learning and teaching

Broken Bay- Leading Learning

July-August 2012 Mary Wootton

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What strengths do our students have and what knowledge and skills do our students need? What strengths do we as

teachers & leaders have and what knowledge and skills do we as teachers & leaders need?

What has been the impact of the professional learning? Our changed actions/practices? Deepen professional

knowledge & refine skills. Build content knowledge & pedagogical knowledge

Engage students in new learning experiences

(Wootton, 2010)

Activity

Read scenario from beginning to end

Re read- each section- positives/negatives- rate the practice

Buddy who you don’t normally work with

share your reasons, discuss, modify, learn

School groups what does this mean for us in our school

Whole group- our professional learning what will we

KEEP, STOP, START

Keep

- Analyse data with the teachers- Combine external and internal expertise- Practice on an identified student need- Sustained focus on the goal- Ongoing checking and monitoring – reflect on what is /

isn’t working

Stop

- Waiting for the NAPLAN as the only analysis- Overusing the NAPLAN data- Hoping and assuming that the PL is used in the classroom- Changing the focus and direction- Relying on a PL meeting for all teachers- Relying on an external person to do the work

Start

- SIP is going to be referred to by all staff- Using internal expertise- Using ongoing monitoring and checking- Using a range of data for planning and teaching- Differentiating PL- Using student voice to see what has/hasn’t worked for

them- Start engaging teachers’ existing theories- Asking key questions of the data and using a range of

measures to analyse the data

Strategic actions - it’s all in the planning

Develop a rich picture of the issue• Strengths and needs of the students within the target group• Strengths and needs of the classroom teacher/s• Strengths and needs of the middle leaders • Strengths and needs of leadership

Develop a rich picture of the possible solutions• Research (formal and informal)• Develop a process for critiquing ideas

Make a collective decisionActions• Should reflect a coherent improvement theory and strong pedagogical

knowledge.• Identify factors which may contribute to improving student achievement.

Monitoring the impact your SIP

Set up the evaluation at the same time as you set up your plan

What questions do you need to ask?• Looking for evidence that things are getting better

What is measured or assessed? - Identifying a range of indicators- Identifying what to expect within these indicators in the short, medium

and long term

How will information be gathered?- Using processes/practices/systems already in place or that need to be

out in place to monitor

Transcript case study

Leaders had looked at their NAPLAN and PAT r data

Wanted to include the staff in the whole process

Concerned about reaction of teacher practice being observed. Story is not what about what they found out but the process of using the data to inform their

• Student achievement data, • Student survey and voice • Teacher practice data and voice

to inform their professional learning

• Testing their hypothesis- where to start?

• Concerns about engagement of teachers

• Teacher reaction to collecting teacher practice data- classroom observations

• What do our students think?

School Case Study

When/why/how did we collect classroom data?

• We needed more reading data (baseline) - especially

classroom data to help test hypotheses

• Outlined we (the leadership team) would collect a

straight transcript/record of what was said/done with

no name or class on transcript

• Other staff began taking transcripts

What did we do once we had the classroom data?

• Ensured we had de-identified samples• Photocopied samples into mixed groups so

each group had about 6 samples• Group processing - patterns,

inconsistencies and questions/ observations which arise from transcripts; perceived lesson purpose

Student Focus Groups

What did you learn in guided reading this week?

What sorts of things does the teacher do to help you with your reading?

What are some of the things the teacher does that doesn’t help you with your reading?

Teacher Programs and Survey

How often reading taken?

What types of texts are used?

Guided? Shared? Independent?

Groups? Whole class? Individual?

Purpose of the lesson

Outcomes

Ownership of the challenge

Enthusiasm about the challenge

Evidence from transcripts-teacher practice linked to student achievement concern

Ownership of where to next.

Broken Bay

February 2012 Mary Wootton

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What are the strengths & learning needs of our students?

Writing in books (target students)

• How regularly was writing happening?

• Was there feedback/feedforward in the students’ writing books?

Planning

• Learning intentions, success criteria, grouping for need

Student voice

• Show me some feedback in your books

• Tell me what it means

• Have you used the feedback? Show/tell me how

School inquiry and professional learning:

What is effective feedback?

Alignment of goals - Student goals

I am learning to use my feedback to improve my writing

Or I am learning to self assess using the success criteria?

Teacher Goals-effective feedback/feed forward

I am learning about effective feedback. I am learning about the progressions of writing so I can give effective feed forward.

