Final Blog Post - MIT 2019

This year has been one of many ups and downs with trying to decide what is the best way to go about my inquiry and also the best way to create a tool for my learners. My tool is now officially complete and ready to use. All of the activities are now available to be used in the classroom. The link to my site is here. Please feel free to use this in your own reading program, you can either link the site directly from your own page or I am able to send you a copy of the site which you can use and modify how you would like. 

Success?

Looking at my class data I can see that my target learners for this inquiry have all made at least 6 months progress with some making as much as 1.5 years. My learners have really taken on this challenge this year and have focused hard in their reading which can be seen in their results. I am so incredibly proud of each and everyone of my learners. 

Where to next?

1. I am still having a slight problem with getting my learners recorded readings to work on the site so unfortunately this is unavailable at this point in time but I have linked each of my learners blogs to their names and the recordings can be reached from there. I am going to work on making sure that these are accessible in the new year.
2. Continuing to use this in my class for next year as well as sharing it with others in my team. I will continue to monitor these results next year. I would also like to continue to add activities to the site as they are created as this will add to the resource bank. 

Looking ahead to 2020:

Next year I would like to look at how I can implement something similar to this in my writing program. I would like to see how I can help my learners to make significant shift in their writing as well as their reading. 

Thank-you:

I would like to say a huge thank-you for the opportunity to be apart of the MIT19 team. I have learnt so much over this year and I think that it has strengthened my knowledge as well as helped me better my teaching practice. It has been an invaluable learning experience and I am extremely grateful for this opportunity.

Raising Reading Achievement Site - MIT 2019

Reflections and next steps:

It has come to that time of year where I am reflecting on what I have learnt through this MIT experience. I have had many ups and downs along with big changes throughout the year. I am on track with my reading site with still needing to add some resources sitting in my drive for my site to be fully functional. They purple level for learners reading at 8 years is good to go I am just adding resources to the gold and silver levels. 

End of year data:

I have now looked at my end of year data and can see that all of my learners have made progress this year in reading. I have placed the graphs below where I have shown reading age improvement as well as reading level improvement. The reason I have chosen to use reading level improvement is that some of the reading ages require learners to pass two test and although they may not look like they have improved in reading age they have improved a level since mid year testing.

The blue lines on the graph show end of 2018 reading ages and levels, the red lines show mid year 2019 data and the yellow lines show end of 2019 data. From this you can see that all of my learners have made some progress on paper but I think the biggest progress that I have seen is in the confidence of my learners in reading and the excitement that they have when it comes to reading now. 


The change is huge and really encouraging to see. Looking at the data closely I can see now that there are some who are now stuck at that 9 - 9.5 year range so this is something I will take into consideration and hopefully add to my site as well. 

Presentation:
The original presentation can be accessed from this blog post or can be watched in the video below. 

 
This is my presentation that I completed at the wanaga and have just recorded to show my journey. It is about 8 minutes long so below I will add time points where if you are just interested in my site you can see that, or if you are just wanting to have a look at the data you can go straight to these time points. I have also relinked my site into the post so please feel free to have a look around and let me know if you would like a copy of this to use in your own classroom.

Quick Time Links:
0:22 - 2018 Data 
1:20 - First steps 
2:46 - Screencast Example
4:17 - Mid year data
4:58 - How the site works
6:43 - Next steps and end of year data

Link to my site - MIT 2019

Reading site update:
I have only just realised that I haven't posted the link to the reading site that I have created. I have put this up now so it is visible for people to have a look at. As we have a reading site on our class page I have been trialling out some of these activities on here so I am yet to upload to this site. I am currently working on having all of these activities on the site ASAP and will definitely have this sorted once I am back from camp next week! I have also had a slight problem with uploading the voice recordings from my learners to the recorded stories section as we have been using screencastify I didn't load these properly into my imovie so will be working to fix this problem as well. Here is the link to the site.

Next steps:
Adding all of the resources from my drive to the site.
Trying to had video instructions for the activities
Please feel free to have a look around the site and use the resources in your own classrooms.

Wananga Presentation - MIT 2019

Last week I had the opportunity to present my tool at the 2019 Wananga. we had to complete a pecha kucha style presentation where we had 20 slides and 20 seconds to present each slide. Here is my presentation and I will later add the notes. This was an incredible experience and opportunity to share my journey this year and how my tool has progressed into what I have now. 

