Can pupil conferencing replace after the event written feedback?

Link to a great article of the importance of verbal conferencing with students rather than after the even written feedback.

Can pupil conferencing replace after the event written feedback?

Teaching as Inquiry Reflective Log - Tracking Priority Writers

Photos of our combined Year 6 and Year 3 writing session : 1-9-2016

Here is an email a priority writer sent to their family because they were so proud of the descriptive language and sentence structures they had used.  The email also shows the mums reply.

PACT PD for teachers

Yesterday I lead a PD session for four teachers (including a deputy principal) from another school out of Rotorua.  The session was based around the PACT tool and how I use it to inform my teaching practise.  We spent most of the day looking at how to use the tool, the reporting capabilities and how each of the big ideas can be used to inform teaching practice.  We also talked about the links between PACT, the curriculum, and the need for integration.

Today I received two lovely emails about my PD session:

Thanks Tineke for your presentation and showcase of The PaCT to Mount Primary teachers yesterday. I think you are instrumental in our direction for the next 3 years!!!

The teachers were really pumped after visiting and want to continue down the path we were contemplating. We had no idea that The PaCT would have an impact on the teaching and curriculum... truly blown away!

In terms of what we can offer to you, it's limited, but Ive attached an online progressions google Doc sheet whereby the student adds their learning in the middle and highlights the parts that demonstrate an understanding.

If there's something your looking for and I have it then please ask.

Again, thanks for showing and sharing your journey with us. We are totally buzzed!

Regards

******    *******

Deputy Principal

Hi Tineke,

I wanted to tell you that yesterday was awesome and I can't thank you enough. I have come back to school invigorated today. Thank you so much for sharing the kid speak rubric with me. Can I please ask for another favour? Could you please share a week of your planning with me so that I can see how you include PaCT across the differing curriculum areas?  

Kind Regards

******   *******

Year 5/6 Teacher

B is for book, bored and below - compulsory school age reading

Last night I came across an interesting article about young children being forced to read as soon as they are 5 versus letting them learn to read as they develop their experiences and oral language.  This is a very timely article to consider as our school currently reviews its curriculum and the way we teach literacy.

Here is the link for the article:

b-is-for-book-bored-and-below-compulsory-school-age reading

Some key points from the article include:


For some children, learning to read is a marathon, not a sprint, and in an environment where the process is treated as a race, it might set them up for feelings of failure and frustration as they strive to cross an ever-moving finish line .

If a student who is 4 or 5 is struggling with reading;

To back off a little.

To give them space.

To give them time.

To wait until they’re verbally and mentally ready to deliver the intonation and emphasis that makes what they’re reading ‘sound‘ interesting to their ears (and inside their head).

To wait until the words they’re actively learning to read are the more interesting ones, the ones that will really bring the stories in books to life, and enrich their reading experience.

Classroom layout to support dyslexia

Last night I came across a really helpful blog post about classrooms that support dyslexic students.

Here is the link to the video clip and blog post:

Classroom Layout to support Dyslexia

PACT Symposium in Wellington July 2016

During these latest school holidays, I was honoured to be invited to present at the PACT symposium in Wellington.  I flew down to Wellington where I then met up with our school Principal before giving a presentation in the fabulous Ministry of Education building.  

I presented alongside our principal at the conference with over 200 attendees.  

Our presentation was on making writing judgements using the PACT tool.  While I felt very nervous initially, I was super proud of myself for undertaking such an important task.  I received a lot of wonderful feedback from numerous lead teachers and school principals from all over the country.  I even had some principals ask if I would be willing to come and help their schools with using the PACT tool.

The view from the Ministry of Education building with the Beehive in the background.

PACT Symposium - July 2016

COLS and PaCT

• All schools using PaCT so that data can be measured equally.  
• Can be used to identify the strengths and areas of development.  Schools doing well in a particular aspect could then become the leadership in PLD for that particular aspect.  
• Comparing the same data allows schools to also filter the results so they identify the genders/ethnicities etc to see what students are doing well or need to be targeted.

• Ability to group students who transit on to other schools - intermediate - high school.  The new school then gets all the PaCT data and can group students according to their PaCT results.

• Set a base framework ie: all schools using COLS and reporting on maths,
• Set a framework for the next year ie: maths continues across all schools and everyone start reading as well…
• The MOE can come and run workshops for the COLS

Pact and the curriculum

Reporting: should be about the arts, science, values etc - things that make the whole learner.  Shouldn’t be so tunnel vision on literacy and numeracy.

