My Journey with ISTAA Experienced Teacher Accreditation #6

Unfortunately this journey didn't have a happy ending. It fact, it feels like my biggest fail yet. While I was putting everything together, it felt like I was on track, however I failed to meet most of the descriptors according to the criteria the AIS had, and once I failed I had no means for resubmitting. My disappointment over this has been a real struggle for me. Usually if I've failed at something there has been something I could do about it to recover it. I tried everything I could think of here, but it has come to the point where I just need to let it go, learn the lessons and move forward.

I'm taking a year off accreditation and then will reapply at the end of 2018, but this time will choose the Standards Based Approach. I hope to try action research again, but not in an assessment capacity, and only if I have someone to walk with me through the process. I think I bit off more than I could chew.

I still believe, however, that there were many positives that came from my attempts at action research around Growth Mindset, formative assessment and feedback this year. Personally it has helped me to deal with the setbacks better (including this one!) and has greatly improved the relationships I have with the students I teach. In my opinion - though difficult to prove - students academic results have improved as a result of the actions I put in place - be that related to growth mindset, formative assessment or feedback.

My Journey with ISTAA Experienced Teacher Accreditation #5

Wow! The past year has been crazy busy as I have worked through the Experienced Teacher Accreditation as well as working on my Masters of Educational Leadership. I've thought about blogging a few times, but just haven't had the time or head space at the end of the day. Now, having reached the end of my accreditation, I thought it a good time to tie up the loose ends here.

Overall
My overall evaluation of the Experienced Teacher Accreditation - Action Research Pathway, was that it was a very worthwhile use of time and excellent professional learning. I went into it hoping to make good use of the year and hopefully learn along the way. I knew I needed to do the accreditation, but I didn't want to spend the year just trying to tick things off a list of descriptors. The action research pathway was the answer to this.

The Challenges
There are many elements to juggle within the Action Research Project, and it takes some time to get your head around it all. You still need to be ticking off descriptors and collecting evidence throughout the year AND it should be related to the action research project. I found myself second guessing myself a lot throughout the process and not really sure if I was on track. There were no success criteria or word counts or any other guide for what was required for parts like the Description, Analysis and Evaluation. I'm hoping I got there in the end, but won't be surprised if I need to revisit some things in order to get final approval.

Going in I didn't really know much about action research, and I still feel a little in the dark about that. I ended up finding some readings through my university which helped to clarify a few things, particularly as I came to the analysis stage. I struggled to understand whether I needed "hard" proof of my findings, or whether it was about interpretation. I feel I ended up with a little of each just to be on the safe side.

My Project
For my project I investigated the impact of Growth Mindset on Year 1 students' academic achievement through formative assessment and feedback. I felt that Growth Mindset coaching would make students more receptive to feedback, resulting in improved outcomes. I used Class Dojo videos as the stimulus for discussion in mini lessons and then followed through with Growth Mindset feedback and statements. I also used parts from "The Growth Mindset Coach" by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley. Following on from this I worked with students on giving and receiving feedback.

Results of my Action Research
I used a Mindset questionnaire at the beginning and end of the project to determine how students' thinking changed throughout. It also showed me students with a tendency toward a fixed mindset, making it easier for me to target them with individualised coaching when they were struggling with a difficult task or unwilling to attempt something challenging. The results from this questionnaire showed that students had shifted toward a growth mindset during the project.

I also looked at students' academic progress during this period and found that their reading levels improved by a greater rate than my class during the same period last year. At the end of the year I will have some comparison data for spelling as well.

Beyond the quantitative results, there were also the experiences of the students in the class. I selected some case studies and found that there were significant results amongst students who began in the lower quarter of the class. For example, one made significant progress throughout the project and was bumped up to a higher level for spelling, reading and maths, and he rose to the challenge each time. Another made HUGE gains with his reading, going from a PM level 10 to 27 in just six months. These results suggested to me that while all students benefited and improved, those who were lower performing and also had elements of fixed mindset had the most to benefit from the program.

I had thought that it would be through feedback that improvement would be made, but now I think that the change in mindset actually impacted in many ways:

• students were interested in feedback and could see that it was to help them learn
• students wanted challenging tasks and were happy to put in the effort to learn
• students realised that they could actually do things if they just stuck at it
• students felt free to engage and contribute ideas, knowing that they wouldn't be shunned if they made a mistake
• as their teacher I didn't give up when they persisted with bad habits, but rather kept working at it with them, knowing that they can change - even if it takes longer.
• I got better at giving immediate feedback when I could see there was a problem, or making a note to return to it soon.
• I enlisted the help of parents to work on some things when the class had moved on to something else
• I made an effort to cater for all students - providing a challenging task for all - even when this made things less streamlined and comfortable.

Going Forward

Having been down this path, I'm afraid I can't go back. I'm hooked! From here on in, I know the Growth Mindset will be a part of who I am and how I teach. I will also continue to work on improved formative assessment and feedback to complement the Growth Mindset coaching and ensure that all students are pushing toward their potential.

