Tools, Measures and Approaches

From our last CoL meeting we were asked to think about the tools, measures and approaches that we might use this year as well as having baseline data to compare our inquiry to for the end of the year. In this blog post I have outlines some of the tools, measures and approaches that I will use as baseline data for my learners which has continued to from and shape my inquiry.

PAT Reading Test
Looking at raw data from this test as well as a deep dive into the type of questions that students were able to answer and those that were a struggle and see if there is a trend in this data.

PAT STAR
Looking at raw data from this test as well as a deep dive into the type of questions that students were able to answer and those that were a struggle and see if there is a trend in this data.

Running Records
Exploring running records from 2024 as well as previous years for each of the students to see if there are trends in this data and what areas these students might be getting "stuck."

Attendance Data

I would like to have a look at this data to see if there are any trends into this and what the attendance is like with this group of students.

Student & Whānau Voice
Completing a student survey around attitudes and feelings towards reading. I would also like to hear what Whānau think about their children's reading and what we can do to work together to have student success.

Observation Data

We have been using Vosaic to analyse our teaching and share things that we can work on in our teaching. I would like to use this for my teaching as well as with these groups of students while they are completing follow up tasks to see the shifts and trends throughout the year.

Student Voice - Reader Profile Survey

At the beginning of the year I completed a reader profile survey as part of RPI. Yesterday I asked the students to complete the survey again so that I could compare the results and see if there has been any shift in students opinions and feelings towards reading as a whole and their own reading. I have created a presentation that compares side by side the data from the beginning of the year and the end of the year which I have added to this blog post. 

From comparing the data from term 1 and term 3 I have found that there have been some slight changes in some key areas with other key areas remaining similar or the same. One of the questions asks what types of books the students like to read, so I am going to look over this in a bit more detail and see if I can add in these types of texts to our reading program. Below I have outlined some of my key findings from the two surveys. 

1. I like reading at school - I saw a slight positive shift in this question with more students answering that they like reading at school. Even though it was a small shift it is great to see that more students are enjoying reading at school. 
2. Going to the library - Again there was another small shift in the number of students who are going to the library to borrow books. This is something that I have implemented in my home class by going to the school library more which could have had an impact on this question. 
3. Borrowing books - There was a slight shift in this question with more students answering that they are borrowing books from the library more often. Again I wonder if this is linked to utilizing the library more during school time. 
4. I think I am good at reading - There was a positive shift in students beliefs in their own reading which is encouraging to see. 
5. My teacher thinks I am good at reading - This question also showed a positive shift with the majority of the class scoring either 3 or 4 for this answer. It is great to see that the students think that I believe they are good at reading. 

There were some really positive shifts in the data and I can't wait to keep working on changing the students views around reading. I will complete this survey again in term 4 and then compare the results from each key time point. If you want to see all of the data and comparisons check out the presentation that I have inculded above in this blog post. 

Baseline Data

We have been asked to think about what we will be using as our baseline data to see if our intervention has shown shift at the end of this inquiry. I have decided that I will use the following as my baseline data and use this again at the end of the year to see if there is any shift. 

PAT Reading & Star
I will use data collected from both of these tests and again analyse in detail at the end of the year to see which areas have shown improvements. I will be able to compare beginning of the year data to the end of the year data. 

Running Records
I will be able to use this data also to see if the intervention has made shift in reading age
and level. This will also be good data to use in the middle of the year to see how the students are tracking and what other changes might need to be made. Our students are also tested on running records at the end of the year so will be able to compare this data (often this is not ready before bursts and bubbles so will need other data for that). 

Probe Tests
Because I have tested the students in term 1 using probe (all but one as attendance can be a bit low) I will be able to complete probe testing at the end of the year to see shift. This will be something that I can complete early on term 4 and will be able to use for bursts and bubbles. 

Attendace
I have been looking into this as well, I will have a blog post that will show trends in attendance as I wanted to know if this will have an impact on students reading. I will be able to use of attendance data to see trends in this data.

Student Voice Survey
I will complete this again at the end of the year to see if there is a change in students perceptions in reading and see if there is any shift and if there is shift where this shift has come from. 

Observations
I have been taking notes during guided reading with this group of learners and will continue to do so for the rest of the year. I think this will be a good way to gauge confidence in these students and to see if there is any shift in that area.

I think that this will be enough baseline data to have ready for the end of the year to see if there is any shift in reading age due to the intervention being made. 

Student Voice

I have been pondering student voice for the last few weeks now and have been trying to think of the best way to a) collate this and b) how to show that there have been changes throughout the year. I always tend to find that this is the last thing I think to look at whereas it should be the first thing we look at. Because the students are the ones who we are needing to see if they are enjoying the changes and if they are working for them. 

