be more difficult and time pressures continue to intrude.

Inquiry Update Term 3

As part of our ongoing school wide inquiry, today we shared our progress with your new groups.  It will be great to share the progress I have made and hear how others' inquiries are progressing.  Below is the presentation that I will share.

MIT Inquiry - sharing with others

It was great to share my Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) inquiry today with those attending the Manaiakalani Hui and also hear in more detail how the inquiries of the other MIT teachers are progressing.

It is my intention to post my presentation on my blog, but will do so in early October following our presentations at the ULearn conference.  That said, as it is now just over half way through the term, its a good time to reflect on the blog commenting challenge which is occurring in my class this term.  So far there have been 182 comments posted (majority by whanau) and our progress graph as of today looks like this:

We continue to share comments in class which helps to serve as a reminder about the challenge.  I'm also seeing some of my learners starting to comment on their friends blogs in the evenings/weekends.  My learners continue to be excited about blogging and many come to school early so they can check their comments before class starts - those that can't quite read their own comments are particularly keen to do this as they know I'm happy to read them before we start our day.

I'm excited to see if the blog commenting continues over the second half of the term and if we can push the total comments closer to 300 before the challenge concludes!

Moving forward ... reflecting on changes that worked

Recently I posted about the changes I was planning to incorporate into my writing program.  I was delighted with my first lesson following that post and wanted to immediately celebrate it's success with a blog post.  However, I was also mindful that sometimes something that is "new" can work as a single one-off lesson but then fail to fire after the newness wears off.  With this in mind, I have waited nearly two weeks (and many writing lessons) to reflect on how its working.

Brainstorming for writing in smaller groups has definitely paid off.  I'm able to pitch each brainstorm at the level of each group and am finding a definite increase in engagement.  Importantly, I'm able to capture the ideas at each level, gift appropriate vocabulary and deepen the ideas and discussion with each group.  Each brainstorm works slightly differently.  With my higher group, I use Padlet which I use my Chromecast to display on the TV.  Learners are also able to access the Padlet directly from their iPad as it is linked on our writing slide.   This group are learning to share their writing with a friend before conferencing with me.

Check out our Padlet of ideas on Shot Put and Valerie Adams

Check our our Padlet of ideas on Kayaking and Lisa Carrington

When I brainstorm with my middle writers, we use the whiteboard.  This group often require more prompting and we often discuss main ideas and sequencing before they begin their independent writing.  My final group of writers complete a dictation task while I'm brainstorming with my other groups.  They then come to the teaching table where we will brainstorm a few main ideas.  This group requires more support and often stay at my table so I can assist with their focus and sentence construction.

It is always great to receive feedback or ideas from others that I can incorporate into my practice as I continually try to innovate for the benefit of my learners.  This was definitely the case with writing recently and I have incorporated some of the great ideas I have received from colleagues into my practice.  Additionally, I received some great feedback from Innes Kennard - "Another suggestion from my peers yesterday was to spend more than one session on a piece of writing"!

This feedback struck a chord as many of my learners would say "How many sentences do I have to write", to which I would reply ... "At least <insert number here based on the learner asking>".  I now realise that by saying "at least", they were taking my number literally and if I said "At least three" they would consider three to be 'good enough' and wouldn't push themselves to write anymore.  I'm extending my writing topic to cover more than one lesson.  I do have a back up writing topic for those 'fast finishes' but I have found that allowing additional time allows me extra conferencing time to work with specific learners and extend them further, but also allows my learners time to make their writing even better.

As always, all my teaching decisions are based on trying to make the maximum impact on my learners, so I feel its only appropriate to end this post with some of the great writing that occurred recently.