My Journey with ISTAA Experienced Teacher Accreditation #3

Preparing the Project Proposal and Literature Review

I thought I had been going along so well, but these tasks hit me hard. I had been watching/listening to Dylan Wiliam's webinars, reading bits and pieces I had sourced and trying so many new things in the classroom. All these things were good, but I needed to do so much more to actually pull everything together. It was due today, and (spoiler alert) I managed to upload it to my collection in time.

I think part of the struggle lies in the fact that the due date falls right near the end of term, while reports are still being proof read and prepared to send home. I thought my time-management was on track, but it has been very tight to get reports completed and then flow straight into the ETA requirements.

I started with the Project Proposal because I knew it had to be finished about a week in advance in order to get it to my Head of School for signing. My first attempt at this was a bit of a brainstorm event, where I just jotted down my thoughts about what would go in each section. When I returned to it, I padded out the initial ideas. I was very pleased to see that I could have a main question with sub-questions, as I had been really struggling with how I could cover all the things I wanted to explore with just one question. This is what I came up with as the main idea for my project.

Growing our Minds through Formative Assessment and Feedback

What is an effective process to enrich student learning through formative assessment and feedback? What actions can a teacher take to help students develop a growth mindset? How can formative assessment be used more effectively to inform teaching and provide students with relevant feedback? How can peer and teacher feedback (aligned with a growth mindset) be used to progress student learning?

Something I really struggled with when completing the proposal was the section on the collection of data. I feel that there are two purposes at play with the Action Research Pathway. One is to provide evidence of the achievement of Experienced Teacher Standards and Descriptors. The other is to collect data for analysis in relation to the questions of the Action Research project. And, while action research provides an opportunity for a teacher to demonstrate the descriptors, the data collected for the purposes of the project will be quite different to the evidence collected to demonstrate competency. I felt that these two forms of data needed to be separated for the purposes of the proposal, so ended up creating a table with data for the descriptors split under the headings: "Evidence of Standard" and "Data for Analysis". I'm hoping that this will help me to keep track of what I'm collecting and the real purpose for the collection.

Something else that I struggled with, just a little, was considering the difference between "expected benefits" and "expected changes". I'm hoping that my responses were different enough to meet expectations.

Given the nature of my project, I sent my proposal to the Staff Development Coordinator at my school for some feedback. She saw things that I didn't see, and struggled to understand what I meant in some of the sections. She made time to sit down with me to discuss things and I was able to make some changes. I feel that I could have continued to make more changes, but given the time restraints, I needed to get the document into internal mail so that my Head of School could sign it, and turn my attention to the Literature Review.

In the lead up to writing the Literature Review I found myself really loving all the reading, but terrified about putting the first words on a Google Doc. The blank page taunted me so much that I avoided it for quite some time, opting instead to mind-mapping and note-taking. In hindsight, I believe these were important for helping me to gather my thoughts, I just wish I'd started the whole process even earlier! For me, I was concerned about understanding the topic fully and making the connections.

Eventually I sat down and forced myself to begin writing, but even in that moment I was hesitant. I wanted a "sizzling start" that I push so hard for from my students. How do you write a sizzling start for a literature review? And then I re-read Inside the Black Box, by Black and Wiliam, and realised that people don't want to read something dry and academic. We all want to be drawn into what we read. I had a false start that went for three paragraphs, and then, finally I got my idea:

Oliver goes back to his desk and opens his English book. He knows the teacher will be doing the rounds in a minute, but he wants to take a moment to flick through to the next blank page. As he does, he smiles to himself, reading a sentence here and there as he sees the work he has done throughout the year. Wow! I remember writing this, he thinks to himself. I’ve come so far this year. He glances at the feedback at the bottom of the page…

And that's where I left Oliver's story. Full of questions about that feedback.

It probably took about 15 hours of writing and reviewing to finally get the review finished. I got sick toward the end with a cold, and was pleased when I finally got to the end. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to have my peers read over it and offer their feedback. We are all so busy trying to get our reports finalised and everything prepared for the end of school, so I just didn't feel right asking anyone else to read my writing. I also didn't have time to make adaptations based on any feedback they might have given me. I struggled with this since I have been seeing the power of feedback in my classroom, and learnt a lot from the feedback I received on my Project Proposal.

For both of these documents I had a guide for what to do, but no real guidance in terms of what is counted as a pass or fail. I feel I used a little poetic license on the literature review, but am not too sure whether it was too much. It's either my first literature review, or my first in quite some time, and I'm not entirely sure what was needed!

This experience helps me to understand some things about my own learning that can be generalised to my students and how they learn:

1. Students need to have a clear idea of what is expected and to what level
2. Feedback is definitely helpful, but not always practical when tight for time
3. While deadlines are important motivators for completing a task, some students may not produce their greatest work within this timeframe. Some may be interested in polishing their work further after the due date.
4. What ends up on the page is not necessarily all the writer knows about the topic. A lot of information is filtered along the way.

I'm really excited about what I've been learning through my reading and experiences in the classroom, but will save those for another blog. For today I really just wanted to share my journey with the Experienced Teacher Accreditation in terms of completing the necessary documentation by the deadline.

I am a lone ranger in my school as far as the Action Research Pathway goes... Is anyone else doing it??? Please leave a comment if you are.