Noticing and investigating for effective internal evaluation

It is the beginning of the year and I am finding out where my students are in their Reading, Writing or Maths. I am on the noticing phase of the evaluation cycle given below.

Initial testing results in Maths showed

The graph above shows that more than 50% of students were below or well below in Maths. I also noticed that these students were the ones who were very disengaged during Maths times as well.
I had no clue why they did not like doing Maths and so I collected some student voice.
This was mainly based on their past experiences in their previous classes.

I asked them if they liked Maths and if no why? 
These were their reasons -

7 out 10 said that they did not like it
7 out of 10 said they find it hard.
It's always a catching up with their peers and it seemed that they knew very little.
They were kind of scared that they might not understand and get into trouble for that.
because they were shy to ask if you went wrong.

When I asked the similar question of my Stage E5 and 6 students they said that-

Maths was like a good challenge
When I go to the shops they could count the money to give to the shopkeeper.
because it's fun.

What does this mean for me as a teacher? because I need to tip the way the majority of students respond to Maths learning. So here is my plan-

• Talk to the class and tell them that Maths is no ghost.
• Tell them that anyone can do Maths
• Support them and show them that I care when they get stuck.
• Slow down when they do nor understand.
• Celebrate when they accomplish.

Karen Spencer - Beyond the Echo Chambers

Karen was the last of the key note speakers at the ULearn conference 2016. She was the one who most inspired me as I could connect to my real teaching world. She started by challenging us to think about 

so what now? what will we do when we go back to school in about 72 hours from then?

She then started to give us idea about how to go about when we are in our work spaces.

These ideas were very well summed up through a sketch at the conference 

• Praxis - this is the weaving of the research and ideas into practice. She illustrated this with the image of basket weaving where everything is twined and intertwined to turn into a beautiful basket. Teaching is the same...
• Professional Development - We as educators should always strive to be better educators. Improving our skills in teaching should be a continuous process because 'Professional learning is not an extra thing on the plate, it is the plate'

• To keep up with the changing world of education - it is important that teachers stay networked. This will allow them to stay connected and share ideas with each other. It is not just to stay at the receiving end but to challenge ourselves to participate in more complex conversations. Then Karen talked about holding ourselves and take the time to consider what is the most urgent need of our learners.

• Find the urgency - Every school has a curriculum that has a vision. This vision reflects our learners and the vision has some kind of outcome. Any new changes should drive this outcome. Students and teachers should live this vision so much that 'it can be seen dripping of the walls of the school'. If change is not planned strategically keeping the needs of our learners in mind then sometimes it can lead to dillusions and create more stumbling blocks in the way to achieve the vision.

• See the story behind the data 
• Data is not just the picture of numbers... data tells us the stories of our learners...When we question ourselves deeply about the data then we can hear deeper stories and understand what is going on in the lives of our children and so need to look at planning in a way that will help these students make shifts.

We should acknowledge that everyone is different and each person views different things in data and in their learner's stories. We should embrace these different points of view and and learn from them. we should challenge our biases so that we do not end up in an echo chamber. She illustrates this very nicely using John Cussack's role 'keep the fear out of the set'.


It is great to know about the new ideologies and the strategies that bring change, but we need not to be impulsive. We need to refrain ourselves from quick solutions as they can prove to be dangerous. We should spend some time to pay attention to most important current needs of our students and then address these needs. She said that we needed to plan carefully and 'hold our ideas lightly' rather than jumping to make a change.

Karen reminded us that we in New Zealand were very fortunate to have a curriculum that allowed us to be flexible. Our NZ curriculum is very good that we need not look further!

In the end she summarises by sharing a quote ' Education does not change the world. Education changes people and people change the world'. 

Celebrating Eid - Knowing our learner

We always celebrate all language weeks at our school. We are a school that cherishes and values all cultures and ethnicities. It is so much in grained into the system that I take pride when visitors at our school say that there is a great feel about coming into our school.

