Priority Student Baseline Data 2023

 

Timepoint one data (shared and analysed in this blog post) was captured through:

• Informal teacher observation
• Student voice through google forms
• Assessment (PAT & e-asTTle)
• Recording my lesson

The PAT and e-asTTle assessments were carried out in Week  5. I am really looking forward to seeing an accelerated shift later in Term 3 and Term 4. I believe Term 1 data collection will help me to make clear comparisons at the end of the year.

During Week 7 I prepared some interview questions in the google form and shared them with my class. Keeping the Inquiry focus question in my mind, I prepared some questions that were related to their culture and heritage language. The response allowed me to think deeper and beyond. Therefore, I decided to do something different in my class. I went to the resource room and collected all the Pasifika and Maori-themed stories. Then I created a slide presentation and used my first story from the Island of Tonga followed by a good discussion and activities. Apart from my guided reading sessions I have decided to do these Pasifika & Maori-themed stories every week. I will only use one block per week to do these past traditional stories. The active participation of my students allowed me to further make some new connections. These were my observations after having a lesson with them:

My Tongan students were responsive and at the same time, I could see the eagerness of other learners who were curious to know more about Tongan Culture. We came across some Tongan words and it was really good to see some Tongan students explaining to the class what it means. Furthermore, I got stuck in the pronunciation of certain words, and they helped me to pronounce them correctly.

To my surprise the ones who are usually quiet and shy, even took the ownership and participated in the discussion. This gives me a clear picture that tapping on children's prior knowledge and cultural capital will be quite rewarding and helpful.

Talking about the pictures in the story and making predictions about what might happen next and discussing prior knowledge the learner already has can help a L2 learner extensively (Nation, 2008).

Finally,  the informal observations and my lesson recording will show if there has been any change in participation levels.

This is how I have stepped into 2023 by being more culturally visible!

During this 9 years of my teaching journey in New Zealand I felt that my classroom to some extent wasn’t culturally inclusive for all my students. Many of my Māori and Pasifika students were disadvantaged. Either it was due to not enough time, busy schedules, lots of other extra curricular activities happening and the pandemic that took so much of our precious learning time.  

After completing my TESSOL studies with The University of Auckland I feel good Pasifika learning requires that the teacher must have all three of the following teaching strategies: allowing Pasifika students respect as a learner; being able to scaffold Pasifika learning at the right level and engaging their Pasifika students in active learning. The Pasifika student must have confidence and trust in their teacher to engage with the teacher in the active pursuit of learning. The classroom teacher must also have confidence in the Pasifika student’s ability e.g., high expectations. If any of the parts described above are missing that means we as teachers must make some changes in our practice.

At GI school Term 1 is always very rewarding and we teachers are blessed to see our students showcasing their talents and culture. They celebrate their culture in a huge way and the whanau is so proud to see their children performing. However, this only lasts till term 1 and afterwards I could see our multicultural school is not doing much for what our children already have. One of the most valuable assets that they have is their cultural values. They know so much yet we as teachers do not actually see the full potential and other great benefits. We are not using their cultural capital which in fact carries so much weight.  We are trying to use other modern online teaching resources like Twinkl, Resource cupboard, Reading Eggs and so on  to improve their Reading and Writing. I am not saying these resources are of little value . I do agree that it helps, our tamariki enjoy and we as teachers are able to get so many good things for our tamariki. In saying that if  our learners  interact socially and share their cultural stories, that would actually help them to gain more confidence.  Instead of knocking on their prior knowledge, we begin to introduce more new and foreign things that go over their head. Why can’t we understand that this problem can be handled in a much easier and traditional way!

So this is how I have stepped into 2023 by being more visible in culturally responsive teaching. That means using students' customs, characteristics, experience, and perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.

    

Planning for an Effective Teacher Inquiry!

Why focus on inquiry and on Māori and Pasifika student achievement?

The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa explain why an inquiry approach to teaching is so important. Since any teaching strategy works differently in different contexts for different students, effective pedagogy requires that teachers inquire into the impact of their teaching on their students (Ministry of Education, 2007b, page 35).

The New Zealand Curriculum describes a cyclical process of inquiry that it calls “Teaching as Inquiry”. The purpose of the Teaching as Inquiry cycle is to help students achieve worthwhile learning that will lead them to become “confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners” (Ministry of Education, 2007b, page 8).

For 2023 I have decided that my learning goals will be to increase my  pedagogical knowledge and skills in  Reading area by further  exploring culturally responsive pedagogies and how I could apply them to enable my Māori and Pasifika students to achieve their full potential.

Therefore, I have chosen The  achievement challenge number 1

Raise Maori 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.

As said good inquiry happens in teams, as such I had a good discussion with my syndicate team and also with my Senior Syndicate Leader. My Team leader is a Tongan and she works with the local Pasifika team as well and that’s just a blessing for me because she has a wealth of Pasifika Knowledge. Thus, Hevaha Tua’koi has shared some great insight and experience in relation to Pasifika learners. I also had a discussion with the Deputy Principal  Zhydah Petersen and she happily shared her experience with me in relation to our Maori and Pasifika learners at school. After much discussion and thoughts and with the help of these two senior leaders I came up with this Inquiry Focus and I feel it is quite powerful and this will give me a real challenge on how to use culturally responsive teaching and learning in the classroom.

My Inquiry Focus for 2023 is:

Will a focus on cultural visibility and prior knowledge accelerate student confidence and capability in Reading?

References

Ministry of Education (2007b). The New Zealand Curriculum for English-medium     

    Teaching   and Learning in Years 1–13. Wellington:Ministry of Education.

    Available at http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz

Teaching As Inquiry 2023

I am very excited to be appointed as a Manaiakalani Community of Learning Teacher (within schools). This is a great opportunity to share my thoughts, ideas, learning strategies, successes and areas for improvement. I am very fortunate that my colleague Mrs Kirby has also been appointed as a CoL Teacher and we will be working collaboratively to raise and accelerate student achievement at our school.

My achievement challenge is to Raise Maori 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.

I hope to achieve acceleration by focusing on culturally responsive teaching in my class and also tapping on their cultural capital and prior knowledge. 

I hope to achieve this by implementing strategies from my past experiences, collaboration with my team, working closely with the whanau, local GI community and as well as using TESSOL strategies.

Actually it started quite well as I had this opportunity to collaborate with the whanau during Meet the Teacher Evening.