Archive of ‘Improving Student Learning’ category

NAPLAN and EALD Language and Literacy Levels

NAPLAN writing assessment is a tool to assess student writing in either persuasive or narrative texts. The assessment uses a rubric in a number of specific areas to determine a score.

In both text types the following aspects are analysed:

  • Audience
  • Text structure
  • Cohesion
  • Sentence structure
  • Punctuation
  • Spelling

Additionally when analysing narratives Language devices are assessed, and when persuasive writing is analysed persuasive devices are also monitored.

Comparatively the EALD Language and Literacy Levels divide the analysis of writing into the following areas:

  • Composing learning area texts
  • Text Knowledge
    • Organisational structures
    • Text cohesion- Foregrounding
      • Text and paragraph openers
      • Sentence openers including using passive voice to change what is foregrounded
      • Reference: pronouns, determiners and substitution
  • Grammar Knowledge
    • Sentence structure
      • Simple
      • Compound
      • Complex
    • Punctuation
      • Sentence level
      • Basic punctuation
      • Beyond basic
    • Words and word groups
      • Verbs and verb groups
      • Adverbs, adverb groups/ phrases and prepositional phrases
      • Noun groups/ phrases, including plurals, articles and nominalisation
    • Expressing opinion and point of view
      • Evaluative language
      • Modality
      • Expressing opinion directly
  • Word Knowledge
    • Understanding/ using learning area vocabulary
    • Spelling

NAPLAN is a measurement tool, providing information about where students are in relation to the aspects measured – a summative assessment.
The EALD Language and Literacy Levels are a description of how language skills develop. Therefore they provide much more information to the teacher about where to next – a great teaching and assessment tool; formative and summative assessment.

Although specifically designed to support the development of language and literacy of high needs students, the Levels are a teaching tool to support teachers with all learners. They provide a framework for “high expectations and high support (Mariani 1997)”, enabling a closing of the gap between a student’s language resources and those required for their year level.

Underpinned by a systematic and explicit pedagogy based in:

  • Teaching in advance of language development
  • Stretching students’ knowledge and imagination beyond what they can readily do independently
  • Encouraging the use of strategies such as self-correction and trial and error
  • Customising support for individual learners, including modifying the level of support and the timing of its withdrawal as students move to independence

Implications on practice

Gradual release of responsibility
Zone of proximal development
Explicit teaching – unpacking the demands of the curriculum – How language works, why language choices are made, what the effects of certain choices are and how to use language in powerful ways.
The teaching and learning cycle – 4 key stages
1. Setting the context
2. Modelling and text deconstruction
3. Joint construction
4. Independent construction

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Education and Technology – How to Focus on Maximising the Teaching Opportunities

Technology can provide many benefits, including: a wide audience for student work, collaborative opportunities with people all over the world, access to experts, use of tools to deliver a message effectively, and tools to systematise complex processes.

Unfortunately we haven’t got to the stage where technology is available without hiccups yet. Often schools are hindered by lack of access to technology (not having one on one devices), frequent cuts to internet connectivity, popular and useful sites blocked by systems, and lack of skills – teachers and students.

I am committed to finding ways to utilise technology to enhance my teaching practices, not just look for gimmicks that fix a short term issue. To this end I will aim to make use of the following technologies:

  • Blogs – to provide a central storage point for access to links and resources, to provide information to staff, students and parents, to share work, to encourage people to respond to student work, engage a wider audience in conversations
  • Wikis – to provide opportunities  for students  to co-create, collaborate
  • Voki – to engage the audience, direct a specific message in an entertaining way
  • Powtoon – utilise an animation tool to communicate learning powerfully, engage audience (transform learning)
  • Scratch – to teach students coding language
  • Vimeo – to communicate using video
  • Animoto – to encourage students to use visual and auditory elements to communicate a strong message
  • Voice Thread – to use the power of visual, auditory and written messages, combined with people from various parts of the world
  • Diigo – to curate important articles, reference pieces
  • Edmodo – to communicate with students around the world
  • iPads – in the junior primary years – My Story, Explain Everything, Book Creator, Tellagami, QR Reader, Show Me, Skitch, Puppet Pals
  • Twitter – to encourage traffic to blogs, pose questions of my educational Personal Learning Network, access current information and diversity of opinions
  • Skype – to connect with others
  • Fuse – to connect synchronously with teachers in various parts of the world
  • Thinglink?? – gimmicky? or purposeful?

