RPI - Day 9: Sharing Reading

Today was our final RPI session and what a awesome journey it has been. When I initially started RPI I felt overwhelmed after each day but the rewindable component allowed me to go back and revisit the resources etc at my own pace. Having three weeks in between each session made implementing our new learning realistic and achievable. Soo much new learning, ideas and resources that I will be going back over and gradually incorporating into my classroom.

One thing I am definitely still working on and will make a focus for next term is consistently timetabling in conferencing to follow up on responses to activities provided in my contracts. The hand it in sheet has been a big help and made it alot easier to track my students progress throughtout the week. 

My reading responses/contracts are now much more meaningful and relevant to our WALT's. I was definitely guilty of sometimes keeping my students busy with unrelated follow up tasks so that I could work with my other groups. My follow up tasks are now all related to our WALT and build on from the learning we are doing in our guided reading sessions.

WALT 's and SC are something that our school has had a big focus on this year and it has been awesome that the RPI course focussed on this kaupapa as well. By providing a clear WALT, explaining the relevance of the learning to my students lives (the why) and having clear success criteria, the learning is no longer a mystery to my students and they can be active participants in their own learning. 

The CREATE component of the Manaiakalani kaupapa has always been what excites me the most and I think this is the case for the majority of my students. My students are beginning to get more excited about the SHARE component and starting to realise that their learning is alot more meaningful and rewarding when they are able to share it and receive feedback from others. 

Thank you to everyone involved in organising this P.D. It has definitely benifited me and my students and improved my overall teaching practice.

RPI: Day 8 - Creating

I really enjoyed todays RPI session based on the CREATE component of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. The SAMR for creativity slide that was shared early in the day instantly made me reflect on some of the tasks that I provide for my students. It made me think how I could adjust my planning with this in mind to improve, challenge and extend my stiudents more.

The CREATE component is definitley what hooks my students in and gets them most excited. The majority of them enjoy being able to express themselves and showcase their own interpretation of set tasks. However an area that I have identified that I would like to provide more opportunities for is COLLABORATION. I already know that this will motivate my students to be even more engaged and actively participate if they are working alongside others. It will create many opportunities to improve social skills, tiime management and learning how to cooperate to achieve a common goal.

When the 'One shot film' task that we particiapted in today was explained it instantly made me freak out! I avoid photos so filming myself is something that is waaaayyyy out of my comfort zone. I immediately starting thinking how I could avoid it.....this really put me in the shoes of my students. I did manage to complete the task but with a cunning twist. I promoted the book 'The Wonky Donkey' by Craig Smith but instead of filming myself I used my own donkey as the presenter (Thanks for saving me Pancho!). It was a good reminder to allow my students to participate in a way that still challenges them but doesn't completely make them shut down.

There were so many cool resources and ideas that were shared today that I will explore further. 

RPI: Day 7 - Thinking

Definitely a day filled with lots of 'THINKING'. I am always so impressed with the people in my group and how quickly they complete the planning activities set throughout the day. I always need a bit more time to go over things and plan out exactly how I see it working in my class and with my students.

I will definitley be going back and looking into the resources that were shared today about 'higher order thinking'. Currently my students discussions in their reading groups are still very limited and at the literal level. I am looking forward to trying out my provocation (All zoos should be shut down) to try and encourage some higher order thinking and extended discussion. 

I plan to use the hoax website  'The Tree Octopus' to show my students the importance of thinking critically about information. We have been creating our own animal fact files so this links in nicely. I will get my students to complete a small research task using the site and then reveal that it is fake. I am also going to share the image below with my students and see how they interpret it first without any input from me. I will then talk about the importance of going beyond the surface meanings and how important it is to always question things rather than just taking what is presented as a given. 

'Teaching learners to read beyond the superficial, and below the surface level of meanings, is an issue of equity'

I am yet to introduce the 'initiator' and 'builder' roles to my reading groups so I need to make time to do this as I think it will really help with the quality of discussions in our groups and encourage more interpretative and evaluative thinking. 

We have made a start on our word wall (synonyms for 'boring' words) which has the title 'looking for a better word?' We identified boring/overused words and in small groups they looked up synonyms. It is still a work in progress and we will continue to add to it as we identify other words that are overused or just a bit boring.