"Valerie Adams does the shot put and she won the gold and silver  medal.   She won the gold medal in 2008 in London and won the silver medal in 2016 in Rio. One of her throws was disqualified because she stepped out of the circle. Valerie has big strong muscles to throw a long way." - Julia 

"In the shot put Valerie Adams won the Olympic silver medal.  She won 2 gold medals at earlier Olympic Games. In the shot put Valerie Adams was amazing at the shot put. In the shot put she hold a heavy ball. In the shot put she was amazing at throw the ball. In the shot put l like Valerie Adams because she is good at the Olympic Games." - Sivaenah

"Valerie Adams does  the shot put and she got a silver medal. Back in 2008 she won a gold medal and in 2012 in London she also won a gold medal. USA are  winners of the Rio gold medal. Valerie Adams drinks water before she starts her game.

When she get ready to throw she  stands in a  little circle. It is white so she can aim at the hole so she doesn't lose the ball. Valerie Adams  has strong muscles in her arms to make the shot put go far away. She sets a goal so her team can win. Valerie Adams has to learn from her coach before she starts. She has to throw the ball as far as she can with one hand. 

Valerie Adams got a score for New Zealand.  Valerie was a world champion last year. In  the Olympics, Valerie Adams has to use a heavy ball so it can go over 20 metres." - Bradley

Tweaking goals and moving forward

As part of our continuing inquiry into practice, yesterday we had the opportunity to reflect on our progress to date and tweak our goals (if necessary) for the remainder of the year.  My inquiry continues to be around motivating (reluctant) learners to write.   I can definitely see progress in many of my writers and the authentic audience provided by whanau commenting more on learners' blogs (part of my MIT inquiry) is definitely helping.

Through reflection I thought about the areas that I feel are still not working effectively and there are two main areas I'm wanting to work on in my inquiry for the remainder of the year:

• Gifting of ideas and vocabulary to learners who struggle in whole class situations and won't contribute to a brainstorm
• Finding interesting things to write about or making even the most 'mundane' writing idea seem appealing and exciting to my learners

As always, I try to incorporate specific writing scaffolds and support in areas that learners need during small group teaching, however I have found of late that the whole class brainstorming is not working.  Despite gifting exciting vocabulary and ideas, many learners are not using it and others are still at the "I don't know what to write" stage when we write on any topic that is not 'free choice'.

Yesterday we also had an opportunity to connect with our new school inquiry group - this is a change from the teachers that I have worked with for the last two terms.  In sharing my inquiry with new teachers it gave me an opportunity to hear different ideas as well as formulate a few things to try going forward.  

One of the immediate changes I'm going to make is to brainstorm in smaller groups and depending on the group, in different ways.  I've looked again at the writers in my class and regrouped so that the brainstorm groups can hopefully be more effective.  One of the challenges (particularly in writing) is what to have the other learners doing so they are engaged in meaningful activities.   I'm aiming to use dictation and editing activities which they can do independently until they have had their brainstorm time and are ready to write.  

Another suggestion from my peers yesterday was to spend more than one session on a piece of writing - while this has been problematic in the past, I think the new groupings will support this more effectively.  I look forward to putting this new action plan into place and reflecting on how effective it is.

The "Challenge" encourages comments

Just over a week into our class blog commenting challenge and I'm amazed at the comments received to date.  My learners have jumped on board the competition (particularly the girls) and are encouraging whanau to comment.

In the first seven days 103 comments have been made on my learners' blogs.  It is important to note that all comments left are being counted.  I'm also commenting (leading by example), and other teachers at Pt England have also commented.

It is hard to know exactly what has made a difference and encouraged these comments.  Obviously my learners are encouraging their whanau to comment which is most noticeable in the four girls who are leaping ahead.  However other comments are being made by Nana's, mothers and older siblings which is great to see and could be attributable to the help sheet sent home just over a week ago.  Importantly, my "help" video has been viewed 14 times and I would hope that some of these views were by whanau as they learnt how to comment.

It is also great to see some of my learners starting to respond to the comments, and this is a focus over the coming weeks in class - how to create a positive digital footprint.