We have a Afghani family at our school. We had searched high and low and had not found any afghani language week. So we (Ashley my co-teacher and myself) started to look for Afghani festivals that we could celebrate. I met my students' mum at patrols and quickly grabbed the opportunity to and ask about festivals they celebrate. She said that Eid was round the corner and that it is a huge celebration in their culture. I quickly took the notes and asked her to give me a recepie of a traditional dish.
Next day Mojtaba (our student) came with a recipe. I must say that this was a big effort on the part of Mojtaba's mum because she does not know English very well. So I had this recipe, though not in correct English but made perfect sense as everything was written in steps. I was so delighted to get the recipe and more so being able to bring this mum in who is otherwise so shy to communicate with us.
Finally we started with the celebrations. We invited Mojtaba's little brothers to celebrate with us. Ashley found a song on Eid and we all learnt the song. We made Greeting cards on Eid with a moon and a star on it. Ashley had baked cookies in the shape of star and we all took turns to decorate them.
I made the traditional dish 'sevaiyaan' and we went to each class to say 'Eid Mubarak'

It was great way to build bonds and to know about our Afghani learner. Our afghani students were delighted. Their faces were glowing and they were not tired talking about their festival.

One of the principles of TESSOL is the to Know your learners - their language background, their language proficiency, their experiential background. 

 Visit this website  for more ideas on how to build a cultural village in your classroom.

Getting them Motivated

Maths has become one of the favourite subjects of my students. They are happy to do Maths for a whole block and this is because they have experienced success in this subject. Maths is like addiction. Once you get it, you want to do more. However I have a few students who are not so good at Maths and feel a little bit discouraged because they are not the first ones to solve the problem. I needed to somehow get them motivated to solve problems. So I got this group on the mat for the whole block and started by what they could do. Our topic of discussion was Fractions.
We have been asked to start with a big problem which always got these students confused... so to get them going I started with very easy problems so that they could get motivated. The problems that I gave them were as easy as...
"Show me quarter of 8"
Students worked in groups and were given white boards and play dough to show their working out.
slowly they got what was meant by quarter and sixths and eighths...

Then I gave them the hard problems that I would normally launch to the whole class. The question that I gave is...

Everyone in the group got it.  This group further went on to make their own problems and not only shared them with the class to solve but also helped those who got an incorrect answer.

And they chose not to use equipment any more.

                                                                What a delight!!


                                                            MY REFLECTION

Sometimes it is important to show students what they can do to build up their self esteem.
I am a very happy teacher to see my students intrinsically motivated. Harder problems may throw a spanner in the wheels!

Linking Digital Pedagoies and Bilingual Pedagogies

I attended a toolkits PD that is offered to all the schools in the Manaiakalani cluster. This is done twice  a term. I went to ' Linking Digital Pedagogies and Bilingual Pedagogies' that was presented by Kyla Hansell. I have completed my Grad Dip Tessol and so the tool kit was a reiteration of what I have been practicing and delivering in my class. For me the challenge is to provide opportunities that will allow my students to use a variety of digital apps and tools. As I am new to a partially digital class, I am constantly in pursuit of learning new things from teachers who are digitally more advanced.

I have a new student in my class who has never used netbooks. He is from Afghanistan. When he came to our school, my class was learning about the Hindu festival Diwali. I took this moment to ask my new student about Eid the festival that he celebrates with his family. Suddenly his face lit up and he started explaining me all the about Eid celebrations. We together brainstormed all the ideas using De bono's  6 thinking hats.  Then he did his draft and I showed him how to make a google presentation. He quickly learnt the skill and made his first ever presentation. He later shared it with the class. Throughout the task, he was very motivated and engaged in his learning.
I felt I have done my little bit for the day. I have known my learner and made him celebrate what he brings with him... his culture, his beliefs and thoughts about this country. I have respected him for who he is and truly welcomed him into my class along with the integration of technology.