 

RPI: Day 6 - Vocabulary (and decoding)

Today we focussed on vocabulary and the importance of ensuring we provide robust vocabulary instruction. I don't currently follow any sort of progression, it has more been just as I have identified a certain need/gap but after todays session I can see how it is important to have a more structured approach. I am going to try and rework my timetable over the holidays and incorporate one or two mini vocabulary sessions each week as well as introducing some vocabulary activities into my contracts. I know our school has a set of the 'Switch on to Spelling' books so I am going to have a look at them to see if they have a progression that I might be able to use.

I was so glad to see that one of the things we were focussing on today was building on from our ground rules for talk by introducing roles during our conversations. This fits in so well with my 'Assesment for Learning' professional development goal which is to: Find more ways to elicit evidence of learning from a greater number of students. During one of my observations we identified that it was the same few students contributing or answering questions so I have been looking at ways to involve more students and give me a better indication of who understands the learning and who is just cruising in the background unnoticed. I will definitley be introducing the 'initiator' and 'builder' role prompts to my class...

                      

                      

I am also going to add the 'Cambridge Dictionary' to our class site as I really liked that it has the ability to read the word aloud. I am going to have a good look through the resoruces shared with us and organise some vocabulary activities that I will introduce next term and keep repeating so that they can become indepenedent activities in their contract. 

I do have a type of word wall set up in my class but we have not really been utilising it so I think I will look into a more interactive appealing type of display. I think I might also try and incorporate a 'kupu o te ra' into our morning routine (maybe 2-3 times a week to make it more manageable). I think this will generate some good discussion and hopefully create some excitement as my students look forward to finding out what the new word is each couple of days. 

RPI: Day 5 - Planning a Programme

A tad bit late with my Day 5 blog post and some of my homework unfortunately. The past few weeks have been challenging with sickness, reports, testing, observations and lots of time out of class (release days, meetings, tangi, teacher only days etc). Definitley not trying to make excuses but the reality is that the usual routines in my class have been non existent the past few weeks. 

I feel like the goals I had for myself at the end of our previous RPI day are still what I need to focus on as I simply havnt had the time in class to implement them.  These things were:

- Introducing some sort of 'hand it in' system to make keeping track of students progress more manageable. A long with this I need to adjust my timetable to fit in a conferencing timeslot.

- Refocussing on the 'Ground Rules for Talk' with all of my reading groups.

- Making an effort to explain the 'WHY' to my students - Why are we doing this? How is it going to help us in life? Why is is relevant ? etc

- Incorporating blogging into our contract - posting and commenting.

- Look into different types of digital modelling books to see if this is something that would work for me and my students.

I am finding all of the content of this course really valuable but there is alot to take in. I need to remind myself that it is better to implement a few things well rather than becoming overwhelmed and not doing things justice. I can always come back to the others things at a later date and introduce them gradually.

I have set up a 'Read Theory' account as I really liked what I seen....especially the simple no frills layout. I think this will really benefit my students and make them feel more prepared during testing. I plan to have a good look at this site over the holidays and explore how it works so we can start using it in term 3.

A long with the things I have mentioned above, I am simply going to focus on keeping things familiar for my students for the remainder of this term, until these tasks/procedures are ingrained and they can confidently complete them independently. 

RPI: Day 4 - Guided Reading and Comprehension

Another day of lots of learning and important reminders. One thing I need to refocus on is making sure I keep using our 'Ground Rules for Talk' with each of my reading groups. I also need to get better at explaining the WHY to my students.....why are we doing this? How is it going to help us in life? Why is it relevant? etc. 

As alway time and fitting everything in seems to be an ongoing challenge. I think I might try to start incorporating blogging tasks into my reading contracts. Currently we don't really get any comments on our blogs which isn't that motivating for my students. Whanau are not that engaged so I have set up a checklist that we use at staff meetings where teachers need to comment on atleast three student blogs a week as a way of ensuring that students atleast get some feedback on their posts. We have just started this system but I know my students have already got a thrill out of knowing that other teachers at our school are checking out their blogs. I am looking at starting a similar system in my class so that my students also receive regular feedback from their peers. My class have also designed a poster promoting their blog and incorporated a Q.R code to make them more accessible. 