What else would you add to this list?

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Collaborative Learning

http://www.teachthought.com/learning/20-collaborative-learning-tips-and-strategies/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem&utm_content=dIkiDd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook#!dIkiDd

Notes:

Group Roles

Leader

Recorder

Reporter

Fact Checker

Responsibilities

Initiating discussions

Clarifying points

Summarising

Challenging Assumptions/ Devil’s Advocate

Providing/ Researching information

Reaching a consensus

Maintenance – to ensure harmony and emotional well-being of a group

Responsibilities

Sensing group feelings

Harmonising

Compromising

Encouraging

Time Keeping

Relieving tension

Bringing people into the discussion

Project Based Learning process:

1. Identify the objective

2. Set criteria or goals

3. Gather data

4. Generate options or courses of action

5. Evaluate the options using data and objectives

6. Reach a decision

7. Implement the decision

 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Rich District, Poor District: Common Sense Practices to Maximise Resources and Improve Student Outcomes – Howie Knoff

http://arstateimprovementgrant.com/

Common Sense Practice #1 (Leadership)
7 C’s of success:
formal and informal processes that facilitate:
Communication
Caring
Collaboration
Commitment
Consultation
Celebration
Consistency
among school staff and district staff

Committees – reflect the research-based components of effective schools and schooling

Recommended:
The School Leadership Team (all committee co-chairs are members)
The Curriculum and Instruction Committee
The School Climate/ School Discipline Committee
The Professional Development/ Teacher Mentoring and Support Committee
The Family and Community Outreach Committee
The Student Assistance/ Multi-tiered/ Early Intervention Committee (made up of the best academic/ behavioural assessment/ intervention specialists in or available to the school)

All professionals regardless of their department or administrative assignment, are organised in cross-collaborative teams that focus on the following outcomes:

  • Students’ academic learning, mastery, and application
  • Students’ social, emotional and behavioural self-management and interpersonal success
  • Teachers’ effective instruction relative to student academics and self-management outcomes
  • Meaningful professional development and staff support to facilitate effective instruction and multi-tiered intervention resulting in successful student outcomes
  • Community and family outreach to maximise their support, collaboration, and involvement in educational processes/ activities at the district, school, and student levels

Common Sense #2 (Instruction)

Differentiated Instruction will not work when there are too many different skill groups in a classroom, or when teachers do not know the functional skills levels of their students.

Organisational suggestion for setting up classes – not too much of a range in abilities (skills based learning clusters)??? Possible?

Knowing the Zone of Proximal Development level of all students

* Use PAT-R, PAT-M, Running Records, etc.

* Data management system to pass on information from teacher to teacher essential.

Refer to: http://arstateimprovementgrant.com/

Common Sense Practice #3 (Assessment):
Every year level (or course) needs developmentally-appropriate curricular maps, that identify the knowledge, content and skills needed by students, along with the criteria for student mastery: and for every teacher to have the skills, materials, and opportunity needed to effectively differentiate and teach, assess, and monitor students’ learning and mastery.

Yes!! I feel that the most success we have had this year in terms of Professional Development has been developing a clear understanding of the skills and understandings needed by students in terms of reading comprehension. Analysing the PAT-R descriptive continuum helped to understand what students needed to be taught. Using this assessment tool helped teachers to identify the Zone of Proximal Development of each student from Year 2-7. From here clear goals were established for student learning, and instructional opportunities were planned to scaffold students’ learning.

Question: How closely are the PAT-R tests aligned with the Australian Curriculum?
This process need to be done in relation to the Australian Curriculum year level expectations.

