Week 32: Reflect on your learning journey

Teaching as Inquiry has been an integral part of my teaching since I graduated in 2011. The problem is that I started to see this process as another thing to do on top of everything else I need to do as a classroom teacher. At my school, we are required to inquire into accelerating our target students for Reading, Writing and Maths and also conduct another inquiry to achieve a personal teaching goal. My argument has been that teachers are naturally reflective and having to constantly write everything down is time-consuming and mostly pointless. I think the main thing underpinning this attitude was the misconception that an inquiry must produce positive results quickly every time. Also, I thought admitting that I was struggling with an aspect of teaching could be seen as incompetence (Ostermann & Kottkamp, 2015). 

So the main change for me has been the freedom to conduct an inquiry without fear of failure. In the Spiral Playbook, the authors discuss the importance of being able to reflect and try again without fear of judgement (Kaser & Halbert, 2017). I know that the spiral of inquiry is about my learning as well as positive outcomes for students. The teaching standard for Professional Learning requires us to continually inquire into our practice and reflect on its effectiveness (Ministry of Education, 2017).

Before writing my Action Plan, I used the four key questions from the Spiral Playbook to survey my students about their te reo Māori learning. This showed me that they could not identify or explain why learning te reo Māori was important. This gave me a problem to solve for my inquiry and I will use these questions before undertaking future inquiries so I know what is really going on for my learners.

The ability to genuinely reflect on my practice rather than just trying to achieve a result has reignited my passion and drive to be honest and keep students at the centre of my inquiries. I am prepared to try new things, using research to guide my thinking. I would not have normally chosen the inquiry that I did for this course as I was not confident it would be successful. The positive outcomes from my inquiry have given me confidence. I now think that focussing on reflection and learning rather than just trying to show success eliminates some of the stress and makes me a more honest teacher. I am more willing to take risks and try new teaching strategies. I recognise the importance of including whanau and seeking student voice throughout the process.

Kaser, L. & J. Halbert. (2017). The Spiral Playbook: Leading with an inquiring mindset in school systems and schools. C21 Canada. Retrieved from http://c21canada.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Spiral-Playbook.pdf

Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from
https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

Osterman, K. F., & Kottkamp, R. B. (2015). Reflective practice for educators : professional development to improve student learning.(2nd ed.) New York: Skyhorse Publishing.

Week 31: Evaluate your impact

The actual impact of my inquiry has been an increase of vocabulary knowledge in my classroom. I was surprised at the result when I retested them. They now recognise 14 of the 24 words in the vocabulary assessment. At the beginning of the inquiry they only recognised 3! I must admit that this was engineered a little as I focused on those words during our reo sessions. There has also been a slight increase in self-efficacy. Survey results showed an increase from 48% to 56% of students who feel confident about speaking te reo Māori exclusively for 15 minutes.

Impacts not supported by data are things I have noticed in class. Students are showing a greater awareness and acknowledging the use of te reo Māori by others. This awareness has increased their use of the language, but there is still a high level of consciousness, it is not a natural flow. They are proud of their learning and keen to share it in the classroom.

My anticipated impact was that te reo Māori would become a natural way of communicating in class, so students move easily between languages. This has happened on a word level but not on a sentence level i.e. they will substitute te reo Māori for some English words in sentences but they are not using complete sentences. This is mostly because we are still developing our sentence structure so there is a limited number of sentences they can use.

As the inquiry progressed I made changes to my original plan. I soon realised that we needed more structure, rather than free conversation. Once I started using shared books to begin our sessions we had a framework for our discussion. We could then use sentences from the book, changing some words to make it relevant to the class.

The other main difference was that I realised I needed some expert help. It was surprisingly difficult to quickly find phrases that I needed to use in class online. I was also determined to use the local Ngapuhi dialect at all times so I relied on experts at school to make sure I was on the right path.

The main change I would make for my next inquiry would be to involve whanau more. A dialogic relationship allows students, teachers and whanau to share their expertise (Charteris & Trafford, 2010). I would start the inquiry with a letter home outlining what we are trying to achieve and inviting them to participate either at home or by coming in to class. I would also keep them informed of any progress we are making and share resources we are using with them via my class blog.

Charteris, J., & Trafford, R. (2010). Speaking Plainly: Student Led Reporting in Relation to the New Zealand Curriculum Standards. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, 7(1), 38–46. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=54312933&site=ehost-live

Week 30: Reflect on your evidence

In my action plan I planned to use both qualitative and quantitative data in my inquiry. My qualitative data was to be collected through observations and I had a simple questionnaire and assessment sheet to collect some quantitative data. So far, my data collection has been a little ad hoc. For the 4 weeks of my inquiry so far I have been in class for 15 days and out of class for 5, with a 2 week school holiday in the middle. This has made it difficult to establish a routine.

Originally, I decided to complete an observation sheet as I thought making a video would be too distracting for the students. However, the 15 minute conversations each morning have been heavily dependent on my input, making it difficult to record observations at the same time. My school is implementing Iris Connect, PLD software where teachers record themselves teaching as a way to reflect on their practice. As a result, I will start recording next week rather than completing the written observations.

Some of the things I have noticed so far:

• Most students are engaged.
• We all need to increase our vocabulary.
• One of my students is an expert who models risk-taking and keeps the conversation active. When this student is absent the session is much more arduous.

One surprising result is that when there is a fluent adult speaker in the room the students revert back to english more often. However, having the support of a fluent adult in the room to help with sentence structure and pronunciation is a huge benefit for me.

Babione (2014) describes coding as an interpretive technique to sort data into categories as an aid to finding patterns. I did not have any predetermined codes for analysing data when I developed my plan but the emerging categories I have identified so far are:

• The impact of a student who is able to lead the session.
• The impact of a fluent adult speaker.
• Scaffolding the conversation with a shared book at the start of the session.

As I follow these patterns I need to develop a holistic understanding rather than getting lost in details (Efron & Ravid, 2013). It is important to keep referring back to my inquiry focus.

I was able to chart my survey results. The pie chart shows the students’ vocabulary knowledge at the beginning of the inquiry. 8 of my 25 students were absent for the survey so their results are not shown.

Words known in te reo Māori:



I then created a bar graph to show the students’ ability to create simple sentences. 4 of the 17 students present chose not to respond.


For my final survey question, 11 of 25 students (48%) felt confident that we could speak te reo Māori exclusively for 15 minutes.

The evidence I have collected so far has provided some baseline data which I can use to compare with data I will collect at the end of the inquiry period. This will show whether my students’ knowledge of te reo Māori has increased. As my inquiry is into the use of conversational te reo Māori, can it only really be answered through qualitative data in the form of observation. In the future I will record our “korero anake te reo Māori” sessions and fill in the observation sheet from the video as this will give a more accurate representation of what is happening in class.

References:

Babione, C. (2014). Practitioner teacher inquiry and research. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Efron, S. E., & Ravid, R. (2014). Action research in education : a practical guide. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com