I have been lucky enough to be recording Class OnAir again this year and I have been able to capture some great student voice throughout the year. Even though I haven't complete formal assessment of student voice I have been able to gather this anecdotally throughout the year. We have been focusing on how to infer meaning and some of that has been through the development of characters in a story, how they are described and what actions they are showing in a text. 

The more I think about student voice the more I think about to one of my lessons this year, which I thankfully had on camera for a Class OnAir episode. One of the questions was how do we know then the text was written. There were many clues of this in the text however most of the students thought that it must be in olden times because it was about an old lady. But one of my students pointed out that they were watching the show "Brooklyn 99" which is show that has only recently been around. Through this realisation the students made the comment that he was "mind blown" because he could finally see that there are clues through the text that we can use to understand hidden meaning. This was not only a great learning experience for the students but it made the other students excited to find clues as well as complete the follow up task of creating a GIF. 

I have come up with a way to access student voice and this has been more of an anecdotal way this year. At the beginning of the year students set goals for what they wanted to achieve and a lot of these goals were around reading and how to improve. So I will use this as a baseline and then interview each of the students as a goal check in to see how they are going with their goal and how much they understand the key areas that they have been working on in literacy this year. 

Preliminary Findings: Student Wellbeing and Student Voice Surveys

Due to what has been happening this term with lots of children in and out of school due to sickness and other reasons my biggest focus was students wellbeing. Reading is my overall inquiry focus but in order to figure out my next steps there I wanted to ensure that my students wellbeing was being looked at and addressed. Wellbeing is so important and I believe that this needs to be understood before any learning can take place. If a child has low wellbeing how do we expect them to learn in the classroom with so much going on in their own worlds.

Building relationships with my students this year has been a challenge due to the number of ins and outs there have been. So i conducted some wellbeing surveys so that I could have a clearer understanding of my students well being and what they needed from me as their teacher to help school and learning to be enjoyable and not something that they dread each day. I conducted two surveys that I adapted from other surveys I had found online to fit with my students and also the types of data that I was looking for. Below I have summarised some of the key data I found from these surveys. 

Student Wellbeing Survey Results 

The first graph shows how the students feel overall at school. As you can see from the graph 15 of my students strongly agree with this statement where I also have a number of students who somewhat disagree or strongly disagree. This has given me a great indication of how my students feel coming to school along with an area that I need to investigate why these students don't feel happy at school. My hunch is that there is a slight fear of being at school with covid in our community however this is something to investigate further. 

Another statement in this survey was teachers are there to help me. This graph shows that the majority of students strongly agree with this statement with a small portion who somewhat disagree. Most of the data indicates that students feel like teachers are at school to help them learn, I kept this broad as I wanted students to not feel like they had to base in on the current classroom teacher. Again this data has shown an area to investigate further and see what I can do more as a teacher to ensure that all of my students feel that they can come to a teacher for help. 

Another key statement in this survey was school is mostly fun. I thought that this is an important question for students to be able to answer as it would gauge how the students feel coming to school and if they are having fun at school. This is a big aim for us at Pt England to make sure that children are coming back to school and also having fun at the same time. Again from this data I can see that most of the students agree to some extent with only a small number disagreeing with this statement. We have been trying to incorporate a lot more fun days and activities so far this year so looks like this could definitely be something to continue on with. 

Student voice survey results

Another survey that I conducted with my class was to find out student voice and see how they felt in the classroom with their peer, learning and teachers. Below are some of the key results I found out along with a brief discussion. 

This question was I feel safe in the class sharing my ideas, the data shows that some to most of the time the students do feel that that can share with some feeling like they don't often or hardly ever feel safe to share ideas. This is an important area as I would like all of the students to feel safe to share thoughts and ideas with each other. This links to confidence as well which I do hope to see increase over the year. 

This question was I know what to do when I have a problem, the majority of the class at least some of the time know what to do when they have a problem with a small portion not really sure. This again is another important work on as students should know what to do when they have a problem and should know how to seek help when needed.

This next question was similar to the previous survey but I related this one to how students feel about their teacher. This one was phrased as I feel like my teacher knows me. The data shows that all of the students at least some of the time feel like the teacher knows about them and their lives. I think this is really important if we are wanting students to succeed they need to know that their teacher is also there to support them. 

Finally the last question of significance in this survey was linked to learning and if students did know what they were actually learning about. From the data I can see that this is an area that needs continued development. 

From both of these surveys I managed to gain a greater insight to my class and see some areas of strength as well as some areas that require development throughout the year. I think having wellbeing and student achievement and engagement linked will have a huge impact on not only student achievement but also about how they feel about coming to school. These are just some of the questions not all by all means but just a snapshot into the class to begin the year.