It will be interesting to see over the coming weeks if the trends demonstrated in the first week of the challenge continue and how I can motivate my learners to ensure they continue prompting and encouraging their whanau to be involved.  We are also about to look at blog commenting in class so we will be able to comment effectively on our peers blogs - hopefully creating additional motivation for my learners to write.

Encouraging Whanau Comments

As part of my Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher inquiry for 2016, I'm looking to increase the blog comments my learners are receiving as a way of motivating the to write.  The use of blogs provides an authentic audience for my learners, but I feel that the most powerful motivator will be the learners own whanau regularly looking (and commenting) on their blogs.  Earlier in the year I sent home bookmarks with links to the learners blogs, but wanted to take this a step further by providing some instructions on how to comment as well as some suggestions for comments.

Late last week, all learners in my class took home a laminated sheet providing this assistance as well as a notice for parents/whanau about a blog commenting competition we have having in Room 15 this term.  This laminated sheet includes:

• a photo of the learner
• the address of the learner's blog
• a QR Code linking to the learner's blog
• a piece of art the learner created (and were most proud of - learners selected this themselves)
• instructions of how to comment on a blog
• some suggested ideas of what to include in a comment
• a link to a "how to comment" video
• a QR code linking to the "how to comment" video

While this sheet was in English, it is my intention to look at having this sheet translated into Te Reo and other Pasifika languages.  The sheet was created on Keynote, and I plan to share a template file (in Keynote and Google Slides) for other teachers who may wish to use this sheet.

It is my hope that more parents/whanau will be visiting and commenting on their child's blog over the coming days/weeks.  To further assist, I've used an inbuilt tool provided by Blogger (thanks +Dorothy Burt) giving them a clickable link to the "how to comment" video I have created.  

This feature is available under "Settings - Posts, comments and sharing" and displays on the learners blog like this (after the viewer has clicked on the "Comment" link:

I'm looking forward to seeing if there is a noticeable increase in whanau commenting as well as seeing how my learners respond to receiving (hopefully) more comments on their blogs.  For viewers of my blog that would like to leave a comment on some of my learners blogs, they are available here (and will count towards the challenge).

 

Encouraging blog comments

As part of my ongoing Spark MIT inquiry in Term 3 I'm looking to encourage parents, friends and whanau of my learners to comment on their blogs as a way of motivating my learners to write (and post on their blogs).  I mentioned this to whanau during our parent interviews at the end of last term and many were enthusiastic about commenting on their tamariki's blogs - in fact, many started already following our conversation.

I want to harness the enthusiasm of my learners and have them want to write more and post more on their blogs.  The intention is to make writing more authentic and purposeful by encouraging feedback for what learners are posting.  In order for this to succeed I need to give learners a "visual" that they can refer to and see how many comments they have compared to others in the class.  Already they know about the "recent comments" feature on their blogs and I repeatedly have learners come up to me in class and read me (or in some cases ask me to read) their most recent comments - they get really excited every time a new one appears.

I've created a Google Sheet which automatically links to chart which will show the comments learners receive.  There is a little manual inputting required by me each day to log in how many comments are received - a simple entry into the Google sheet which will auto-update the graph.  The process is streamlined as I receive emails when anyone comments on learners' blogs - so its simply a matter of updating the Google Sheet whenever I receive an email (or once a day depending on how many come through).

In order for my learners to monitor their progress, the graph is linked on our Class Site which they can access on their iPads at any time, or from home on phones/computers.

In order to support whanau with commenting on their child's blogs, I'm hoping to have the guides to commenting that I've been creating completed and sent home during week 1.  This not only gives whanau the blog address (and a quick link) but some ideas on what to include in their comments.

Finally, as the term progresses I'm looking to scaffold blog commenting with my class, so they are able to provide feedback on each others posts - another opportunity for them to 'write' as well as another teaching opportunity on creating positive footprints on the internet.

The blogs of the Room 15 learners are available to view here.

