Appraisal Feedback

Tuesday 22nd November 2016

1.  What is your biggest success?

• Movement and progress in reading.  Byron's attitude in guided reading was like a road block for him and what has been successful is that he is more willing to share and makes a contribution now.  Buffy made the group smaller so there was less competition.  This helped to remove the barriers.  
• Kane was a reluctant reader but has had a change in attitude.  He doesn't believe he is a good reader but when he get success or positive praise from the teacher he started to believe in himself.  
• Attitudes change

2.  Where are you at with your goals?

• Buffy doesn't believe she has achieved her goals because she feels they were slightly ambitious and the goals didn't fit the learners.  The children's own capabilities were different to previous years as the learners had initiative, were self motivated, and this year they have needed a higher level of scaffolding, breaking it down to the smallest step to the point where you are almost doing it for them.  Buffy would like to be more conscious of the students she is going to work with and that the goals are achievable.  She believes that her goals couldn't be achieved with these learners, she was trying to change the world, too many goals, goals too big.  Buffy used the learning progressions to guide the learners.
• The children couldn't do the on their own as they didn't have the skills to implement on their own.

3.  Target students - what difference have you made? Evidence?

• Byron and April - in writing.  Helped them do their speeches and helped them generate a topic as they couldn't identify a topic.  Buffy did guided reading where they looked at native birds as it came up in a conversation that they were interested in doing this for their speech.  Buffy provided the resources to help them, modelled and scaffolded, used planning sheets and linked it to a guided reading lesson.  At first they copied and pasted information from the internet and they had no awareness of what to tell the audience.  Buffy helped them to generate questions and link it to information with guidance.  After awhile they could tell the teacher what they had found and the purpose.

4.  Changes for 2017?

• Would like 1 goal and have a sole focus on it.  Buffy wants to develop her  proficiency in using planning sheets and then another goal may arise. e.g like I don't explain myself well.  Buffy found 3 goals were overwhelming and would like to get success from 1 goal and feel that she has achieved that goal.
• Buffy would like to do more subject focus learning like small units in science.  The children don't have a good understanding of the scientific process and the teacher had to know the skills of up to 20 different science fair concepts, so Buffy would like to teach small units e.g doing a unit on the digestive system to give the kids knowledge and to help prepare them for high school
• Similar with social studies
• Use a different writing model, explicit teaching more to guided than independence, lots of teaching at the start and then less guidance through the lessons
• Use reading to use language and structural features to support their writing, finding examples in texts

5. SLT support for 2017?

• To be able to do 1 goal
• Use the teacher inquiry on TKI, focussing inquiry, move to next phase an organisational tool

6. How do you motivate the learners?

• I haven't provided enough learning opportunities or tasks on a wide range of things that make up national standards.  Not enough evidence to make the OTJ.  If they don't do the book work and have to rely on testing it doesn't sit right with the teacher to say they are at the standard. The teacher checks books, some kids change the dates or they just don't do the work.  
• What are you going to do with them?  
• Teacher sits with the child and work with them, step by step, Erin suggests that child come and show Mr Sheterline their work.  If its not done they will sit and do it.  Some kids are happy to sit their and be helpless.  Parents have been contacted and meetings have happened.  Also send kids who have done their work to get praise.

7. Do the children know their next steps?

• Children have a better idea in maths rather in writing.  They do have literacy progressions.  They have a level 3 and 4 writing example and they use a checklist and analyse the piece of writing and then the children say what level they think they are at.  They can identify the difference between the levels but don't apply it.
• In maths have the steps you need to do, WALT, success criteria are being used.

Planning Templates

What: The Sheena Cameron Writing Book planning templates & mentor texts.  

Language Conventions & Text Structures: Do it in reading

What:
During a staff meeting, our RTLIT leader mentioned the strategy of teaching & learning about language and text features through reading.  Wonderful strategy and something I was aware of and doing already.  A resource we have in our school is the Short Stories Handy Resource.

So what:
These are great because included with each of the student texts are teacher notes that explain the different language and structural features.  I found these useful because I could identify the language features and discuss these with the group.  I was impressed with level of oral discussion once we started to look deeper into some of the language features.  I discovered that it was useful to discuss individual words and model how to visualise using the different features such as metaphor.
The resource also has a Bloom Taxonomy of student follow up activities.

Now what:  Continue to use these these texts and the teaching pages.

OTJ's - Support to make OTJ's wisely

What: TKI OTJ interactive modules to support educators to make OTJ's and to work with the National Standards in Reading, Writing & Mathematics.

