PaCT training

How can we identify the progress and the amount of progress used over time.

Teachers have tended to use one of tests to see progress. 
PaCT tool created to ensure consistency.

It is more about the inclass behaviour and knowledge that students are using.  Teachers make decisions about whether they are the types of things that a student are doing.  PaCT tool weights all the information that is put in and then will tell you if the OTJ is below, at or above. 

The Aspect Framework
http://assessment.tki.org.nz/Progress-and-Consistency-Tool/The-PaCT-framework/The-PaCT-aspects 

READING
Making sense of text: processing system - Decoding
Making sense of text: text structure - Grammar, Language Features, what I know about texts, sub headings, illustrations, lists, features of texts
Making sense of text: vocabulary knowledge - Vocab, new words
Making sense of text: reading critically - how as a reader we are aware that texts are written by authors, and authors try to influence us, emotive language, advertising
Reading to organise ideas and informed for learning - how am i organising ideas, locate, evaluate, synthesis
Acquiring and using information and ideas in informational texts - how do we go about using information text and gaining information
Reading for literary experience

Reading framework
- each 'blob' represents a learning step - each learning step also has illustrations which shows what it looks like in the classroom.  e.g. Is Johnny's work like the illustration. 
- very clear next steps

Literacy learning describe the skills and strategies in order to demonstrate the learning steps.

Reading Critically Activity
What are the differences between each of learning steps - Key words

A key factor
How are we supporting and driving prior knowledge.  Rich introduction to texts, link to inquiry, allow students to understand and make meaning of.

The sets DO NOT go up in curriculum levels  - e.g set 5 is NOT level 5

Need to say what students can do at a curriculum level rather than what their reading age is.

Don't use the illustrations as assessment tools

TOD - Literacy PD

Again, great Professional Learning with Cath.

Lots to think about - some focuses (To Dos) for me are

- Planning for Acceleration in Writing

- Individual Pathways for Acceleration in Writing

- What genre is going to be covered

Vocab and Spelling

- 5 minute basic words, 5 minute letter sound, 5 minute on the text
- Possibly have a 5 minute vocab focus before reading and writing
- I would like to try and include this in my day or in the student learning schedule

School discussion and follow up
- Use an individual pathway for acceleration in Writing for at least one student.  Progress to be shared with staff at Week 6 staff meeting.
- Video a writing lesson to be shared in Week 5 team meetings.

End of year goal reflection

My 2016 Appraisal goals are:

#4: demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice	Develop and maintain an ongoing reflective blog with evidence of target student learning in reading, writing and maths that can be used for ACET application
#6: conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme	Work with students to integrate and explicitly plan authentic, purposeful learning experiences (integrated planning template)
#11: analyse and appropriately use assessment information, which has been gathered formally and informally	Analyse assessment information and use student e-portfolios to show the ongoing progress and learning needs of students in reading, writing and maths.

#4 Reflection 

I feel like I didn't complete my ACET application to the quality that I would have liked to.  Feedback from the ACET team was that I needed more evidence.  I struggled to collect evidence over the year, not because there wasn't any, but rather remembering to collect it.  Some areas I had excellent evidence for, however there are areas that I needed and need to ensure that I collect evidence.  I would like this to continue to be a goal for me in 2017.

#6 Reflection

We did work with kids to gather their ideas about what they would like to learn.  However, the original thoughts of planning a unit with the students didn't happen like we had planned.  

#11 Reflection

Buffy and I did a lot of analysing of our data and finding next steps and gaps in our students' learning.  e-portfolios started well however our 2016 students were not as independent as past years and they needed a lot of guidance with their e-portfolios.  I would still like to continue with using e-portfolios in 2017.

Term 3 Observation reflection

Following my Term 3 Observation where I worked with a small group on speech writing and revising and editing what the students had already written, rather than teaching a new skill or strategy.
The lesson went well. I had smaller groups than usually and it was more like working one on one with a student, setting them up, then calling another student, and checking in on the other students. I believe this was necessary for the students to do in order to proofread and edit their writing, as well as adding more detail to their writing.