Common Sense Practice #4 (Services and Support):
Share Resources
SWOT Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Interdependent Audits:

  • Strategic Planning, Organisational Stability and Data-driven Decision Making Audits
  • Academic and Health/ Mental Health/ Wellness Curriculum, Curricular Alignment, and Curriculum Selection Audits
  • Technological Hardware and Software Curriculum, Instruction, and Intervention Support Audits
  • Professional Development, Supervision and Staff Evaluation Audits

Completing and sharing these audits allows everyone to know the resources available (and not available) and how they can be utilised.

Resources must be used to support needs of students. Communicating what resources are available, and sharing these across the school are important.

 

Blog: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Rich-District–Poor-District–Common-Sense-Practices-to-Maximize-Resources-and-Improve-Student-Outcomes.html?soid=1102564327552&aid=g4Ebne95rHY

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Effective Supervision- Answering the questions Domain 1

What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?
1. Providing clear learning goals and scales to measure those goals
2. Tracking student progress
3. Celebrating student success

Initially it will be important to establish where students are on the learning continuum. I will do this by referring to previously gathered information (standardised test results from last year and report grades), students self assessments and goals for the term/ year, and parental survey/ feedback. This information will mainly focus on reading, spelling, writing, and mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. Opportunities to also monitor Health and PE, music and language skills will be important to acknowledge strengths of students in these areas.

Recording this information in one central location (Mark it), will be important. A copy in the back of my day to day program book has also been well utilised and easily accessible, so I would like to continue this.

Involving students in the process of identifying their strengths and needs will be important throughout the year. I will endeavour to do this through the use of rubrics, and the SOLO framework (Structured Observable Learning Outcomes – Pre-structural, Uni-structural, Multi-structural, Relational and Extended Abstract).

Resources to help with creating rubrics are:
EALD -Language and Literacy Levels – particularly for writing ( but also useful for reading) and oral language development
Australian curriculum- Maths, English, Science, History, Geography
Reading Comprehension Strategies Level Guides – Here, Hidden, Head, Heart
Words Their Way continuum – spelling, word knowledge

Using the rubrics to provide relevant, useful feedback to students will be important. Allowing time to process feedback and act on this will also be important. Encouraging students and parents to actively engage in this process should see further benefits for student learning. An easy to access, easy to manage system needs to be set up. The use of Evernote could be one tool that could support this process. Up until now I have used an Assessment Portfolio, which has been a record of feedback, and assessment of work. This will still be relevant and useful, as I want to continue to use this easily accessible tool as a way of students visibly showing their thinking. Past students have used these as mini-whiteboards, with various blank proformas at the ready.

Class Dojo might also be a way of keeping parents informed. I will need to investigate how much this can be customised, and if this could be used to give feedback.

Bento has been useful in the past, a data base program, although I haven’t been able to sync data between all devices.

Involving students in setting specific goals, keeping these in mind (and easily accessible) and self monitoring will be a priority. Using graphing systems and regularly checking in with students throughout the day will be managed with the help of proformas available in student Assessment portfolios.

20140118-002431.jpg

Celebrating student successes?
Encouraging students to share their learning achievements with parents will be done throughout the year by:
* highlights regularly celebrated and featured on our class blog,
* setting up opportunities to share/ show Assessment Portfolio or online work with parents (regular homework will foster this regular review and feedback from parents)
* Class Dojo will also be explored as an option to share successes
* Evernote – this didn’t work last year when I tried to use it at school, but hopefully the computing issues have been fixed, so I will try again. This will allow both teachers to add notes, photos, videos to a folder for each student which could then easily be shared with parents.
* students’ successes will also be regularly shared as acknowledgements and achievements
* last year by having student goals posted in the classroom, I could help students to monitor and assess their achievement. I would like to continue this, but also get students to keep a copy which is easy to refer to (Assessment Portfolio).