So what: I have started to work through these and found them to be very useful at practising the art of making a valid OTJ using a range of student evidence.  I have found them useful because the standards are illustrated in a variety of ways through small tasks.  It was also useful to discover how to go about making an OTJ and looking for key aspects of the standard.

Now What: to work through the modules and to continue to practise with my own class.  I want to make sure that I provide a variety of tasks across the curriculum so I have a range of student evidence to use.  If they don't demonstrate an aspect in one task, I have other examples I can use.

Moderation - what it is and how is it being done

What: After a staff meeting topic discussion based on Moderation, I completed my own inquiry to find out more about what resources are available to assist educators with moderation.  I found my way to TKI and a range of resources that the MOE used that are aligned with the PACT tool.  These are the series of Frameworks used  with the PACT tool to make OTJ's.

So what:  I read lots and viewed a range of illustrations used to make OTJ.  The one aspect I took away from this was that as an educator I need to ensure that I provide tasks and teaching and learning that enables students to prove that can do an aspect of the different reading, writing and maths standards at that point in time.  The illustrations, found on TKI and within the PACT tool as as additional resources in the OTJ workshop resources provide a variety of different ways teachers can do this.  I also found that these are small tasks that can provide a wealth of evidence or multiple aspects of a standard.

Now what: to look into these more and to use them to guide my planning.  I would like to learn more about the Frameworks and PACT tool.

An illustration using the Frameworks

Cause and Effect: what is it

What: a mini lesson on 'Cause and effect' for writing.

So what: I discovered that it was important to use explicit teaching or showing/guided writing/independent writing model to support students to take on new learning.   In preparation explanation writing,   I ran a short cause and effect lesson.  First I told my group what cause and effect was after generating some PK.  I used a variety of simple models so it was clear to my group what I was trying to do.  Then, I used Think-Pair-Share, and students thought a one in pairs.  I gave them sub-coordinating conjunctions to use and a 'cause'.  It was interesting to see that the struggle students had at this first attempt.
After that we shared back and gave each other feedback.  Then I repeated the activity but students had ago on their own.  i noticed their confidence grow as we do this a few more times.  Finally, some students provided their own simple cause and effect sentences.  I found it worthwhile to use simple terms and to use their own topics for the modelling activity as well.

Now what: To try and this structure more often and use simple terms and vocab so students can focus on the skill and not the content.

Practical experiences: Science

What:  In preparation for science fair, we split our class into two groups and completed two different practical experiments to model the scientific process.

So what: Once again, I was impressed by the level of engagement when students were given a practical experience to complete.  I observed student inquiry as they modified the experiment.  For example, student completed a combustion activity to discover what elements are needed for combustion to occur.  Many were aware that oxygen is needed and quickly looked at comparing the rates of how long different candles took to go out.  It was also a good opportunity to make observations of what students saw.  It was interesting to observe that most were simplistic in their descriptions, for example, "its a flame".  However with prompting, were able to look closer at their flames and see the different colours within a flame and the different size and shape of their flames.  The oral discussion was great - students were making predictions, generating their own questions and verbally describing what they saw and thought and applying some reasoning based on evidence, with some support.

Now what: Supporting students to complete the written follow up for the activity.

Tracking student work using TDashboard

Revision History

What: Students readily tell us 'I have done lots of work - see' as they hold  up a book or in some cases a screen with a google doc.  One feature, the most impressive I think, is the ability to look at the revision history of a doc in real time. One studentspersisted that he was working on his doc for the whole session and he did lots.

So what: I used TDashboard to see the revision history of his doc.  Then, together we looked at the revision history.  He could actually see how little he did in the allocated time.  This function gives teachers evidence to 'show' learners their own productivity and to support students to make a goal to improve their work habits.  Which we did.  he was aware that I would check in and 'see; exactly what he was doing.

The marvels of Teacher Dashboard

What: A PD session with Rosemary from Hapara.

So what: I discovered the new features of Dashboard and the integration of workshop - a similar platform for Google classroom.  What was really great was seeing how easy it was to make groups within dashboard to share docs to individual folders.

Now what: to set up groups and to use the groups and smart share function.  I currently share docs to the how class but these group function is great.

The group function in Teacher dashbaord

One to one writing: explicit teaching

What: explanation writing for science fair.  I generated questions for this learner to research and provided him with a small number of videos to watch as I have observed that he is highly interested in watching videos.

