My Journey with ISTAA Experienced Teacher Accreditation #2

Researching and Testing Ideas

Since I last wrote about my journey I have been working at refining my ideas. I'm not one to focus completely on book research first and then shift to classroom research second. I tend to mix the two together and get everyone involved in the journey!

Connecting with other Educators
I've been chatting to people about what I am puzzling over. Having people to listen to my thoughts has helped me to work through what I am reading about and what I am seeing in the classroom. My colleagues are being very encouraging (even though I'm sure they're getting tired of listening to my ramblings). I've made new connections at work in my quest to find other people with an interest, knowledge and experience in the realms of assessment and feedback. I've also found some who may be able to help me work through developing the action research side of things. My colleagues have given me ideas and suggestions for other things I could try.

Using Twitter
Over the years I have developed my Twitter profile to include an extensive list of educators around the world. This is my professional learning network. If I'm to be really honest, I haven't been consistently great with this over the years. While I'd love to do it more, in reality, it does end up being both addictive and time consuming. I also find that I hit information overload quite quickly once I get started. Everyone is sharing great resources that I grab to read later, or feel inspired by in the moment. But I find that I end up with my brain buzzing in too many directions, trying to do too many things, and just can't keep up that sort of momentum. I have to try to find a workable balance. I'm trying to connect more effectively with people in this arena by popping along to Twitter discussions and getting involved with the conversations. By looking at my Twitter feed it's easy enough to pick up on whether there is a discussion happening and to get involved.

#Hashtags
After reading a tweet where someone asked for resources on peer feedback, I realised that I should be using hashtags to find resources about feedback. I did a search on #feedback and found a tweet about the work of Ben Newmark (@bennewmark). His school is trying new things in terms of feedback to students, and while I don’t want to take on board the whole kit and caboodle of what he is doing (particularly as it is designed for high school history), I really do like where he is headed in terms of making feedback meaningful. 

Ben’s school has stopped marking books and is now completing a Feedback form when students have submitted their books. He reads through the books (not worrying about marking spelling errors or leaving a comment) and jots down the things about the class’ response using a feedback form. He then makes a PowerPoint presentation that goes through the things that came up on the feedback form. He highlights the things students do well and shares these with the class as examples of exemplary work.

I liked reading about this system and am going to try a modified version of the idea, initially with my Maths class. I wondered what happens in Ben's class in terms of self-reflection to help them to make use of the feedback. Do students jot down takeaways that they will work on?

Another victory with the #feedback hashtag came another day when I discovered this tweet:

most insightful current #edresearch on #feedback https://t.co/IrEEf7xICg pic.twitter.com/v4wWBxlMhA

— David Carless (@CarlessDavid) October 11, 2016

This research, while difficult to digest, was exactly what I have been looking for. It looks beyond what makes good feedback, to instead explore what is required for students to engage with feedback and use it. After reading this, I was able to draft out a bit of a plan to use in the classroom. The researchers also outlined some gaps in current research - namely education prior to Higher Ed, and studies that look at the resulting behaviours of students rather than merely the reported behaviours. I'm excited to explore this further.

Dylan Wiliam's Webinars
I found some of Dylan Wiliam's previously recorded webinars online at The Dylan Wiliam Center. I watched these and took some notes as I did so. It was good to hear his view on feedback. The results from studies have shown that feedback can also have a negative impact, thus the reaction of the student should be the focus rather than the feedback itself. I feel this is tied in with my ideas about encouraging student self-reflection in order to apply the feedback, and also providing time for the feedback to be used not just stashed away. Dylan said that the success of the feedback is about the relationship the teacher has with the student and knowing when to push and when to back off. One suggestion Dylan gave for activating students as resources for one another was to use two stars and a wish for peer feedback.

I feel that the challenge lies in learning more about how to provide the right sort of feedback (which may mean different things to different students), and how to help students to react positively to what they are told and use it to improve their learning further. This all ties together with the growth mindset, and a willingness to see failure as an opportunity for further growth. More of Dylan Wiliam's webinars can be found here and he is about to run another webinar about Assessment Literacy on Wednesday 19 October 2016.

Trying things out
Term 4 started this week and I had my students back for the last two days of the week. Why wait, I say! We got straight into exploring some ideas with feedback. Very soon we are going to begin trialling Seesaw to submit and share classwork and gain feedback from each other. In the lead up to this, I wanted my students to get a sense of why feedback is useful, how we can request feedback from others, how we can give feedback and how we can use feedback.