Term 3 Update - MIT 20!9

Term 3 Update - Raising Reading Achievement

This term I have been working hard to try and get my site up and running to the class so I am not double handling my work as I am currently putting this on my class site as well. I still haven't had this go live to my class BUT they have been using many of the activities that I have been working on after guided reading sessions. So I am making progress! This will be a school holidays top priority so that I will have it ready for day one for term 4. Although it is double handling of work for me at the moment I feel that this is the best way to see how the activities work in my classroom and I would rather that than having a half finished site in action from my students. 

Data:
Last time I posted I talked about my data making improvements which has been great to see. I have added a graph of my students data and how much progress they have made this year. 

This is from my mid year testing which has shown an increase in reading age for my target group of students. I am hopeful that this trend will continue with my end of year data as well. 

Highlights from the term:
One big highlight from this term has been the attitude of my students towards their learning. I had one of my students ask to have a reading test as she felt that she had made progress in her reading. She had intact moved from reading at 8 years to 8.5 years which is great progress. However the biggest highlight out of that whole thing was this student taking ownership of her own reading and wanting to see how she was going. She has been working really hard and it has been great to see that her hard work is paying off. 

How is my reading site going?
It is getting there it is still under construction and I do have a little bit of work to do over the holidays to make sure that it is up and running ready for week 1 of term 4. Here is a little look at one of my pages that is complete and ready to go:



This is for comparing and contrasting. My overall vision is that I will have this as a guided reading session in class and we will learn how to compare and contrast as a group. Then instead of having to come up with a task that is directly related to the story or article that they have read they will be able to pick an activity that they will enjoy and be able to continue the learning from our guided reading session. 

The comparing reading log is one that can be used across the term and is an activity that can be used every week to strengthen the reading achievement objective. So that leads onto my where to next which is adding more activities to this site and having it ready to roll in class next term! So watch this space to see when I finally go live with my site! 

KPMG Day 3 - MIT 2019

KPMG Day 3 - Raising Reading Achievement

Today we needed to put together what we have been working on and share our ideas at KPMG. This was a great time to reflect on what I have been doing and how my digital tool is coming along. We were asked to cover a few points which allowed my to reflect and think forward to what I need to continue to do to achieve my goal. 

What is the tool and what is it able to do?

It is a google site for students who are reading between the ages of 7 and 9. It will include a range of activities for each achievement objective. After guided reading sessions with the teacher the students will then be able to select from a range activities related to what they have been learning in class. I hope this will give the students the ability to choose an activity that suits how they learn and will be able to maximise their learning. 

Is it making a difference?

So far in my students data from this year I have seen all of my students move up at least 6 months in their reading age or 1 PM reading level. I started the year with a large chuck of my students reading at 8 years and most of them have now made progress to reading at 9 to 9.5 years. So yes there has been some progress in reading age and ability. My students love the new things that we have been doing in class and are engaged with reading and learning. The one thing that many of my students have loved is recording themselves reading and listening back. They reason they love this is they can see how well they are reading and notice the words that they need to work on or parts of their reading that they need to work on. 

How has it evolved?

It has started out as an idea of adding a small few changes to my reading groups to a site where the students can access reading activities. It has now become a place where teachers can have access to resources that are set to specific reading learning intentions and students can have choice as to how they want to practice that skill. They will still have the guided reading session with the classroom teacher and then will have the ability to practice it the best way for them. 

Where to next?

My site is still under construction and I have not made it live to my class yet as there are still many activities that I need to add. But I do aim to have it up and running by the end of the term. I also need to keep uploading my students reading the stories and articles so that others can listen along as an extra way to have access to the text. I will be continuing to add to this for my learners and will aim to have this rolled out in the classroom by the end of term 3. Then the next hope is to have it rolled out to other teachers to use as a tool in their classrooms! So watch this space!

EdTeach Summit Day Two - MIT 2019

 I came into todays sessions very excited and eager to learn again. We started the day off with a session from Kim Pollishuke which was incredible. Her session was titled Lets build an elevator to the moon. This session was very powerful as it showed that there are no limits in what we are teaching our learners and we should be empowering our learners to feel the same and that their ideas and aspirations should have no limits. This session inspired me as a classroom teacher to show my learners that their learning it limitless as well as what they can achieve which is something that I will definitely being taking back to my classroom.  I want my learners to be encouraged and excited about their learning and know that they possibilities for their education and what they can learn is what they make of it. I learnt how to use many tools in this session to engage my learners and make them feel excited and empowered. 

