Academic Reading

Our next CoL PLG is this afternoon and we have been asked to read a piece of academic reading and to highlight some quote from the text to share with our colleagues. We have only been tasked to read the first few pages however I have found it very interesting so far so I think I will continue reading it to the end. The reading is "Analysis and Discussion of Classroom and Achievement Data to Raise Student Achievement" by Mei Kuin Lai and Stuart McNaughton. This is a very fitting article as I have been looking at my data for both my CoL inquiry and RPI that I am currently taking part in. From the first part of the article here are the five key quotes from the text that stood out to me. 

• In the late 1990s, research on schools involved in Ministry of Education projects indicate that there were a sizeable proportion of schools that did not analyse and use achievement data to improve their practices, but recent research indicated that most schools now regularly use data to inform their practices (Lai and McNaughton 2010). 
• Using a broad range of data is recommended, including data from assessments, observation of students in class, homework and ‘student voice’ (e.g., student questionnaires).
• The literature indicates that focusing primarily on achievement information, such as on national standards or high-stakes assessment, has failed to improve students’ literacy achievement (and by implication, failed to improve teachers’ practices).
• It could be one or several of these issues that is the cause of the poor score, and teachers need to know how to put together a teaching programme that can address these issues.
• For all these reasons, we argue that connecting achievement patterns to teaching patterns is essential if teachers are to draw the appropriate inferences from the achievement information to develop more effective teaching practices.

I am looking forward to discussing these key points this afternoon during our CoL PLG and will reflect on this on my blog after our meeting, so watch this space!

PLG 2

During our CoL PLG today we were asked to work in groups to unpack a text shared with us before the meeting. The article was called "Building Creative Thinking in the Classroom" Emma Gregory, Mariale Hardiman, Julia Yarmolinskaya, Luke Rinne and Charles Limb. We were then asked to read this and find quotes about the following things. 

• find interesting 
• agree or disagree with
• didn’t know
• believe has important practice implications 

Here is a list of quotes that I found from reading this article:

• Page 44: "In the context of education, perhaps the most valuable question to ask is whether or not creativity is fixed."
• Page 44: "Moreover, despite appreciating the value of facilitating creativity, few teachers feel that they are sufficiently trained to support students’ creative potential."
• Page 47: "Content knowledge within a domain has been argued to be the foundation for creative thinking and innovation (e.g.,Weisberg, 2006). According to this view, creative thinking cannot occur unless one has first mastered a body of content knowledge."
• Page 47: "The authors concluded that raising animals at home led children to have a better understanding of a situation, allowing children to construct mental models of the animals.

There were many great points to this article that really made you think as you were reading. The above quotes were just some of the ones that stood out to me. During our CoL PLG we were then tasked with completing "the last word" where we had to share one of our quotes, the people in our group had to locate this quote and give a quick opinion on this and finally we would have the last word to share our final thoughts. I really enjoyed this task as there were key areas pointed out in the text that I might have otherwise looked over and not really thought about in depth. I feel that we had a greater understanding of the text and also how to pick out key ideas as we were reading along. 

During our PLG we also discussed maths and what could be done to help make a shift and change in maths. The key question being what are the three things you think will make the biggest difference in maths? We had a great discussion about this and what we think will help with maths. One key thing I took away from this was the need for vocabulary in maths which is something I am also seeing in reading. So this was just a thought to ponder over. 

Clearer Direction

We had our first face to face PLG for the year last week. It was really nice to connect with people in person! I really enjoyed our PLG as we were able to break off into groups and discuss our inquiries and what we have been working on or thinking about. There were some really great discussions and ideas that were given by others in the group which has given me a clearer direction with my inquiry. 

This year I have been focusing on having my students write more frequently with having picture prompts each day. This has however still be relatively seperate from my reading program. After some great discussions and suggestions from other CoL teachers and leaders I have started to consider making reading and writing intertwined rather than being two separate subjects.

What will this look like?

At the moment for reading I have an overall topic each week where the students have the opportunity to find our facts and research a topic in detail. I then try and best as I can to link the journal articles to this topic for the week. The topic is generally related to our term topic as a school focusing on key aspects of the topic each week. Doing this allows the students to have more exposure to key vocabulary and ideas from each topic. What I would like to try and do for the rest of the term is incorporate this overall reading focus into our writing as well. 

From this week I have changed the spelling words from being completely subject specific to words that are related to the topic but also found in our journal articles as well. I have gone from 3 to 4 writing groups and these are connected to my reading groups. So having the same groups for reading and writing. This means that in my literacy rotations I can see these groups for guided reading or writing throughout the week and also intertwine these lessons. 

The overall task for writing each week I will try and make it relate to the overall topic. For example at the moment I am looking at compass bearing and directions so will have the writing task related to writing out instructions. I will then continue on with a writing prompt each week which will again relate to the overall topic and give the student the opportunity to use the new vocabulary they have been exposed to from reading and spelling into their writing. I am hoping that this will overall lead to a more in depth understanding of a topic. 

This is where I am at with my inquiry this stage. It has been very valuable discussing my inquiry with other CoL teachers and leaders to get a clearer understanding of all my thoughts as well as a clearer direction of my next steps.