Reflecting using Thinking Hats

As Term 2 draws to a close, one of the activities I have planned for this week is an individual reflection on the learning for the term.  Our school wide theme for the term, "As I See It" had an art focus, with Team 3 deciding to focus on geometry and buildings.   We have therefore covered many things this term, including our major art piece which we have today seen displayed in the school Art Gallery.

As with any activities, finding the balance between too much scaffolding and not enough scaffolding, can often be a delicate balancing act.   While I have provided some ideas of the things that learners can include in their reflection, I've decided to not restrict it to "just the art work"!  This allows some scope for learners that enjoyed the trip or learning about the Sky Tower to reflect on these activities.

This is the first time I've used the thinking hats with this class - I wanted to have them thinking of more than just "I liked .... because ....".  I'm hoping they will be more reflective in the responses they give through the questions I've provided.  We will discuss this as a whole class, but I've also provided some questions to help guide their responses and will provide further scaffolding and support to my less able writers.

I'm really looking forward to hearing the thoughts of my learners, as this can help inform my teaching into Term 3 and beyond.

Inquiry 2016: Update

As part of our Pt England School ongoing inquiry, this afternoon we shared an update of where we are currently at.  This inquiry compliments my Manaiakalani Spark MIT inquiry for this year also.  I really enjoy the inquiry process as it makes me think about why I'm doing certain things but also provides an opportunity to compare and see how far learners have progressed.

Animating our Writing

As part of my ongoing inquiry into accelerating learning with writing, this week I've tried something a little different with my learners.  As I planned my writing lessons for the week I had two main aims:

• How could I spark the interest of my learners - particularly the boys - who are capable of producing some great sentences but who often complain at the mere mention of writing
• How could we create writing blog posts that my learners are so enthusiastic about that they want to rush home and share with their whanau (thereby hopefully inspiring additional comments)

Throughout the term, our team wide focus has been on art and in particular buildings.  I have had learners create some great writing about the Sky Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Eiffel Tower, but I sensed from my learners that interest in writing about famous buildings was starting to wane.

So this week I introduced writing about a castle - but not just any castle.  The castles that we wrote about were created in the imaginations of my learners.  Not so different to other writing we have done earlier this year, where I gifted a topic and we brainstormed ideas.  This time however, the castles were different because we used them to create animations which my whole class enthusiastically embraced.

I gifted the class a selection of backgrounds that they could access via our class site.  Our animations were created using Explain Everything with the first slide (or two) used to draw the different objects for their animation - the one criteria was they had to include a castle (keeping to our 'buildings' theme).  Many learners opted to copy my idea of a spider which was animated, although we did have some that branched out with people, butterflies and birds.  

Learners then used their second slide to insert and set the background they had selected.  They copied in the different elements (castle, spider, etc) and then duplicated that slide several times.  Over the next 10 - 12 slides, they moved their character slightly more on each slide, creating an animation effect, before exporting the project as a video.  This video was then inserted into iMovie where we sped it up slightly and added some background music.  Lastly, learners uploaded their movie to their Google Drive and I inserted them into their blogs (I needed to use the embed code from their Google Drives to publish them on their blogs).  To make this process faster, learners had already created their blog posts, with their writing and saved it as a draft.

Once upon a time there was a little blue castle. It lived in an ice forest with trees around it and there was a spider crawling around the castle. The spider was very scary and all the people got scared of the spider so they ran away from the spider. the spider was left alone inside the forest and he went in the castle so he can have a break.           - Precious

While the lesson (over a number of days) was by no means perfect, I aim to repeat it next week using a "wooden shack" as the featured building as I was particularly pleased with the enthusiasm demonstrated by even reluctant writers.  Much of the focus last week was on teaching the animation process I wanted the learners to follow (and how to use iMovie) - but now that many learners in the class are secure with this, I will be able to focus on small groups of writers while others create their animations independently.  I'm excited to see what creative writing is produced and what characters and ideas they decide to showcase through both their animations and writing.

Blog posts for all learners in my class with their animations posted are available here.