Why is literacy and numeracy so heavily weighted???  

The curriculum document is one document for a reason.  The curriculum doesn’t place more emphasis on literacy and numeracy.  All areas are compulsory.  All areas are equally important.  (teachers have to trip over other curriculum areas in order to reach their area- proving that the curriculum is intertwined and should be taught like that).

 

Literacy

• Being able to engage with the text independently and flexibly is getting more, not less, imperative.
• Information-rich societies are putting a greater emphasis on the literacy skill people need in order to:
• Locate and process information
• Create their own texts

Locating information in digital texts: the content in multi-modal informational texts is fragmented so that it can be more easily discovered through different searches.

• Although searching for information is easier, readers now need to navigate vast amounts of unfiltered information at various levels of complexity.

Students need to continue developing their literacy skills throughout their schooling

• More emphasis on students’ ability to:
• Synthesise information across different sources
• Evaluate arguments on a variety of dimensions
• Understand varying perspectives on an issue
• Assess the credibility of sources of information
• Growing needs to be able to:
• Identify key words for searching
• Frame up questions
• Review and edit those questions
• Manage filtered searches far more than strategically than before

• Writing: Purpose first - form next ie: essays, reports, blogs, narratives, short answers…

Research found that Year 9 and 10 students who were researched for PACT were found to be at the standard of what a good Year 8 student should be in literacy- The literacy aspect was no harder than Year 8, however they task was broader and with a richer range of contexts.

Use reading and writing in a meaningful context!!!!!!!

Do we need separate writing books and topic books???

National Standards are about students having the level of reading and writing they need to support their learning in the NZ curriculum.  Are about how students use their reading and writing to engage with the NZ curriculum.

RICH LEARNING TASKS!!!  Future focused classroom.  

The development of creative writing

Recently there has been a lot of discussion online around the importance of creative writing and giving students the time to just write.  As part of the development of our schools responsive learning group for literacy, and my inquiry around helping struggling writers overcome barriers to writing and adapt my teaching practice, I have decided to trail 10-15 minutes of creative writing each day in my class.  The aim of this is to have students develop a love for writing, to remove the barriers around their work being assessed, and for students to develop their creative thinking and ways of expressing themselves through written communication.

Yesterday was our first go at trialling creative writing.   Students were able to write anything they wanted.  There work is not going to be marked or critiqued.  They are able to share their writing orally with the class or a buddy if they choose.  If they have had a bad day and need to vent, they can staple the page shut if they wish.  My only requirement is that students do what they want to do and hopefully enjoy it.  If they want to write a card for someone - write a card.  If they want to write a list of words that pop into their head - write a vocab list.  Students can use coloured paper, art paper, their books...  They can use any coloured pen, felts, crayons.  The choice is 100% the students.  For those students who struggle to come up with ideas, I can show them a picture as a prompt, share a video clip, give them a word etc.  I just want my students to write and have fun doing it.

Yesterday's first session was an immediate success.  Student's moaned at the end of 15 minutes when they were asked to stop so we could move onto our afternoon program.  To top it off, I had three students (two of them who are well below in writing and are part of my priority group, and one who has dyslexia) all ask if they could take their writing home to carry on with it.  One even wanted to publish and decorate their work up because they enjoyed the task so much.  So initially, the student response to creative writing has been embraced and is motivating, but only time will tell if it is effective.

On recapping the session to get student feedback, several students used their critical thinking to reflect on our current setup of our independent writing books.  At present, the school requirements are that students are to write in blue pen and edit in red.  These students asked "If you want us to be creative in our writing and enjoy it, then why do we all have to write in blue pen in our independent writing books?"
A great question.  I had already been wondering this question myself and was going to trial my ALL writing group with their own choice of pen colour, but why limit it to only this group?  I promptly took this question to our management team and team leader who were all very supportive and were more then happy to trial student choice of pen colour in their books as a way to see if it increases engagement, enjoyment and possibly quality and quantity of work.  So today the new systems will take place.  I have had to remind students that they need to be sensible with their use of coloured pens and remind them that writing is a form of communication.  If the pen colour is hard to read, then it is probably not a good choice.  Also, if pens are very inky and likely to go through pages, again it may not be a sensible choice.

The students and I are now very excited to see how creative writing evolves in our class and to see if their is any advantage/disadvantage to students writing in any colour they choose.