Ex students visit to My Inquiry class

Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13. As a CoL leader within the school. I  am more interested in inquiring about student learning and my own practice.


Today two of my old students, both Ex-students Paul Pamaka ( Electrical engineer, Downer) and Emma brown (PhD candidate, Auckland university) visited my class to promote self-efficacy, self-directed learning and immitate university environment.

 The visit was very productive as students learned more about the career and the many types of engineering that are offered. Students were particularly interested in biomedical and civil engineering. They agreed to come back next term to empower and strengthen further.

Paul Pamaka and Emma Brown

Monitoring - Differentiation

Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13. As a CoL leader within the school. I  am more interested in inquiring about student learning and my own practice.
    
Monitoring
I am working three important hypotheses to monitor my learners’ progress as we are getting closer to the External examinations. In this blog, I am looking at two.
I have been giving them “Do now” s every lesson to figure out the classical mistakes in Algebra as well as rewind their learning to recall what they have learned so far and to dig deeper to find their weaknesses and strengths. Also, most of the time whiteboards have been used by learners as they enjoy working in small groups on a whiteboard. I strongly believe that learners can learn from their mistakes.

“Do now”	Classical mistakes/Rewinding
	They forgot to square the 4.
	They struggled with the second question.
	Where is sec in the calculator Miss? They struggled to put that in the calculator.
	Few of them struggle to get the correct answer.
	This was the last lesson  last week, every single learner got it correct!!

I used whiteboards to address the above hypotheses.

Impact on students:
• The students really enjoy having the opportunity to spend part of a lesson out of their seats
• The students like having the opportunity to work in small groups with different people each time.
• The boards allow the students a public opportunity for solving problems – so students can be affirmed for their expertise and also have the chance to learn from each other.
• There is an increased opportunity for conversations around mathematical thinking both with each other and also with me.
• Students can take photos of the best practice once they are up on the whiteboards.
• Students can present their ideas to each other and to the class while developing their ability to effectively express their mathematical ideas.

Impact on me: 
• I have instant feedback as to which students need further support to be able to get started on the current work.
• “Do Now” strategy identify easily who understood the work of the previous lesson.
• I obtained feedback as soon as a new concept has been introduced.

Next: I will be working on the third hypothesis.

WFRC #11 &12 : Identify informal & formal ways you are monitoring & Recording

WFRC #11: Identify informal & formal ways you are monitoring

the effects of your changed practices/intervention on learner outcomes.  Explain the reflections and tweaks you are making along the way

WFRC #12: Describe how you will keep a record of each of the above in a manageable way

Over the next six weeks, I am going to start classes with “Do Now” questions which incorporate classic mistakes made by students. This is also to go through rewardable learning techniques and make sure students recall what they have already learned. I will also present exemplars of contextual questions to unpack keywords and skim reading techniques. I will also continue to do practice tests after school for the other two externals as well as scholarship questions.

I am also going to maintain a log to check student progress and keep a record of this on an excel spreadsheet. Testing of progress will be conducted at regular intervals so that if changes to teaching techniques need to be implemented they can be. 

Change  of plan:

Daily planner for the current topic with a timeline for testing/" Do Nows "

WFRC #9 & 10 : Monitoring

WFRC #9: Restate your inquiry question and your theory of action/chain of events (so you keep your eyes on the prize)
WFRC #10: Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you do differently)

Monitoring
Throughout the holiday program as I was teaching, listening and marking practice tests I identified three priority learning areas for students.  As this is the last term of teaching and mock exams are in week 9 it is paramount that I am able to implement effective strategies to improve these areas. The three areas are indicated on the flow chart with the respective implementation strategies.

Monitoring

In the next blog post, I will discuss monitoring and keeping records of these strategies