I’m in my usual September holiday place on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. The sun has broken our winter mindsets as we swim in the surf and relax by the pool in the afternoon. It’s just what the doctor ordered as we build up the energy bank for a hectic term 4.
Yesterday we saw whales about 100 metres out from shore and watched as they splashed about. This is quite common for the Sunshine Coast.
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A site worth looking at http://t.co/PbMZks5i
What a great video I discovered on the first day of holidays – a thank you to teachers. http://t.co/s6GMLGgr
3 teachers are on a funded Chinese Cultural program in Beijing in the school holidays. Follow their journey: http://t.co/lN5Klu3c
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I’m looking forward to a group of 15 New Zealand Principals visiting EPS on Tuesday to look at Inquiry based learning.
Last week I facilitated an Instructional Round at a neighbouring school and tried to embrace some of the principles of Data Wise into the evidentiary analysis of the observations. The initiative was well received so I thought I would share it.
There were 3 groups of principals who observed students in 5 classes over an hour. Our prime focus was on student understanding of and connection to the lessons stated learning intention. We made 75 observations which were grouped and regrouped according to some headings (and this was the initiative) and then tallied the number of observations in each group calculating each groups percentage of the total number of observations.
We were then able to make some generalisations for example:
This school had been providing some professional learning on learning intentions over the past few months for teachers. We saw the intentions written in some form in every class. The students were questioned during lessons and were completing a variety of tasks from debating, to planting, to playing a mathematics game.
This information was going to be shared with the observed teachers later in the day. One comment made was that it would have been nice to have a snapshot of this type of data before they started their professional learning program to measure progress. Anecdotally the school felt that there was a significant change and would then decide on its next phase of work.
My reflections were that although the analysis was not an exact science it did prove useful and I’m taking this back to my implement in my school. As as teacher I would have liked some examples of the sort of comments students made (random example) to get an idea of depth of understanding.
Comments?
I just signed up for ASCD SmartBrief. You can subscribe for free here http://t.co/UgGWlbOE
Last Sunday I spent Fathers Day with the family over a long lunch where 3 generations of Walkers gave speeches about family and unity. One brother phoned in from China to speak and everyone toasted.
I was spoilt by my own children with a card that expressed their gratitude and love and was presented with a biography about Gough Whitlam.
Gough was an inspirational figure to me during the early 1970’s as I entered University as a young adult seeking to change the world. Its well known that he was dismissed several years later by the Governor General Sir John Kerr, who he appointed. In his time he made many changes to Australia a few of which still remain today. I’m looking forward to reading the book on the beach during the holidays. I couldn’t resist inserting a You Tube clip of his time as Prime Minister to remind us all of those times.
I wonder “dads” how your day went and any memories it stirred for you?
Last month David Rease Jnr from Harvard visited Elsternwick to view our progress in implementing the Data Wise: Inquiry Approach to Improving Instruction in schools. We were quite chuffed at David’s visit and recorded this clip to capture some of his initial observations and reflections.
As you will hear he commented on staying low on the ladder of inference when talking about his observations. David talks about how he observed the Ace Habits of Mind, which was essentially a professional learning tool, into the classroom.
I suppose his final reflections on the value of play during school time was the most surprising for us here in Victoria.
This is also the first clip I have posted on You Tube so I’m quite pleased with my first efforts here.
I’d be interested in hearing from other schools engaged in Data Wise work so that we may continue our learning.
Over recent weeks I have pondering concerns raised by teachers and a few parents on the use of data to report to parents (summative assessment).
Last week three of my staff attended a briefing on the new National Curriculum due to be implemented in 2013. Most of the questions raised at the briefing were about reporting to parents (summative assessments).
Preceding that briefing I had conducted a staff workshop on Data Wise which looked at shifting some school structures to compliment a more formative view of assessment and was struck by the same emphasis, even concern expressed by some teachers on the need to verify summative teacher judgements with some standardised data. Why – reporting to parents.
This pondering led me to some personal reflections on when reporting to me, as a parent, changed to reporting to the learner, in this case my children. I recall somewhere around year 8 when my then teenagers accompanied me to parent teacher interviews. High schools typically have a hall or school library filled with teachers sitting at tables with a mark book and reporting to some 100 or more parents at 5 minute intervals. I was running late for the first interview and the conversation had started and I sat back and listened to both the teacher and the student having a talk about progress and future goals. It struck me then that my role had shifted to that of a supporter and only once in the ensuing years did I intervene when some battle axe, I thought, was less than productive as she chomped through my son after he paid her a compliment.
I reflected on Patrick Griffin, from Melbourne University, quote – “assessment is for teaching” and these concerns. I have some wonderings:
– when do we engage the actual learner in the summative conversation or is it secret adults business?
– are we so very concerned about the accuracy of judgement (A,B,C,D) which of itself is of little value in terms of feedback that makes a difference to learning (self esteem aside) that we place the the formative stuff to one side?
– or are there lots of other agendas that we cannot face or mention here?
My own thoughts are that we must commit to the value of using data formatively to make a difference with the learner to their outcomes. All the rest is second hand.
Recently we held another teacher workshop on the “Words their Way” approach to spelling. I’ve talked about this approach before, which we have trialled in different year levels for some 18 months. All of our trial results have been positive with all classes recording an average student growth rate of between 6 – 24 months over the 6 month test period. We used Hattie’s formula to calculate the effect size between classes.
The consistent variables in the test results between classes include: teacher knowledge about the approach, frequency of spelling sessions over a fortnight, teacher commitment to the program, ability to structure or program sessions over a fortnight so that all students receive explicit instruction at their level and of course resources.
This year for the first time all classes (Prep – Year 6) were expected to implement the approach within their writing workshops. After the first 6 months we again experienced varying levels of growth rates with a general trend downwards as the students got into higher year levels. These results coincided in the upper level with the biannual staging of the senior musical (3 months in production), the usual weekly sporting commitments, a 10 session drama program over 10 weeks and weekly instrumental music lessons for 25% of students – all of these compete for space within the 25 instructional hours of a week. This is of course on top of our weekly specialist lessons in Visual Arts, Mandarin, Physical Education and Music.
It would be too easy to use these competing demands simply as an excuse for lower than desired results in spelling if we were not prepared to alter some things – and we are ,with some programs finishing in the second semester and some programs being deleted from the schedule for 2013.
What we do need to do is continue skilling up teachers in the program – hence the session a few weeks ago.
‘Words their Way’ as an approach that teaches students about the way language works as opposed to the simply drilling or wrote memorization of words we all did in school. I still think there is a place for the memorization of words preferring the ‘Look, Say, Name, Cover, Write and Check’ strategy – it’s just not as the only way people learn to spell correctly – simply there are too many words in the English Language to do this with – we need something more efficient – hence “Words Their Way’.
I’d be interested to hear from practicing teachers experiencing similar problems or effectively using this approach in their classrooms.