Another thing I am looking at incorporating into my class is a 'hand it in' google sheet. The literacy contracts I have been making for my students have quite a few links to docs that my students need to make copies of. I have been finding it a bit tricky to keep track of how they are managing their time and who has completed what so I think the 'hand it in' google sheet may be useful for keeping track of their progress. 

We have continued with our 'Te Pukapuka o te Wiki' book shelf display. This is where each reading group has a week where they are responsible for selecting and promoting a book of their choice and then creating a display on our book shelf. Each group has now had a turn at doing this and take pride in how they present their display. Moving forward I might start to incorporate some sort of feedback sheet where my students can rate each book or share their thoughts/opinions of the chosen book.

Currently I predominantly use 'approach 2' from below so I will be trying to incorporate more of a mixture of both approaches. 

TEACH......PROMPT......REINFORCE

Changes to Text Selection

After our third RPI day about text selection I have become more aware about the types of texts I am exposing my students to. The text coverage sheet in our teacher workbooks is going to be helpful for me to keep track of the different genres I am using and provides a visual for me of what I am not currently exposing my students to. Poetry is definitely something I tend to avoid and I have also identified that I havn't been incorporating many non-fiction texts. I have started the term with a collaborative ANZAC Day scavenger hunt using a non-fiction text so the coverage sheet is defintely making me think more about my text choices.

In terms of picking up the pace of learning I think it is too early to comment on shifts in learning yet. However I have noticed an increase in engagement with the non-fiction texts I have been providing for my focus reading group. We are currently reading 'The Witches' by Roald Dahl which my students are aware is a fiction text but by incorporating non-fiction texts about the history of witches my students have been surprised about the reality of witches in the past and how people were treated. Incorporating other texts has been beneficial but I am aware that this will make finishing our novel take even longer (we started this novel in term one). As it is we don't seem to get through much of our novel and I am just conscisous of it dragging on. I guess so long as my students are still enjoying it then that is the main thing.

I have also started the term by consciously incorporating picture books into my 'reading to' time. I have decided to continue with my reading challenge this term where I have a sticker chart and aim to read to my students 3 times throughout the day. Last term we had a class novel which my class really enjoyed and we got through it quite quickly with me focussing on my challenge. We have not started a novel yet this term so we are just currently enjoying short picture books.

RPI: Day 3 - Text Selection

There were lots of good reminders today, new things to try and resources that I will look into more over the holidays. It was really good timing for me in terms of the focus being on 'text selection' as I just had a discussion with my mentor in our last meeting about this. I brought up the fact that I have identified inferencing as a gap and formed our WALT around that but the novel (The Witches by Roald Dahl) we are committed to reading (still only about half way through) doesn't always make it that easy to focus on this. After todays session I now see how I can incorporate other 'witch' related texts alongside our novel that may be more suitable to our particular WALT. 

Completing the text coverage activity was an eye opener as well and gave me lots to think about in terms of what I am and am not exposing my students to. Using the text coverage sheet will definitely keep me more accountable and ensure I am providing a more balanced reading programmes in terms of different genres.

We also discussed the three different tiers in relation to vocabulary. Although we do discuss new vocabulary throughout our guided reading sessions it isn't always planned ahead of time, more just as we come across it. One thing I am going to change is to include a 'word study' in my students contracts. I found a google drawing template in the graphic organiser folder that was shared with us which I might start to incorporate each week. 

                   

I have found an old shelf at school that I am going to turn into a book display. We no longer have a school library but we have made an order with the National Library so I will use this shelf to display and promote our new set of books. I might leave one shelf empty and have a rotation where each reading group is in charge or picking a book of the week and making a display for it.

RPI: Analysing my Data

 PAT Results

* This was the first time that I have actually been able to access my PAT results and begin to use the data to inform my learning programme. I am still getting my head around fully interpreting the results but I did identify a common gap for my target reading group which was to work on 'local inferencing'.