What will I do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures?
4. Establishing classroom routines
5. Organising the physical layout of the classroom for learning

Some of the main routines I will want to establish quickly are:
* getting students to effectively work with each other – build from pairs, triads, to bigger groupings gradually
* sharing responsibilities – setting up a regular system to rotate roles and responsibilities (fortnightly)
* ways to walk around the school as a class in an orderly way
* setting up in the morning – reference point (list of jobs)
* packing up at the end of the day – reference point (list of jobs)
* Monday morning procedure – Team Meeting
* English – Word Work, Literacy Block, Guided Reading,
* Maths – Mental Routine, Problematised Situation/ Strategy Lesson, Reflection
* Science – working in triads with a set role
* Daily Fitness- students responsible for setting up, explaining game/ activity with support of the teacher, and packing up
* Workbook expectations
* What to do if you finish early. What to do if you don’t know what to do. What to do if the task is too easy or too hard.
* Visible Thinking strategies – mini-whiteboards, fingers (ABCD), thumbs up, down, middle to show level of understanding, five finger rating system – relate to on-task time, or personalised goal (recorded regularly on a self monitoring chart), physically moving to different points in the classroom to show opinion/ thoughts, Think-Pair-Share, Think Board,
* regular reflection on thinking/ learning / achievements – through talking, blogging, journal, reading log, sticky notes
* meta language developed/ used to communicate clearly
* goal setting – modelled- SMARTAR ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic , time oriented, agreed, reviewed)
* use hexagons to relate to SOLO taxonomy

Physical layout of the room?
I need to make space for:
– whole class instruction with access to the whiteboard, and electronic whiteboard
– small group instruction,
– small group work in different parts of the class
– paired/ independent practice (tables organised in pairs or groups of 4, with clear expectations on noise level and table talk – focused/ on-task only) – signs to remind students of working noise level? – silent, whispers, table talk, whole class, small group – one at a time
– access to class resources (textas, paper, calculators, scrap paper, maths equipment)
– access to and routine for borrowing from class and school library
– drink bottles and fruit snack
– book boxes for Daily 5 – Read to someone, Listen to someone, Read to self, Word Work, Writing
– computer trolleys
– display space for student work
– display space to use as a reference point for learning – Word Wall, Wonder Wall, CAFE ( Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expand Vocabulary)
– visible thinking – poster sectioned off and numbered to represent each student to hold sticky notes, exit passes, etc.
– reference materials A3 laminated sheets, personal word wall (Sheena Cameron idea), POOCH, personal thermometer (individuals or everyone?) SOLO reference points

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Effective Supervision- Answering the questions Domain 1

What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?
1. Providing clear learning goals and scales to measure those goals
2. Tracking student progress
3. Celebrating student success

Initially it will be important to establish where students are on the learning continuum. I will do this by referring to previously gathered information (standardised test results from last year and report grades), students self assessments and goals for the term/ year, and parental survey/ feedback. This information will mainly focus on reading, spelling, writing, and mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. Opportunities to also monitor Health and PE, music and language skills will be important to acknowledge strengths of students in these areas.

Recording this information in one central location (Mark it), will be important. A copy in the back of my day to day program book has also been well utilised and easily accessible, so I would like to continue this.

Involving students in the process of identifying their strengths and needs will be important throughout the year. I will endeavour to do this through the use of rubrics, and the SOLO framework (Structured Observable Learning Outcomes – Pre-structural, Uni-structural, Multi-structural, Relational and Extended Abstract).

Resources to help with creating rubrics are:
EALD -Language and Literacy Levels – particularly for writing ( but also useful for reading) and oral language development
Australian curriculum- Maths, English, Science, History, Geography
Reading Comprehension Strategies Level Guides – Here, Hidden, Head, Heart
Words Their Way continuum – spelling, word knowledge

Using the rubrics to provide relevant, useful feedback to students will be important. Allowing time to process feedback and act on this will also be important. Encouraging students and parents to actively engage in this process should see further benefits for student learning. An easy to access, easy to manage system needs to be set up. The use of Evernote could be one tool that could support this process. Up until now I have used an Assessment Portfolio, which has been a record of feedback, and assessment of work. This will still be relevant and useful, as I want to continue to use this easily accessible tool as a way of students visibly showing their thinking. Past students have used these as mini-whiteboards, with various blank proformas at the ready.