Progressing my Spark MIT inquiry

Earlier this week I've been working on the next stage of my Spark MIT inquiry - a laminated guide for whanau on commenting on their child's blog.

Firstly I identified which components I wanted to include.  This included:

• the blog address
• a scannable QR code which will take whanau directly to the blog
• photo of the learner - making the sheet more personalised
• a piece of art the learner has created - again, this personalises the document
• a guide on how to make a comment
• important things to remember when commenting
• some suggested 'starter' ideas to kick start the comments

I've drawn inspiration from some of the Manaiakalani successes, including this commenting poster which is used extensively to encourage our learners to comment on each others blogs:

I've used Google Slides to create my first draft as I find this easier to manipulate various elements and place objects exactly where I want them to be.  I've shared the first draft with a selection of colleagues seeking feedback before I refine it.  I also intend to share it with a few of the whanau from my class to get other ideas before I settle on my final draft.  It is hoped it would be ready to share with all whanau during interviews at the end of this term.

This is of course the first of a series of ideas I'd like to have in place by the end of this term.  Many of my families are Maori and Pasifika so I'd like to create different versions in different languages so it is most helpful for all whanau.  These different versions will also assist me in the creation of a site to support whanau in commenting on their tamariki's blogs.  

Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir continues

This morning I uploaded another lesson for Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir, this time focused on writing.  Feedback the Class OnAir team has received asked for different curriculum areas so it is my intention to record lessons in the three main curriculum areas over the coming weeks.

Lesson Six compliments my inquiry into Writing and my learners really impressed me with their enthusiasm ideas during our brainstorm.   Often my learners struggle to come up with ideas due to their limited experiences which they can draw from.   This particular writing lesson was inspired by a Team wide art adventure where learners experienced three different activities over ninety minutes, each designed to be fun and inspiring.  One of the activities that formed part of the adventure is showcased on my class blog.

Inquiry Update: Term 2

DEFs of Writing:  Deliberate Teaching Acts, Engagement, Fun
My school inquiry topic supports my Spark MIT inquiry, ABCs of Writing and focuses more on the deliberate acts of my teaching to engage the learners in writing, which will in turn feed into my MIT inquiry. 
Recently I've explored some readings around motivating writers and how to scaffold my teaching to maximise the support for my learners.  Some of the points I've found particularly useful include:

• "reading does not happen in a vacuum" - Ruttle (2004) - how can I incorporate more writing into my reading activities so that learners see there is a purpose to writing outside of the writing lesson
• how to create a shared understanding of "what writing is for and why and how we engage it it" which can lead to learners writing with a "greater sense of purpose" - Ruttle (2004)

Teaching in class has focused on writing just a couple of sentences using a variety of gifted sentence beginnings and scaffolding the vocabulary to use through whole class discussions.  Originally I planned to use padlet.com to brainstorm these ideas so that learners would be able to revisit these word banks, however with more learners wanting to use Google Docs to write, they prefer having the vocabulary on the board.  I intend to return to using padlet.com now that I have the ability to display this throughout the classroom using my Chromecast and Apple TV so that learners are able to see the words from any part of the classroom.
Moving to Google Docs
Initially I had just my top writers using Google Docs, which of course, assists with spelling as long as the learner can identify initial sounds of the word.  Over the last few weeks of Term 1 and the first weeks of Term 2, I have had even my most reluctant writers expressing a want to use Google Docs for writing, and they seem more engaged when they do so.  In fact, last week, when we were not using iPads for the week, I found all learners reluctant to write and even having them produce one sentence was a real struggle.  Through giving learners the choice of using either Google Docs or pen/paper I find that they are more engaged and produce more quality writing.  Google Docs also makes the process of posting to Blogger more streamlined and more learners are completing and finishing during the writing session.

