Data!!

Looking and discussing our data!

Recently we have held our Mid Year data discussions - with all the testing completed for Reporting.

We discussed our target learners and the progress they are making. It was great to listen to the progress that some of them are making and what the teachers have been doing that has contributed to this success. Teachers are making good use of the collaborative learning space to maximize the learning time. Reading progress continues to be a real success. 67% of our target readers have now met their target.  Feed in lessons are a real success for the priority learners. They are excited when they come to the lesson confident and ready to contribute to the group. Target student programmes are also very focused on their learning gaps.

Our school mid year data is very positive and is better than it was at the same time point last year. We had lots of discussion about why we think this. We think that collaboration has been a major factor in the success of our learners. The students are used to the learning environments and there is continuity. Teachers have identified what worked well last year and are building on this. All students in Year 3 - 6 are using the team sites to access their learning and less time for instruction is needed. Less whole class teaching and more group (both ability and mixed ability) teaching is happening.

Innovation!!

As the innovation part of my inquiry, I planned to construct a rubric that teachers could use to assess where they were at with collaboration, visible learning and digital tools.
I was fortunate enough to spend a morning with Tania Coutts who helped me begin the construction of my rubric. I split the rubric into three parts for each of the three focus areas.  Eg: Collaboration - is I, Sometimes We and Always We!

After lots of thought and discussion I then decided to change from a rubric to: A framework with questions to encourage teachers to think about where they sit within the context of working in a collaborative learning environment, being at home in the digital world and providing visible learning for their learners.

I used the following resources to support me in the development of my framework.

New Pedagogies for Deep Learning

eLearning Planning Framework

CORE Education Collaboration Framework

Creating collaborative effectiveness - Sarah Martin and Chris Bradbeer - Stonefields School

Evaluating and Improving the Quality of Teacher Collaboration - Rebecca Gajda, Christopher J. Koliba

I then had a skype session with Dorothy and she gave me some suggestions about how I could develop my framework further. One of her suggestions was to get some opposing voice. I shared the framework with my colleague I work with and one of our facilitators to fill out - thinking about me as the teacher. I also marked myself where I thought I was for each area. My facilitator gave me good feedback and got exactly the same results as I did, which was really interesting as he has not spent a lot of time in my space this year. I am still waiting to hear my colleagues results.

I have just spent the last couple of days tweaking the framework. I am wanting to discuss the changes I have made with Tania and Lee (My Principal) before I post it up and use it on my staff. 

SO... Watch this space.

PLG -Sharing Collaboration

Our recent PLG for the Kaikohekohe Cluster was focused on each school sharing a 10 minute presentation on how collaboration is leading to better outcomes for teachers and students. This was a great opportunity to listen to what is happening in other schools that fit in with my inquiry focus. A lot of what was discussed was the use of digital tools by students that allows the opportunity for collaboration to take place.

One college shared about how two teachers from different subject areas are working collaboratively together and the impact this is having on their students. I think this is very exciting and look forward to booking a visit to see this in action.

Below is the presentation our school shared on how collaboration is leading to better outcomes for learners, especially our target students. The video demonstrates a targeted lesson that is taken by one teacher while the other teacher is taking the whole class for admin tasks in the morning. This presentation was presented by our junior team but this concept is happening across our school.

Another Day at Spark HQ

Today we had our second hui at the Spark HQ.

We had a great start to our day listening to everyone's journeys so far with their inquiries and making connections with our inquiries to others' inquiries in the group. It was affirming to hear that others are facing the same challenges that I am facing as I work through my inquiry with my colleagues.

It was great to meet up with my Spark buddy Christina today and discuss how we are going to work together throughout the year on my goals.

The big challenge today was to think about the Innovation aspect in my inquiry.
My innovation is about assessing the teachers about where they are at in regards to collaboration, visible learning and use of digital tools to help accelerate progress.