I wanted to introduce my class to the concept of feedback. I wanted them to get a sense of the power of feedback for helping you to learn and progress forward. In our first lesson of the day students were working on a writing task and I found that students were asking me and one another for help with spelling words. I helped them at the time and then used them as examples for the next lesson.

I referred to this as an example of "seeking feedback" and pointed out how it helped them to be more accurate with their work. I then showed students the video of Austin's Butterfly as an example of how feedback leads to improvement. Students were amazed by how Austin's work progressed. 

Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work from EL Education on Vimeo.

I then explained that students would create a drawing of their holiday and that at any point when they wanted feedback they could take a strip of paper to someone they trust and get them to write down something good about their work and something for them to improve. They could then take the feedback and use it to improve their work. They could repeat this as much as they desired.

What I found was that initially students wanted to get their work just right. It was almost as if the idea of peer feedback was making them think more critically about their own work. To begin with, I felt that the feedback that students gave one another was fairly shallow and opinion based. eg. "Please colour the white and the background." However when I paused to think of what I might have written, I didn't come up with anything better! This helped me to realise that part of the strength of feedback comes from having some sort of a goal to work toward and markers of what constitutes quality work.

We continued this work intermittently over the two days, with students continuing to seek feedback from one another and re-drafting as desired. A lot of verbal feedback was being given by students and not being recorded on the paper strips. This suggested to me that students may prefer to give and receive feedback informally and verbally. This may be happening already in the classroom without me realising that it is taking place. 

As would be expected, I found a variety of responses to this task. Some preferred to begin a new draft, while others made modifications to the original. Some were popular choices for students to go to feedback, while others weren't approached at all. Some students seemed more focused on self-review of work including one who did not get any written feedback.

Nothing Official Yet!

Of course, I am yet to write up my literature review, and none of my trying things out is part of my proposal at this point. For me, these steps are necessary for me to get a proper understanding of what I am reading and to keep a check on whether it is based in reality. It's also about me finding what works, and seeing how things can be improved. I guess my next step is to get serious about the literature review and speak to someone about action research.

If you have tried things out with formative assessment, feedback and/or growth mindset please leave a comment with link so that I can check it out. 

Beginning My Journey with ISTAA Experienced Teacher Accreditation

Due to my recent school move, I've found myself in a position of having to go through accreditation to demonstrate my level of teaching. In NSW/ACT Independent schools, this means applying for Experienced Teacher Accreditation with ISTAA (the Independent Schools Teacher Accreditation Authority). I'm not sure of all the logistics, or whether this is a requirement in all independent schools, however it is required in order to move up the pay scale in my school.

So, I applied and am now on the Experienced Teacher Accreditation journey. As you might imagine, this journey is mostly about capturing evidence of what is happening in the classroom in order to prove that I am demonstrating the descriptors of an Experienced Teacher. To make matters even more complicated, I have chosen the Action Research Pathway, which involves choosing an action research project, doing a literature review, putting forward a proposal, collecting data relating to the action research project, and reporting findings.

So far I have mostly been trying to get my head around what is required, and testing out a few ideas I could use as my action research. The biggest challenge I am finding so far is selecting an action research project that is simple enough to be achievable, yet broad enough to encompass a number of descriptors I need to demonstrate.

Areas of Interest

My plan at the moment is to focus on the use of formative assessment and feedback to enhance student learning. I have some examples of this in the classroom, but would like to improve the way my assessments are recorded so that I can analyse for patterns. I'd also like to improve the quality of the feedback that I provide, to make it more explicit and to ensure that students are able to use it to improve the next time they face something similar. This also means providing opportunities for students to make the adjustments and try again before too much time has passed. I'm also interested to see how students can reflect on their learning more effectively.

I'd also like to explore where parents fit into all of this. Is there a way to provide better feedback to parents along the way so that they can be addressing issues when they are relevant, rather than waiting until reports? Do parents want to be part of the learning process, or would they prefer it all to be done in-house?

Documentation

Documentation forms a large part of the experienced teacher accreditation. Teachers need to be able to demonstrate in physical form a lot of the things that usually just take place in the day to day teaching environment, or sometimes within the teacher's head. Teachers make observations on how students are managing content and make adaptations in response to these observations. This is all unseen or at least unwritten. For the purposes of the accreditation, these things need to become seen and written.

In an attempt to do this, I've taken on using some tools a little more intentionally. Key tools so far are: Notes linked through iCloud, Notability and iDoceo.