Class Dojo might also be a way of keeping parents informed. I will need to investigate how much this can be customised, and if this could be used to give feedback.

Bento has been useful in the past, a data base program, although I haven’t been able to sync data between all devices.

Involving students in setting specific goals, keeping these in mind (and easily accessible) and self monitoring will be a priority. Using graphing systems and regularly checking in with students throughout the day will be managed with the help of proformas available in student Assessment portfolios.

20140118-002431.jpg

Celebrating student successes?
Encouraging students to share their learning achievements with parents will be done throughout the year by:
* highlights regularly celebrated and featured on our class blog,
* setting up opportunities to share/ show Assessment Portfolio or online work with parents (regular homework will foster this regular review and feedback from parents)
* Class Dojo will also be explored as an option to share successes
* Evernote – this didn’t work last year when I tried to use it at school, but hopefully the computing issues have been fixed, so I will try again. This will allow both teachers to add notes, photos, videos to a folder for each student which could then easily be shared with parents.
* students’ successes will also be regularly shared as acknowledgements and achievements
* last year by having student goals posted in the classroom, I could help students to monitor and assess their achievement. I would like to continue this, but also get students to keep a copy which is easy to refer to (Assessment Portfolio).

What will I do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures?
4. Establishing classroom routines
5. Organising the physical layout of the classroom for learning

Some of the main routines I will want to establish quickly are:
* getting students to effectively work with each other – build from pairs, triads, to bigger groupings gradually
* sharing responsibilities – setting up a regular system to rotate roles and responsibilities (fortnightly)
* ways to walk around the school as a class in an orderly way
* setting up in the morning – reference point (list of jobs)
* packing up at the end of the day – reference point (list of jobs)
* Monday morning procedure – Team Meeting
* English – Word Work, Literacy Block, Guided Reading,
* Maths – Mental Routine, Problematised Situation/ Strategy Lesson, Reflection
* Science – working in triads with a set role
* Daily Fitness- students responsible for setting up, explaining game/ activity with support of the teacher, and packing up
* Workbook expectations
* What to do if you finish early. What to do if you don’t know what to do. What to do if the task is too easy or too hard.
* Visible Thinking strategies – mini-whiteboards, fingers (ABCD), thumbs up, down, middle to show level of understanding, five finger rating system – relate to on-task time, or personalised goal (recorded regularly on a self monitoring chart), physically moving to different points in the classroom to show opinion/ thoughts, Think-Pair-Share, Think Board,
* regular reflection on thinking/ learning / achievements – through talking, blogging, journal, reading log, sticky notes
* meta language developed/ used to communicate clearly
* goal setting – modelled- SMARTAR ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic , time oriented, agreed, reviewed)
* use hexagons to relate to SOLO taxonomy

Physical layout of the room?
I need to make space for:
– whole class instruction with access to the whiteboard, and electronic whiteboard
– small group instruction,
– small group work in different parts of the class
– paired/ independent practice (tables organised in pairs or groups of 4, with clear expectations on noise level and table talk – focused/ on-task only) – signs to remind students of working noise level? – silent, whispers, table talk, whole class, small group – one at a time
– access to class resources (textas, paper, calculators, scrap paper, maths equipment)
– access to and routine for borrowing from class and school library
– drink bottles and fruit snack
– book boxes for Daily 5 – Read to someone, Listen to someone, Read to self, Word Work, Writing
– computer trolleys
– display space for student work
– display space to use as a reference point for learning – Word Wall, Wonder Wall, CAFE ( Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expand Vocabulary)
– visible thinking – poster sectioned off and numbered to represent each student to hold sticky notes, exit passes, etc.
– reference materials A3 laminated sheets, personal word wall (Sheena Cameron idea), POOCH, personal thermometer (individuals or everyone?) SOLO reference points

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Effective Supervision by R Marzano

5 conditions that must be met to systematically develop teacher expertise: 1) a well-articulated knowledge base for teaching, 2) focused feedback and practice, 3) opportunities to observe and discuss expertise, 4) clear criteria and a plan for success, and 5) recognition of expertise. These will in turn translate into enhanced student achievement.