The next session that I went to was one of Kim Pollishuke's as well. This session was titled DocAppender for Descriptive Feedback Organization. In this session we learnt how to use Google Forms in order to be able to write continued feedback about our learners after sessions or observing them in the classroom. I think this is going to be an extremely useful tool that I am going to be able to use in my classroom. During this session as I my inquiry is around reading I created a from that I can fill in for my learners around literacy and the gains that they are making. After this session I reflected on how we could use this tool in our maths sessions for my team to track progress. I have worked on a basic template which I am very excited to share with my team when I get back to Auckland. 

The second session was one in which I presented again with Hannah West. This was on how to set up a new google site for beginners. This was a smaller turn out but it was great to see a handful of people from the session that we had taken yesterday. In this session we focused more on the create part as gave the people in our session the chance to create a site with the opportunity to ask questions and have support from myself and Hannah. This session again went really well and was nice to be able to share our own knowledge with others. 

The last session that I went to was with Kim Pollishuke and this was titled Putting Stories on the Map. This session appealed to me as reading is my focus and I wanted some extra tools to help it become engaging and exciting. This session was great as I have been using google my maps in the classroom with my learners which showed that it is a great tool to use. This session showed me some new ways of using this tool and how I could use this to locate each learners culture in one single map that everyone could have access to. I also learnt about many new great map tools that can bring reading to life for my learners. 

Today again opened my eyes to the number of tools that I can bring into my classroom and share with my learners as well as my colleagues. I have learnt so much in these last two days which I cannot wait to share with others when I get back. I am so grateful and thankful for this experience and cannot wait for term three to being. I hope that I have inspired others as much as I have been inspired over this conference.   

EdTeach Summit Day One - MIT 2019

My first day left me feeling excited and ready for what next term has to offer. I learnt so much as I also found that many of the things I am doing are working and I hope to continue this in the terms to follow.

Today was our first day at the EdTech Summit in Sydney. Already in one day my eyes have been opened to other possibilities in my classroom as well as having the affirmation that some of the things I am already using are working. To start the day off we had play ground sessions which were short 10 minute sessions where we were able to see some of the incredible tools that we could be using in our classroom. The sessions that I attended were:

• Coding for K2-using Beebots - Sharon Cooper
  In this session we were able to experiment with Beebots and how we could use these in our classroom. Coming from a term of using coding with my students this was a great session to see how I could use this coding in real life situations with my learners. This is showing how the coding that they are using is happening with a tangible tool.
• Simple AR (Augmented Reality) in the palm of your hand - Lorinda Ferry
  This session not only showed the wonder of the cube that we can use but also the incredible tools that are available on Google which can be used with a phone or an iPad. My takeaway from this session was the ability for learners to be able to use iPads in the classroom to show creatures such as sharks in their own reality. Something which I know many of my learners would enjoy.
• Maths Makerspace - Fiona Thomas 
  As maths has been a new learning step for us as a school using DMiC in our classrooms this session was very helpful with how to make follow up tasks and activities engaging and hands on for our learners. The tool that we use here in one that I could see working in my classroom and have the potential for my learners to solidify knowledge with a hands on experiences. 

After the playground sessions we went right into the 90 minute sessions which opened my eyes to many more possibilities but also showed that what I am using in the classroom is not only working for my learners but is something that many educators around the world are suggesting to be used in the classroom. The first session that I attended was digital storytelling. 

Digital storytelling tools to support diverse range of learners - Fiona Thomas 

In this session we were introduced to a number of different tools that we can use in the classroom to engage learners in literacy. This session was one which made me feel a sense of what I am doing in my classroom is working and some other elements that I could add in. I have been using text to type in my classroom for my literacy program which I think has been working well and this was a tool that was suggested in this session. There are a number of tools that I will be using from this session around language and vocabulary from this session so watch this space as I will update about this as I trial these in my classroom. 

Scratch 3.0 "Make some noise" - Dave Winter

We have been using scratch in our team this term and it was a fairly new tool for me to be using in my classroom. I had already learnt so much about how to teach this for my learners and I am still very eager to learn more which is why I chose this session. Dave's session opened my eyes to even more possibilities with using scratch. Many of my learners love creating music and sound effects which I had no idea was possible on scratch. This session was great as we were able to create our own scratch dance offs and music to go with our scratch games or sprites. This is definitely something I will be using in my classroom.

The last session of the day was one in which myself and Hannah West presented together. Our session was tips and trick for new google sites. I felt that this session went really well and we had a great turn our of people. The great part about the session was that people were engaging and asking questions which was what we were hoping for. We touched on our school and showed all of the things that our learners were doing in the classroom and everyone was very interested and excited to see what our learners are achieving.