So what:  he gained more from watching videos about his topic.  I also found him short articles to read about his topic of fish gills however I observed him rewatching the clips to help him answer his questions.  It was useful for me to give him questions to inquiry as he was challenged to break down the process of how a fish gill works.

Now what: continue to use prompting and explicit teaching of how to find information for how each part works.  I found a explanation rubric that was useful to guide me in what I needed to ensure the learner had in his piece of writing.

Student working doc

Reading with post its

What: Using post it notes in a guided reading session so students can record individual 'student voice' on the spot.

So what:  I realised that during guided reading, some of the akonga struggled to verbalise and keep track of their thinking in response to teacher questions as we read.  In response to this, I gave each akonga a bunch of post it notes to write a short response on.  I discovered that akonga only needed to write enough for one post it - so they saw the question as achievable and could track their own thinking during sharing back.

Now what: Make it a regular practise.  It is also a good way to record student voice for assessment purposes.

Student responses

Digital Modelling books - what are these???

What: Digital modelling books.  I use modelling books with some efficiency - I was actually looking to improve how to use these.  Upon research digital modelling books - I struggled to find much information about these - I discovered this post from a fellow NZ educator.  The post outlined an effective way to use 'real' modelling books.

So what: I looked at how I used modelling books and had a go at setting up my modelling books for my reading group.  I found it was an effective way to record student voice and to generate and gather evidence of learning.

Now what: try to use them consistently.

Class craft - class management

What:  A class room reward system.  Students are given points for meeting expectations.  It was used as a motivation tool to manage and promote positive behaviour.

So what:  Students are more focused on individual points verses group points.  Some students are willing to modify their behaviour for the good of their group however some are solely focused on their own points.  Some students do not have qualms with the whole group getting a consequence.

Using the consequence function was good for some - picking up rubbish or learning a poem.  A positive consequence for their behaviour.


Now what: increase the amount of individual points.  make sure we follow through with consequences.  Great motivator for some students.

EOTC: School policies and why they ROCK!!!

What: An EOTC trip for a mass of kids to complete a Fun Mud Run.  An opportunity arose that enabled our akonga to travel about 45 mins south to Raetahi.  Our akonga participated with akonga from our district in the mud run.  On the way to the event, a parent helper driven car had a very minor collision with another car.  Our akonga were very shaken up but with no injuries.

So what: Multi tonal here.  The kids were impressed with the activity however some turned their noses up at the lack of mud.  I observed that students I had previously pinned as 'will win and go hard out' faltered and didn't even try and made a joke of the whole activity nevertheless won the prestige and fan fare of their peers.  BUT, many akonga displayed positive attitudes and did try.  One young man, who was not as fit as others, kept going and finished the whole course.  I discovered that all akonga need opportunities to experience struggle so they can push themselves to succeed.  School policies: I discovered that it is important to have these and to have a clear understanding of the processes that must be followed in the case of a 'near miss' or a 'accident'.  The key point I took from being responsible for an EOTC event, is to know these processes inside out.

Now what:  Next time I am responsible for an EOTC event, make sure I am clear of the processes.  Try and make sure that a variety of experiences - academic and physical are available for all students to experience struggles they can overcome and at times fail so they can have another go.

John Parson: what did our kids say...

What:  Following our staff PD, our class had a 'student' session on cyber safety with John Parson.  After the session, our year 7 & 8 students were given a google form to find out what their 'takeouts' from the session.

So what: we discovered that it was a worthwhile session for our akonga and some of our students were unaware of what they were sharing and who they were connecting with.  I discovered that I need to model and prompt them to think about what they are posting.  It was intersting to hear that a number of our students had social media accounts even though they were underage and some whanau are unaware of their childrens' activity.  Some excepts 'I used to add strangers (to social media accounts) but John told us about about cyber safety and I realised to never add strangers..'  'I think I will be careful ..what picture I upload of myself & ask friends if they mind me uploading their pictures.."

Now what:  To make sure students are aware of their own safety and respect for themselves when participating online for school and home activities.

Screen grabs of parts of our google form ..

John Parson: Digital Citizenship

A sketchnote of the PD session with John Parson.  John completed a session with our staff and then he completed a session with our Year 7 & 8's.

Writing: Sentences are?

What: A follow on lesson about what a sentence is.  I was challenged with two authors that needed to use a variety of sentence structures and types in their writing.  How could they use a variety of sentences if they did not know what these were and how to create them?
Below is the observation document.

Term 1 appraisal observation