Where to Next
Carefully scaffolding the writing process and focusing on one thing to improve our sentence(s) each writing session is the most easily manageable DAOT in my class to date.  While it would be great to break into writing groups, I find it harder to manage the behaviours of my boys (particularly those that struggle with writing) when I do this.  Having no devices last week, many learners have got used to the process of drawing first, so it could be possible to have some of the learners drawing while I worked with a small group.  Some of my more willing writers are able to proceed independently but then require support via 1:1 or small group conferencing to take their writing to the next level.  While I have tried to instigate peer support, this has also proven problematic although I feel this could work better if I scaffolded in peers so they could see this in action (rather than just having it explained).  
Drawing on ideas from the readings and trialling the use of groups by having some learners focus on pictures while others start with writing may work.  I have also experienced success with using Explain Everything to record the sentence(s) and replay it as the learners find the words around the classroom to turn their ideas into writing - however this is not as easy to do when using Google Docs which many learners are keen to do.  
This afternoon, our inquiry groups met again to hear where everyone was at and look forward towards our goals for the coming term.  It is always interesting to discuss where you are at as through this discussion you have to verbalise challenges and obstacles as well as celebrate the successes.


References: Ruttle, Kate. What goes on inside my head when I’m writing? A case study of 8–9-year-old boys. 

Spark MIT Update - May 2016

ABCs of Writing:  Authentic Audience, Blogging and Commenting

As discussed in my first blog post for my Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher inquiry, my inquiry question is:

"How can I use an authentic audience to enhance the motivation and writing mileage for learners in my classroom."

During the first term of this year I've begun my inquiry in a number of ways including:

• bookmarks home to parents with a blog link and QR code
• leaving verbal comments on learners blogs 
• discussing learner blogs with parents during our "meet the teacher" conversations early in the year
• deep analysis of my learners' needs in writing

Today we discussed the SAMR model and how our inquiry fits into this framework.  Ideally our inquiry's are aimed at the transformation level of the framework, using technology to impact on the learning.

My Spark MIT inquiry compliments my Pt England Inquiry as this investigates ways to accelerate writing in the classroom through my deliberate acts of teaching.  


Where to now?

It is extremely helpful to get the ideas from others in the Spark MIT group, which helped me to formulate my plan for future development.  While its been great to receive parent comments on the learners' blogs, my next step is to provide some scaffolding around these comments to make them even more powerful.  My initial thoughts were to redesign my bookmark with suggestions on how to comment, and translate this into different languages for my whanau (eg Samoan, Tongan, Te Reo).  However, after discussion today I agree that a bookmark may not be big enough to encompass the ideas I need to share.  Several ideas today included a postcard, calendar or piece of art that could be created by the learners.  I'm particularly taken with the art idea as this fits nicely with our school wide topic 'As i see it".

Additionally, there is potential to create a site using these scaffolds, as a reference for not only my whanau this year, but that could be shared to a wider audience.  Such a site could include screencasts of how to comment which could be used by both learners and whanau.  I envisage the site to be in multiple languages to assist whanau who are more comfortable in their native language.  It would be exciting to explore this with a small group of my learners who could assist with the creation of the screencasts.


SAMR Picture credit:  Ed Tech Today

2016 Inquiry: Progress to date

As part of our ongoing inquiry into our practice, today we presented to our inquiry groups the analysis we have completed and the steps we have taken.  Much of Term 1 is about analysing and adjusting to the needs of learners but already I've implemented some steps to help my target group of writers.  These are outlined in my presentation.

As the term comes to a close I look forward to researching and developing new ideas to use in my classroom in Term 2.

Leaving comments on my kids blogs ... so they can listen :)

I encourage blog posting in my class and learners are getting very independent at completing their activities and then posting to their blogs.  They also love to see that someone has been viewing their blogs and get even more excited if a comment is left.  We talk about the comments that have been left in class frequently.

During a week I try to comment on learners blogs in the evening and often will give them things to focus on in their next blog post.  This is great for those learners in my class in the higher reading groups that can easily read my comments.  However, I'm finding my lower readers struggle to read my comments and they are therefore not effective.