This gave me a chance to reflect that what we are doing is working and that giving our learners the opportunity to learn, create and share is incredible and adds so much value to our learners and what they are achieving. It made me feel very blessed and thankful to be apart of such an amazing group of schools with an incredible support system. 

Term 2 Check in - MIT 2019

Term 2 Data 

This term we had testing and reports and I was able to use running records to see how my learners were getting on and to see if the things we have been doing in class have been working. With the testing I found that all of my learners managed to pass one reading level and most made progress of 0.5 - 1 year in reading. This was huge for some of my learners who have not made much shift in reading. 

What did I find out?

From completing these running records I found out that there are two main areas that need work in order for my learners to progress. One of the big things was vocabulary what I am finding is that they are able to read these words from sounding out and looking at blends but they are unsure of what these words mean. Another main thing that needs work is inferring as well as applied knowledge. These will be the focus of what we will be working in order to continue to raise reading achievement. 

What is working?

• Screencastify:
• Still really engaged with this activity and listening to themselves reading. 
• Listening to the story again:
• Listening to the story after we have read to look out for those new words and see how they are pronounced. Gives reading mileage as well.
• Reading tumble:
• Having a reading tumble in place so that each of the students knows what they are supposed to be doing and when. 
• Assigned seats:
• Having a set place to sit and complete work is helping with focus and completing work. 

Where to next?

• Focus on vocabulary:
• Spelling lists every week.
• Silent reading every day.
• Vocabulary tasks every week as part of guided reading.
• Spelling practice part of the reading tumble
• Reading activities:
• Screencastify (continue on with this)
• Follow up activities that require the students to create and use the text they have read to answer questions and find information. 
• Recording some of the stories that we have read that aren't available on TKI - maybe have students reading these. 
• Link to inquiry:
• Information fact sheets - needing to look up new vocabulary
• Front load vocabulary and have this accessible on the wall.

MIT where to?

Over the school holidays I am going to be creating a tool for this group of readers as a space where they can find all of the things that they need to work on. I am still not 100% sure what this will look like but will be something that is beneficial for my learners and will help engage my readers and also at the same time help to boost reading achievement. So again watch this space!

Term 2 Inquiry Update - MIT 2019

This term has been one of trial and error and trying to figure out the best way to use digital tools in the classroom with reading. This term is report time so I am currently underway with completing running records. Hopefully this data will show some shift so watch this space as I will update this as soon as I have all of this data.

Text to type:

Text to type has been working with some of my learners with their reading. I found learners were able to find the words they had said incorrectly while they were reading however they weren't really doing much with this after. This is still something that I will continue to use in the classroom throughout the year as an extra activity. I liked the idea of the students going away and reading the text again and being accountable for this reading. I wanted something along these lines that would also be something they could revisit so I decided to try something else.

What is the something else?

I decided to try and use screencastify and record themselves reading the story or article again after they were reading with me and their group. Along with this they needed to listen to themselves reading while following along with the journal that they had read. The results so far have been fantastic. They students are very engaged and loving this activity, they are also loving the ability to listen to themselves back. I have been using this for a few weeks now and have very engaged readers in my classroom. This idea has evolved over the weeks as I reflected how it was presented to my students and this might have been too much. They were having to reflect what their reading was like which was a challenge so what I have changed it to is answering a few questions about how they thought that they read. There are examples of this in the slide deck below. One is a completed screencastify recording and the other is a completed text to type presentation.

Where to next?

I want to continue to try and use these types of activities into the reading session. One thing I am trying to start is that the learners are then able to go and listen to the story read by someone else. On TKI many of the newer school journals level 1 and 2 and junior journals have this feature. This allows the students to pick up on the words that they may have got wrong both during our guided time and their time reading and this helps confirm the new words and make sure they are reading them correctly. This is another activity that they are enjoying. This is meaning that the learners are exposed to the text in three different ways and they are always needed to use the journal to follow along. This is something that I will continue to work for the rest of the term and into next term. Other work ons are to complete my site where the students can have access and these extra activities. I would like to have this ready for my learners to be working on by the end of this term. So watch this space!

Term 1 Update - 2019

This term has been one of trial and error to see what is going to work and what might not work so well in my class. I have been bouncing ideas off some of my colleagues and have worked out where I would like to go next. I would like to observe a reading support session to see what my students are experiencing to try and compliment this incredible experience for my learners back in the classroom. While I was looking at my next steps for my inquiry and my learners I decided to have a look at the running record data for my 7-9 year old readers over the last 3 years. I found that some of them have been stuck (for lack of a better word) in the levels for one or more years. This has made me rethink my own teaching and how I focus my guided reading sessions. I have found that just focusing on comprehension for some of these students is not helping with achievement. I need to focus on learning to read as some of my students are still grappling with this concept. 