Leader:

I am learning about practice analysis conversations so I can have effective feedback conversations with teachers.

Engagement in Professional Learning

Students:

What is feedback? Why do I get it? What do I do with it? When?

Teachers:

Effective feedback (Linked to differentiated LI and SC)

Feed forward - Knowledge of the progressions of writing

Leaders:

Effective feedback-linked to practice analysis with teachers

Building pedagogical content knowledge- feed forward

Changes in Practice

Student Using my feedback

Teacher Regular writing-clear audience and purpose

Regular written and oral feedback/feed forward

Using language students know

Allowing time for students to respond

Differentiated learning intentions

Leader Feedback conversations with teachers

Have attended all PLD so they could build their pedagogical content knowledge so they could feedback and feed forward effectively.

• High poverty school

• Year 4 class- 8 to 9 year old students

• Even mix of ethnicity

• 4 years experience as a teacher

• Part of the feedback professional learning

Attributes of this Effective Teacher

• Instructional writing occurs everyday

• Learning intention linked to student need-focused inquiry

• Daily modeling linked to the learning intention

• Students learn in flexible groups based on identified learning

needs-focused inquiry• Oral feedback is given daily• Written effective feedback at least twice a week

Next learning steps for this teacherHow will you know you have done well?The teacher will tell meThe teacher will write in my book that I got it rightTeacher wants to support her students become more self regulated by :

Co – constructing the success criteria with the students

Developing students’ self assessment skills so they can identify:

• what they have done well• their own next learning steps

LEAP

Questions to stimulate reflection and sustainability of effective practice

What impact have we had on student achievement? What is our explanation of this?

Have we met our targets? What is our explanation of this?

For which students have we had the most impact? What is our evidence for this?

For which students have we had the least impact? What is our explanation of this?

What might we do differently to improve outcomes for all students?

What is in place and is valued? What do we need to improve? What is essential to sustain? What can we plan to ensure this occurs?

An example of targets

All students not moving 1 sublevel in 2010 will move at least 1 sublevel from November 2010 through to November 2011 based on Nationally Normed Assessment tools.

All students (Year 0-10) working below expectations for years 1-8 will move at least 2 sublevels.

All students not moving 1 sublevel in 2010 will move at least 2 sublevels ~ All Students

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Sub Level Movement End 10 - End 112011 Year Level

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All students (Year 0-8 End 2010) working 1 sublevel below cluster expectations will move at least 2 sublevels ~ All Students

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Sub Level Movement End 10 - End 112011 Year Level

All students (Year 0-8 End 2010) working 1 sublevel below cluster expectations will move at least 2 sublevelsAll Students

Teacher Goals

to learn what quality writing looks looks at all levels

to teach writing everyday from Day 1

to monitor the progress of my focus students

Why?

so I know what to expect at each curriculum level and the progressions

so I can give effective feed forward to my students

Student Goals

Expectations that I will write at the same level I was writing in November last year

I will be able to identify what I am doing well and what I need to learn next.

I will be able to articulate where I am in my writing and where I need to be and what I have to learn to get there.

School wide practices Introduced

• A December writing sample that was typical of the student’s writing will be glued into the next year’s writing book

• Practice analysis will include talking to the students about the sample in their writing books

• Why is it there? How do they use it?• Students who had ‘dropped’ were named in each

class. Team meetings to include discussions around student progress towards the goal of moving 2 sub levels

• Writing will occur daily and start Day 1.

Leader Goals

• To closely monitor the teaching of writing in all classes and agreed to practices

• To lead professional learning to include:• What is quality writing• Effective teaching of writing• Progressions of writing.

School A

(Nov-Feb)

(Nov-Feb)

1Year 1

Year 2

Teacher voice

Teacher 1 “ it was our focus for everything. Staff meeting, syndicate meetings, targets, my appraisal goals, professional development were all about minimising the summer effect. The kids even knew about it and didn’t want to drop” (Teacher, personal communication, February, 2011).

 Teacher 2 “the way I think changed, I expected the kids to drop after a six week break. What we did on teacher only day made me realize I couldn’t think that way any more, and I didn’t and guess what- nowhere near as many of my kids dropped” (Teacher, personal communication, February, 2011).

 Teacher 3 “having the kid’s writing in the front of the books and reminding them, and me to look at how they were writing and expecting to write like that at the start of the year or better” (Teacher, personal communication, February, 2011).