This week I'm trialling leaving the comment as written text as well as recording the comment in an audio clip.  I will carefully scaffold with the learners so they know they are able to listen to the comment by clicking on "Listen to Audio".

I'm using a voice recording app on my iPad and then uploading the clip to a folder on my Google Drive and pasting this link into the comment.  It takes me about a minute longer than just leaving a comment, but I think this is worthwhile as feedback is valuable to the learners.

It is important to note that I'm still discussing blog posts and activities in small groups and individually with learners during class time, but its not possible to see every learner, every day.  This gives me an opportunity to give them feedback which I know they will be able to listen to (if they can't read the comment).  Time will tell if this is beneficial and provides additional guidance, scaffolding and motivation for my learners.

Targeting learners for accelerating writing

As part of my Spark-MIT and Pt England inquiry this year I'm looking to accelerate a group of writers who are significantly below National Standards.  The first part to any acceleration is to identify the learners and assess where they currently are at.

Our school wide testing users e-asTTle and further information on e-asTTle and a range of exemplars can be found here.  Writing is assessed in seven areas (combining surface and deeper features) and then the results form an overall score.  These seven areas are:

Ideas

Structure/Language

Organisation

Vocabulary

Sentence Structure

Punctuation

Spelling

The raw data for my six identified target learners has been summarised into this table*.

This graph highlights the similarities in the learners and the need to focus on Ideas, Structure, Organisation and Punctuation for all.

As always, formal testing is only one avenue of assessment.  Combined with this formal testing I have reviewed the work samples of these learners over the last 8 weeks as well as observed them as they write and discussed their thoughts on writing with them.   Observations and thoughts include:

• Ideas are present but putting these into more than just a phrase is a struggle
• Sentences often start the same way: "I like ....
• Tenses are often mixed up
• Full stops are used at the end of each line
• After deciding on a sentence (often with teacher support) learners forget the sentence in the time it takes to locate the necessary words
• Learners letter formation makes identification of capital and lower case letters impossible
• Writing has always been hard and its not "fun"
• Learners don't like the topics they have to write about
• Learners feel there is no point in writing because its just in our book and no one sees it

Over the coming terms, I look forward to sharing some of the things I'm implementing to accelerate these target learners (and all learners in my classroom).

*In order to preserve the identify of this group of learners, when I refer to my target group I have used pseudonyms and will continue to use these for continuity throughout the year. 

Writing with Google Docs

One of the challenges I have as a teacher this year is adapting to the new year level (Year 3 after teaching Year 1 for two years) and using technology to extend learners in my classroom.

My inquiry for 2016 into my own practice is with writing and I have many learners in my classroom that are unable to complete even one sentence without support.  Many of my lessons to date have been whole class based, all writing about the same topic.  This is because I quickly discovered, in my first weeks this year, that unless I took this approach, my whole writing lesson turned to noisy chaos within five minutes.

When I took the lessons right back to basics of just writing one GREAT sentence, I was able to circulate and provide support to all those that need it, and this enabled all learners in my classroom to experience success and they were keen to share their sentences via their blogs.  Initially we are focusing on just a few things - capital letters, full stops and adding "juicy vocabulary" to make the sentence interesting.  In order for the learners to have a library of ideas to draw from, we discuss the motivation for writing before we start (usually an image) and brainstorm some vocabulary as a whole class.

While this has worked well for those learners that struggle to write, other learners are of course ready to move onto additional sentences and need an additional challenge.  Last week I introduced using Google Docs with these learners (some had been using them last year already), being sure to carefully scaffold how I want them used in my classroom (naming conventions, where to save etc).  These learners are willing and able to write more than one sentence, and the use of Google Docs keeps them challenged as well as making it easier for me to provide comments and ongoing support to them.  This week that will be particularly important as I plan to build a story over several days in a carefully scaffolded structure - the use of Google Docs will allow me to provide comments to the learners each night that they can review before moving onto the next step of their writing.