My next steps are to trial some of my ideas in the classroom and see if they are successful. I would also like to test these learners with a running record in the next week so that I am able to have further insight into the gaps in learning. I am hoping to have a lot of these ideas in my reading sessions next term and find out what works, what doesn't and what I might need development on. I am excited to see this roll out into action. 

KPMG Session 1 - MIT 2019

Today we had our first session at KMPG. We were given the opportunity to talk through our ideas and what we have been thinking about our prototypes. It was really great to be able to explain to people what I was trying to achieve and ask for advice on ideas that I have been challenged with over the last month. Straight after the hui when I was back in my classroom I trialed the voice to type tool on google docs. After a guided reading session with some of my reading groups I sent them away to re read their journal article. In stead of just getting the learners to read silently I asked them to read the journal to the voice to type tool. This allowed the learners to see which words they were getting wrong when they were reading and the opportunity to fix those words or work out how they fit into the sentence. It was a great success with student engagement they were very excited to try this out with a number of students asking if they could read to their chromebook every day. I am needing to figure out how to hi-light the words that have been changed because they got the word wrong and I also need to figure out if the chromebook is accurately picking up the words that they are trying to say. This was something that I had the chance to discuss at the session today and have many ideas of how to make this work better in my classroom. During our session today we had the chance to pitch our prototype to the rest of the group and receive feedback on what we need to work on next. This is the original idea that I had drawn up in our session today:

I received some great feedback today and was challenged on how this is going to work and what acts of intentional teaching I am going to show though this site. This was  great experience as I was able to really think about what I am trying to create and see what others thought of this so far. It has made me rethink about some of the ideas that I am trying to add and has also given me a number of things to try in my class to see if they are going to work and help create the shift that I am trying to achieve in my class. Being challenged on my idea I think will help me to make it better and cater to the needs of my learners. It was a massive learning curve and has given me a great deal to think about. This just leaves the question of:

Where to next?

MIT Hui Final Day - MIT 2019

Today started with a bit of reflection about what we are going to be trying to achieve with our inquiry this year. We had a chance to sit down with the idea's of the crazy 8 that we completed yesterday to think about what our first prototype might look like. I started the morning very unsure about where to start with my prototype and what it might look like. I began to contemplate all of the advice I was given yesterday and think about how that might sit with my own vision. 

We were then given the opportunity to work by ourselves and play around with what we might want our prototype to look like. I still had my initial idea in the forefront of my mind but as I began to think about how it might look added in details from what I had discussed with my colleagues yesterday made it sit better and look like a site that would be helpful for what I am trying to achieve. It is a work in progress and I will re visit this over the next few weeks and add and take away from it as I need to. Watch this space!

MIT Hui Day Two Afternoon Reflection - MIT 2019

Poor progress and achievement for year 6 learners who are reading between the ages of 7-9 years.  

Today has been a great day for my inquiry, I feel that I have made some progress with the problem I have identified that I want to inquire into this year. In our afternoon sessions we had the opportunity to share what we would like to create for our MIT proposal. We were able to bounce ideas off each other and develop new concepts and ideas. I still have a long way to go to figure out what my overall prototype is going to look like but I have some great ideas and things that I would like to try in my classroom. I have thoroughly enjoyed what I got out of todays sessions, they have been invaluable to what I am trying to achieve. Here are some of the activities that we had a chance to complete this afternoon. 

Who?

The first activity that we had to think about was who are going to be the people that are going to help us with our problem this year. We had to really think about all of the people that we can call on for help and bounce ideas off.

The reason that we did activity was to think of how we can make this work in our classes and if we are stuck with something we are able to use this as a base of people who we can check in with over the years. 

The Crazy 8's

The next activity that we had to complete was the crazy 8's. This was where we to write down our original ideas that we were hoping to create for our MIT proposal. We then had to think up of other ideas that we could use to work into our inquiry. Once we had created the 8 of them we hung them up on the wall and my other colleagues came around and put stickers on which ones they thought were viable options and could work towards helping our problem. 

I was very surprised that my first idea which was what I had used for my MIT proposal was not one of the top picks from my colleagues. It still includes a google site which is something that I really wanted to create for my proposal. There are some new things that I can now think about as to what is going to go on my site and how to set it up so that I am addressing the issue of poor progress in reading. Tomorrow we will be getting the chance to brainstorm what our first prototype will look like. Lots of ideas to go over this evening before I start putting my ideas to paper.