I've begun recording my thoughts and actions in Notes on my phone/iPad/computer, similar to a diary. This is helping me to record those things that are happening during the day that may slip from my mind as time goes by. I'm finding it is also really helpful for organising my thoughts. I can add pictures that help demonstrate things, or photos of weird diagrams I draw on paper in attempt to make sense of the confusion!

I'm using Notability so that I can annotate the descriptors and highlight with a range of colours. I may also use it for annotating readings as I do my literature review.

iDoceo is a tool for managing assessments etc for your class. I am using it to help me with recording assessment and I am particularly liking the new rubric feature. I'm able to quickly make and use rubrics, collating the data at the same time. I decided to make a "class" for myself as well, with columns for all of the descriptors. I can now collect evidence and jot down ideas as annotations for all of the descriptors, and therefore track how I am progressing.

Moving Forward

As I continue with this journey I need to get serious about reading up on feedback and formative assessment. A few names that come to mind are John Hattie, Dylan Wiliam, and Dan Haesler. In looking quickly at Dan's website, he doesn't specifically mention "formative assessment and feedback" but from working with him at my previous school, I know that it is part of his repertoire. Perhaps the focus of my action research should be "growth mindsets" of which formative assessment and feedback are a large part. That gives more direction to what I am considering and provides a stronger starting point. That leads to the work by Carol Dweck, which will keep me busy for a while!

What suggestions do you have? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Space Spectacular #1

This post is the first in a series of posts about an Integrated Inquiry Unit about Earth and Beyond.

Week 1 - Tuning In
This week our activities were designed to activate students' prior knowledge about Space and to stimulate questions they would like to investigate. We began with some brainstorming, where students listed words that come to mind about Space. They then worked in small groups to bundle their words into categories. Following this, students wrote questions they would like to know answers to. They chose the best question for their group and shared it with the class. We collected their ideas and will use these for a word wall and to guide our investigations.

Integrating with Literacy
Predicting and Questioning Skills
Prior to reading the big book "Watching The Night Skies" the class formulated three questions they felt would be answered by the text given the title and list of contents. Students wrote the questions and the answers they predicted, leaving space for the answer from the text. We then read the text together, discussing the information we were finding out. After reading, students went back to the questions and wrote the answer from the text.
In the next literacy session, students were given an individual text on Space. They repeated the activity for themselves - choosing a question, writing their answer, and finding the answer in the text.
This activity is useful for helping students to engage with a text and seek out information.

Creative Writing - Description
I told students that they would be doing a piece of creative writing, imagining that they are the first person to step onto the surface of Mars. We began by looking at some photographs of the landscape of Mars and then watched these NASA Vodcasts: Soaring Over Mars and Mars Exposed. While they looked at these things, students jotted down notes on their clipboards. They then returned to their desks to begin writing. I gave an initial prompt sentence which they could use to get them started: I stepped from my space craft and there, stretched before me, was Mars. I walked around while students worked and, with permission, read out their writing to help those struggling to get started. There were some really descriptive passages being formed and many were including details from their notes including the names of some of the places.

Integrating with ICT
Students were given some terms to investigate eg. morning star, evening star, shooting star, the sun comes up, the sun goes down, the sun goes behind a cloud. They needed to use the internet to research the accuracy of these statements. Students used a variety of online resources including wikipedia, google search using 'define:' and yahoo answers. This was a great activity for students to practice using the internet for quick clarification.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of online degrees . Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson83@yahoo.com

Using Web Resources to Make Learning Fun

When you’re a child, learning becomes more interesting only when it’s fun. So as a teacher who is involved in getting young kids to show an interest in education, you’re responsible for making kids smarter even while they enjoy their lessons and can’t get enough of them. Your skills as a teacher come to the fore only when you make learning fun for your young wards. The Internet is a great tool if you’re looking to make learning interactive and get your students involved, and here’s how you can incorporate it into your lessons:

Teach your students online search skills: There is a ton of information on the Internet, but if you don’t know how to search for what you want, none of this information is useful. So teach kids to search for what they’re looking for, and also instruct them on sorting through the huge amounts of data that is returned. If they’re very young, it’s best to get them to the site yourself and ask them to just read and click buttons on local pages. But if they’re above a certain age, knowing how to search for information is a surefire way to get them more involved in the subject.

Help them work out online math problems: It’s a subject that most people detest, simply because they do not understand the basics. Online math quizzes offer easy ways to remember formulae and are also great when it comes to testing your memory and concentration powers, two skills that come in handy when you’re trying to solve math problems. Children learn how to solve problems without the use of pencil and paper, without making mistakes.