* Once I had shared the learning intention (WALT: draw conclusions and get meaning from the text by 'reading between the lines' - making inferences) with my students we then all looked at their individual reports as a group. I was pleased that once I had explained the basics (black circle = correct, blank circle = incorrect, question types) that my students were able to understand why I had chosen that particular WALT. 

* I now have my reading groups WALT's displayed in class and make sure to refer to them at the start of each reading session. I then planned my task board/contract around inferencing and the novel that we are currently reading (The Witches by Roald Dahl). I have given my students week 8 and week 9 to complete their contract as we have had quite a few interruptions and didn't get started on it until half way through week 8. So far they have been enjoying working independently on their contracts and seem to be managing their time wisely. We will make time to check in and discuss the various activities throughout the week. 

Day 2: Reading Programme Intensive

 Know your Learners as Readers

Overwhelmed is exactly how I am feeling after todays session! I don't currently use google sheets so the introduction of the teacher workbook was hard going for me. Today definitley gave me a good insight to how frustrated my students must feel when they don't get something or feel left behind. 

Looking at the PAT reports was also completely new to me. In the past we have only ever done the PAT's as it was a requirement for Manaiakalani data, which I know is terrible but neither myself or my colleagues knew how to access the reuslts led alone interpret them....my NZCER account was only updated last week so that I could actually access my reports. So looking at what is now available in my NZCER account today was very useful. I will need to spend a lot more time familiarising myself with the reports and interpreting the data in order to be able to identify my students gaps. 

The use of WALT's and Success Criteria (S.C) is something our school is currently working on so I was relieved that this wasn't something extra to focus on. We have been working with a lady called Susan Arrowsmith and I was glad that everything we discussed today aligned with what she has shared with us so far. I am definitely still not confident with creating my own WALT's and S.C and find I spend a lot of time double guessing whether I have put the S.C in the WALT and how to make them as kid friendly as possible. I have attempted to collaboratively form the S.C with my students a couple of times and it was quite challenging and time consuming. We might need to take a step back from this until my students are more familiar with me sharing the S.C and revisit collaboratively forming them a little bit further down the track. 

One thing I will now introduce after my group shared today is the use of a tokotoko to assist with the 'Ground Rules for Talk'. I will also get around to sharing the results of the reading survey with my students. 

Reading Survey Results and Introducing the Ground Rules for Talk

Reading Survey Results

I completed the reading survey with my class and was pleased to see that the majority of my students believe that their whanau and myself think they are good readers. I believe that self-efficacy is one of the biggest barriers to learning so I was pleased to see these results. 

I also found the 'types of books I like to read' section useful for informing me about the types of texts that will hopefully engage and motivate my students to read. I had three of my reading groups complete the 'Reading for Enjoyment' slide deck and this generated some good conversation. 

I was not surprised with the results about having a public libracy card and borrowing books from a library. Unfortunately we do not have a school library anymore and we struggle with whanau support. However we have just signed up again for a delivery from The National Library.

The results about whether or not my students like to receive books as presents did not come as a surprise either. I think in this day and age with all the technology available unfortunatley many children don't see books as that appealing to receive as a gift. I hope to start changing that viewpoint by modelling my enjoyment for reading. We have set a school wide challenge for teachers to read to our students three times a day. We are onto our second Roald Dahl novel and my students actually moan each time I have to stop reading. They are aware that it is a challenge the teachers have set themselves and they enjoy keeping track of my progress and adding the stickers to my sticker chart.

Ground Rules for Talk

I have introduced the 'Ground Rules for Talk' with three of my reading groups and we worked our way through the provided slide deck. We have used the group reflection sheet a couple of times after our reading sessions and I think if we do this regularly my students will get more accurate at reflecting on how their group is going during discussion times. I think at this stage they are over rating themselves and not truly paying attention to how all members of the group did or did not participate. I have also noticed that I need to step away from the group during discussion for them to start to take ownership of the discussion. When I sit in on the discussion the whole time they constantly look to me to lead the conversation. A positive I have noticed is that some of my students have started to transfer these rules to other curriculum areas. We were having a discussion the other day about the success criteria during a writing activity and one boy mentioned that we weren't following the ground rules for talk.