A Well Articulated Knowledge Base for Teaching
Domain 1: classroom strategies and behaviours
Domain 2: planning and preparing
Domain 3: reflecting on teaching
Domain 4: collegiality and professionalism

20140109-190454.jpg

Focused Feedback and Practice
For feedback to be instrumental in developing teacher expertise, it must focus on specific classroom strategies and behaviours during a set interval of time.

Opportunities to Observe and Discuss Expertise
Opportunities to observe and discuss effective teaching are an important part of developing expertise among classroom teachers. If teachers do not have opportunities to observe and interact with other teachers, their method of generating new knowledge about teaching is limited to personal trial and error.

Clear Criteria and a Plan for Success
The ultimate criterion for successful teaching must be student learning.

Recognition of Expertise

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Making Thinking Visible

When we place the learner at the heart of everything we do, our focus as teachers shifts in a most fundamental way.
* from the delivery of information to fostering students’ engagement with ideas
Instead of covering the curriculum and judging our success by how much content we get through, we must learn to identify the key ideas and concepts with which we want our students to engage, struggle, question, explore, and ultimately build understanding. Our goal must be to make the big ideas of the curriculum accessible and engaging while honoring their complexity, beauty, and power in the process. When there is something important and worthwhile to think about and a reason to think deeply, our students experience the kind of learning that has a lasting impact and powerful influence not only in the short term but also in the long haul. They not only learn; they learn how to learn.

We have two chief goals:
* creating opportunities for thinking
* making students’ thinking visible

David Perkins “learning is a consequence of thinking. Retention, understanding, and the active use of knowledge can be brought about only by learning experiences in which learners think about and think with what they are learning…Far from thinking coming after knowledge, knowledge comes on the coat tails of thinking. As we think about and with the content that we are learning, we truly learn it.”
When we reduce the amount of thinking eg ask of our students, we reduce the amount of learning as well. We need to remember that thinking may still be invisible to us. To make sure thinking isn’t left to chance and to provide us with the information we needin order to respond to students’ learning needs, we must also make their thinking invisible.

Enabling students to show thinking gives the teacher insight into understanding and misconceptions.

Good “essential questions”:
What’s the story?
What’s the other story?
How do you know the story?
Why know/ tell the story?
Where’s the power in the story?

Students’ questions all the more important: “I judge my students not by the answers they give, but by the questions they ask” Paul Cripps Wyoming

“What makes you say that?” – a non-threatening way of eliciting thinking process.

We make students’ thinking visible through our questioning, listening and documenting so that we can build on and extend that thinking on the way to deeper and richer understanding.

The section ‘As patterns of behaviour’ gets to the crux of an idea that has been milling around in my head recently. The notion that it is the routine, daily things that teachers set up in their classroom that create habits and effect learning powerfully. That is why I have been developing a Daily Planning tool, which tries to highlight and synthesise the key aspects that we are focusing on as a school, and place them front and centre in all of our teachers’ minds. I realise though that the aspects I have highlighted so far are the ‘what’ of the curriculum, and the routines set out in this book address the ‘how’. I will need to come back to explore this section in more detail.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Differentiation and Explicit Teaching

http://www.teachingacenglish.edu.au/

This one looks great for providing clear explanation of explicit teaching and differentiation in the areas of Spelling, Reading, and Punctuation and Grammar. We have identified the need at our school for more focus on explicit teaching in terms of sentence structure, and differentiation is continually an important factor in meeting the wide ranging needs of individuals and cohorts within any class.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

1 2 3 4 5 6