Use the web to improve English: There are a plethora of options to learn English on the web. From online dictionaries and thesauruses to sites that allow you to write articles and contribute poetry, you can pretty much go the whole hog when you’re trying to improve your English. Encourage your students to download e-books that are free to read in their spare time and get them to send in their essays and poetry to online competitions.

Let them play educational games: When I was a child, “Where In The World Is Carmen SanDiego” was one of my favorite computer games. Back then, we had only the DOS operating system, so our choices were limited. This game was fun and interesting because it combined mystery and geography. We basically had to chase a thief who flies across the globe based on country and location specific clues that he would leave behind. Educational games help improve subject-specific knowledge and broaden students’ general knowledge as well.

Above all, if your students are on the web with limited or no supervision, you must teach them to use the Internet safely and wisely so that they are protected from con artists and viruses.

Friday Fun - 15/5/09

It has been a great week - productive with a sprinkle of fun. I've been feeling good as I've been getting back into my morning run which seems to do wonders for managing stress! Miss Eschauzier and I did a lot of team teaching throughout the week which meant we could do more targeted teaching.

Story Writing
This week students in my literacy group worked with Miss Eschauzier to determine features of quality writing. In small groups, they read books that have been nominated for awards over the years and considered elements of characterisation, plot, and language. As a class, they then put together a Kidspiration mind map to organise their ideas. Students then did a self-evaluation of their own writing and considered areas to work on further.Miss Eschauzier introduced a planning tool we developed for writing stories. Students used this for planning new stories.
Indigenous Australians Project Groups
On Monday students decided who they would like to share a cabin with at camp. We rearranged the desks in the classrooms so that they could sit in these groups during our Integrated Inquiry lessons to work on a project together. The task is for students to research the history, culture and traditions of Aboriginal Australians from a particular region and present the information digitally (audio, video, PowerPoint Presentation, Museum Box or other as negotiated). These digital products will then be stored on our My Classes page so that students can explore the work of their peers and reflect on the similarities and differences between the regions.

As a group we created a rubric that will be used to grade students. I provided some books that I borrowed from the local library and we arranged for some extra sessions in the computer lab. Students have made a great start to the task and are learning a lot about how to research in the process. We taught students where and how to look for information that is useful and relevant. We also explained about the copyright licensing surrounding online images and showed students how to find pictures they can use and how to give appropriate attribution.

Fractions and Decimals
In Maths this week we explored Fractions and Decimals using a video and one of the manipulatives on Math Playground. Students completed drills adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator using worksheets from Math Drills. We also used MAB blocks to represent decimals and played with a range of fractions games and activities.

Peer Support
Our Year 5/6 students have been leading mixed-aged groups through activities to explore issues around bullying. These lessons are supplemented by lessons in home classes in alternate weeks. This week we discussed issues around bullying and students made this Y chart about how bullying looks, sounds and feels:
For more Friday Fun, click here.

Google Jockeying

I got busy catching up on bookmarked sites last night. I've seen so much great stuff lately, but just haven't had the time to investigate them further.

One of these great sites was listed on EdTechTalk's 100 Bookmarks on Delicious. It's called 7 Things You Should Know and is a series of fact sheets about emerging learning technologies. They're all really great, but the one that I loved most of all, was the one about Google Jockeying. Why? Because I tried this even before I heard about it, and it feels good to know that it's a recognised teaching strategy and to see how to use it 'properly'!

I really recommend you check out the fact sheet, but basically, Google Jockeying is when one student sits at a computer and searches for relevant images, information etc about the topic while the teacher speaks to the class. This information is displayed for the class to see and the teacher can draw on the additional resources to support teaching, further discussion etc. The GJ (!) is responsible for thinking of appropriate sources, keywords etc and learns a lot through this process. The rest of the class is more engaged as they are receiving the information through multi-sensory means.

The fact sheet talks about this strategy in terms of a University setting, however it can work just as nicely in a Primary School classroom. I accidentally tried this idea while I was reading a story to the class and talking about the style of the illustrator. As there was a student computer right beside me, I got one of the students up to Google the illustrator's name and then we looked at a picture of her and read about her techniques. We also discussed how the author writes about environmental themes, which led us to plant pests like Rosy Dock and Patterson's Curse. Another kid jumped on the computer and Googled Patterson's Curse so we could see what it looked like. It was a very easy strategy, that even my Year 1s could handle. I realise that I was directing my students with this task, but wouldn't it be great to have a student working away at this in the background. Think of the potential with older kids! And if you have an interactive whiteboard or digital projector in the classroom, it would make the display of information more effective.

This is a strategy that I will be adding to my tool kit for use next year. What do you think?