These are my reflections following my observation:

PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION:  

• Why you chose to do this lesson?

This is what we have been doing in class with speeches and I wanted to see if this was an effective way of working with the target students.

• How did the lesson go?

It felt very repetitive as we have been going through their speech quite a lot over the last few weeks.  I feel that it needs to be repetitive for these students though.  There is a lot of guidance given and a lot of oral discussion that has to take place.

• What things worked for the children?

I think that the students benefited from us both having access to their writing on docs.  Going over how to give more detail and elaboration using the keywords - the students are starting to understand this.  

• What have I learnt about these students?

There is a lot of guidance needed.

• What are my next steps?

Continue to work with the students and go over the rest of their piece of writing to ensure that they have elaborated on their ideas.

Then work with the students on the presentation of their speech.

Identification of extra target student for Team Meetings

In a recent team meeting we had to identify other students in our class that we would consider to be target students (apart from those identified at the beginning of the year) and say how these students are being monitored.  We have a number of students that we would say are targets.

Taken from team minutes...

Here’s What, So What, Now What

Let’s go over Writing and Reading - see below and we will discuss these as a team.

We have our targets from the beginning of the year, who else are targets and how are we monitoring them? (These are the students who the teacher identifies as extra targets)  

Teachers to have a look and think about the extra targets and will write in here who they are for Writing

Room M: Brie, Mackenzie, Danielle, Shannon, Kapua, Nathaniel, Styris, William, Alex K, Justis, Nicole, Paige,  Dylan, Kane, Lance, Warren.

Here’s What :

based on current OTJ this students have been identified as being at risk of not meeting the end of year standard.  Within this cohort, there are students capable of meeting the standard.

So What:

A number of students are hindered by a poor attitude to writing.  There are a number that struggle with identifying and using deep language and structural features of different text types. Some students have limited awareness of text types.  Our classroom time constraints are a barrier as well.

Now What:

Continue to use daily scribe time to increase writing mileage.  Analyse and discuss a range of text types to increase word knowledge, identification of language and text features to support students to use in creating their own texts.  

Explicitly teach conventions.  For example, sentence structure.  Subject + verb arrangement.  Use of comma.  

PB4L Conference 2016

It was great to be able to attend the PB4L conference again this year.  This year it was in Wellington and the breakouts that I attend were all really awesome.

Some key things that I took out of the conference were
- look at WHERE in the classroom that problems are occurring
- Ask kids to come up with the rules for each area - and how they fit in with AROHA
- Decision flowchart - what should we as teachers handle and what needs to go to the office?
- Referral form is not a punishment - it is data. What is the consequence for their behaviour?
- New students to school to go through an AROHA programme to ensure they have a full understanding.

These are our PB4L Conference 2016 shared notes that we all contributed to.

Ongoing discussion and reflection about data and OTJ

Miss Turner and I regularly have discussions about data and OTJs for our students in our class.  With many of our students being below the NS there is a push to see reflection of understanding in their classroom learning and work.

Writing is a real low point in our class and so writing, and writing for a period of time, has and will continue to be a focus for Term 3.  A lot of our students struggle to write for a period of time.  They struggle to generate ideas and get stumped and just don't write.

Further to this we have given the option to our students to either write on google docs, or in their workbooks.  Funny enough a lot of our lower writers prefer to write on google docs and are able to get their ideas quicker and easier than writing it in a book.  This has been pleasing to see.

We have discussed using more of the ARBs and the PacT tool came up for discussion and would be something that we would both be keen to look into.

Our data is not reflecting it but I believe that we are working hard with our students to try and have them make progress.  We have many discussions about the movement from 'with support' to 'independently' and we feel that many of our students although they may make progress are not moving to that 'independent' work, especially our students at year 8 level.