As a staff, we need to work collaboratively to construct a rubric which we can use to assess where teachers are at and also to discuss how to use the rubric. We need to be having discussions about what we value, what collaboration looks like and what would we be seeing in a collaborative learning environment.

Teachers will be able to use this rubric to self-assess where they are at according to the valued indicators and decide what they need to work on and what they need support with. These self-assessments would also fit alongside classroom observations and reflections/surveys completed at the end of each term.

Target Students

End of Term One - Where are our target students at?

Every team completed an end of term survey to discuss how collaboration, visible learning and digital tools have contributed to student's learning, especially accelerated progress for our target students.
We then had a staff meeting and discussed the progress of our target students. We discussed what we are doing in our collaborative space, with the support of digital tools and visible learning to help accelerate these learners.

So of the key points were:
- Making use of time where one teacher can manage the team. The other teacher taking accelerating learning groups for feed in lessons of skills before their learning groups)
- Specific target group teaching times (split from the rest of the team) really focusing on their needs. Creating their learning pathways of what they need to do to move to the next level.

This is one student discussing his learning pathway at the end of Term One.

Quote from one of the collaborative teams.
"We believe the children have made accelerated progress by participating in the target group. They have made more progress than children at the same level that were not part of this group."
- Changing groups and teachers when the need arises, not waiting!! Students are not waiting for the rest of the group to catch up etc.
- Providing rewindable learning eg videos, slides etc that the students can revisit if they need to.
- Less whole class time. Students are making use of the class sites / visible learning to come in from break times and get on with their learning instead of waiting for teacher instruction.
Quote: "It has gained us more time to work in a flexible way 1-1 or in small groups with lessons targeted to specific problems as they arise."

-Using mixed ability grouping. Students are learning from one another.

-Students making more use of the commenting tool to provide feedback/feedforward to their peers.

-Having multi-modal sites for the students where they have choice in what they want to learn/create and share.

Sir Ken Robinson Video

So just watched this short video from Sir Ken Robinson talking about changing the education paradigm, so we prepare our student's for the future and how we are killing creativitiy. A very interesting watch and one that we as teachers at Ohaeawai school can really relate to. Towards the end of the video he talks about education still be single classrooms, separate subjects and how we should be getting students to work collaboratively as it is the key to growth.

In our collaborative working spaces at Ohaeawai we are getting students to work collaboratively, teachers are working collaboratively, children are moving to different spaces with a larger classroom space and we are working hard to integrate our subjects through our term themes.

This term our Manaiakalani Outreach themes are Creativity, Empowerment and Engagement.  We need to think carefully how we allow creativity for our students.

Collaboration

Visiting Collaboration!!!!

Collaboration is a hot topic. We have had a few discussions about this at our Staff Meetings. This has
followed on from our PLG around collaboration, as one of our KET Goals is:

Actively Increasing face to face and digital collaboration within our classrooms will lead to increased critical and extended discussions and learning outcomes across the curriculum.

During this PLG we discussed and shared:

• How we plan for Learn, Create, Share for Collaborative Learning
• How our google site and rewindable learning caters for collaboration
• How our physical environment promotes and support collaboration
• What action will you take to support your learners to work collaboratively
• What digital resources/collaborative apps have been used effectively in the classroom to promote collaboration.

Back at School
We have had lengthy discussions about collaboration vs co-operation too. We have now come up with a very simple definition that we are using to define collaboration:

Collaboration is working, reflecting and acting together in a critical way that transforms thinking and learning.

We are giving our students lots of opportunities to collaborate and are making use of the digital tools available. Some of the examples include:
- A group of children working on a google slide presentation together
- Using Padlet to gather thoughts and ideas

Children using Padlet to brainstorm ideas that they can use in their writing.

- Students are becoming teachers and teaching others how to solve maths problems
- Using mixed ability grouping
- Children sharing their writing with their buddies and making use of the commenting tool to improve the writing.

Our staff room full of pictures, definitions, quotes etc about what we think collaboration is and what it looks like at Ohaeawai School.