TW Session 3
I really enjoyed the work we covered with Tim - all the pieces are starting to fit together.
For my practice this means identifying gaps and teaching to them -different in that the Inquiry Cycle involves deciding on a strategy, defining a time frame, Implementing the action and evaluating effectiveness. Alongside this is use of experts, research reading, collecting evidence and collegial/peer critique.
·
Sustaining Improvements on Student Achievement
·
Embedded process of inquiry
·
Experts within and outside school
·
Cycle of
Inquiry
·
Effectiveness of practice
·
Need to know what to do and what to stop doing
·
Identifying new challenges and how they will be
acted on
·
Examination of data
·
Examine any improvements
·
Minimise other goals to focus on inquiry
·
Identification of specific student learning
needs
·
Focus of middle management to develop a wider pool of leaders to draw on
·
Interschool conferences
http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Leadership-programmes/First-time-principals-modules/Module-2-Teaching-effectiveness
What it means to teach effectively
Style view –teachers are assessed against the students achievement
-effective teachers measured
against student achievement –teacher action against student achievement
1.
Effective teachers display
warmth.
2. Effective teachers are
enthusiastic.
3. Effective teachers provide
an overview at the start of teaching something new.
4. Effective teachers minimize
the amount of time they are teaching
the whole class from the front
(direct instruction).
5. Effective teachers
facilitate the joint construction of knowledge through teacher-student and
student-student conversations.
6. Effective teachers use
teaching techniques and approaches that research has shown to be
effective.
Flaws:
Outcomes approach
Flaws:
Inquiry Approach
Not only inquire but take action –collect and analyse data, Identifying possibilities for improvement
Improve
outcomes –look at own practice-engagement,
Knowledge skills and attitudes
Ideas from all
sources
Fallibilities:
No absolute truths, hypotheses may fail, beliefs may be
wrong.
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Teachers-as-learners-Inquiry/Learning-stories/Story-4 Moana’s Story
Evidence from data
Related reading to writing
Focus on one genre only –
narrative writing
Explicit and deliberate
teaching, students equipped with tools needed.
Recording of student
interviews
Portfolio assessments
Observations –video
early and late in the intervention to monitor use of instructional strategies.
You’ve got to be able to step back and be less directive
– give the students more autonomy. In some ways, I think it’s one of the harder
things for experienced teachers to do!'
Sharing the asTTle data and talking about her own
learning also helped:
'They knew it was part of our inquiry into our practice
and we were learning along the way … The students could see I was creating a
learning community.'
Support of Colleagues
'You’ve got to be able to step back and be
less directive – give the students more autonomy. In some ways, I think it’s
one of the harder things for experienced teachers to do!'
Sharing the asTTle data and talking about
her own learning also helped:
'They knew it was part of our inquiry into
our practice and we were learning along the way … The students could see I was
creating a learning community.'
What questions does this story raise for you and
your colleagues about:
·
the relationship between
reading and writing?
·
how to transfer knowledge
about effective pedagogical practice into your own teaching?
·
the concept of “effective
pedagogy for all learners”?
· the value of collaborative
inquiry?
·
the value of sharing
assessment data with students?
·
the importance of feedback and
“feed forward”?
·
the deliberate use and
combination of instructional strategies?
Jan Robertson’s 3R’s
for Coaching:
1. Reciprocity
2. Relationship
3.
Reflection-on-reality
·
Communication and interpersonal skills are
essential tools for working effectively with others
·
teacher pedagogy or educational leadership
·
effectiveness, to reach the students in the most
challenging situations, reciprocal learning for teacher and learner, leader and
follower, is essential. Where there is deep trust, there will also be a depth
of reflection on the reality of the learning context.
·
listen to their colleagues articulate and
justify certain elements of their pedagogy and practice: “What do you do and
why do you believe it is important? What impact does it have on students’
achievement in your class or school?
Reflective
Questioning
Effective frameworks for asking questions that challenge and
enable others to reflect in depth on practice are important. Good coaches are
aware of the types of questions they are asking, they are able to analyse their
questions, and they ask questions that delve down to the level of philosophies,
values and beliefs about the leadership of learning.
Self-assessment
A most important skill of coaching is creating
opportunities and designing the conditions for self-assessment. Often in
teacher appraisal, as well as in student learning, it is ‘others’ who give
feedback and assessment with little involvement of the learner in the
self-assessment process. Much of the interaction in education is typified by
someone telling another what to do, and how to do it, and then telling them how
well (or not) they have done it and what they should do.
Goal-setting
Goal-setting is an important part of coaching and
learning relationships as new learning is about the creation of new knowledge
and new ways of being. The coach as learning partner can input into this
process with ideas, expertise and suggestions. Important, however, is the
timing of input in this process to keep the responsibility and ownership for
the learning in the learner’s control. The learner then sets the priorities and
establishes a timeframe and commitment to the goals set.
The hardest aspect of teacher development for most
educators is being able to give and receive constructive evaluative feedback.
This is most often because they have not had the opportunity to learn effective
skills. If they follow this process above, and use the coaching skills
outlined, they will find partners not only taking responsibility for their own
practice but also ownership for the improvement of their work.
Developing a
coaching culture– “the way things are done around here”
Coaching,
therefore, is not something that you do for one hour twice a year at review and
development time or even once a month. Coaching can be the way you enter
relationships – teaching, learning, and leadership relationships - and a
particular organisational culture can develop when such peer-assisted support
and development is prevalent in the learning practices of educators and
students.
Inquiry – the
learning community is committed to researching their practice and seeking
information from each other. Teachers problematising their practice. They ask
each other questions about challenges they are facing and encounter in their
practice. They problem pose. They proactively search for continual improvement.
They ask questions such as
■
a. “What would happen if we tried …”
■
b. “What might we do differently?”
■
c. “Does anyone know any research that might
guide us?”
■
d. “Which students are not achieving as well
as others? Why not?”
■
e. “Has anyone tried anything similar to this
with their students?”
■
f. “What is the data/evidence telling us?”
Through this process, teachers create and share new
knowledge together as part of their daily work.
You would see students supporting each other in their
learning in the same ways, and encouraged
by their coaching partners’ reflective questioning
techniques to develop critical perspectives about their work.
Risk-taking and
challenge – supportive coaching environments are not soft and woolly – far
from it! In strong cultures built on networks of relational trust, educators
set very high standards and expectations for their own professional behaviour
and that of others.
Here members of the learning community try new ideas and
share their successes and ideas with each other as part of their learning
journey. They are open to new ideas and open to thinking about new ways of
working and being. They exhibit risk-taking and experimentation But it will be
in a cycle of reflection-on-reality. Their actions are informed by past
experiences and decision-making, and the extent to which these new actions
achieved the intended outcomes is subject to their own scrutiny and that of
their peers. The challenge part of coaching provides the opportunities and
structures to move people beyond self, across boundaries, sometimes beyond
their comfort zones, to enable different perspectives and methodologies to
confront existing ways of knowing. These outside perspectives, the observation
of others and new ideas, enables further reflection, examination of one’s own
work, and the justification of, or the subsequent change of one’s existing
practice in the light of this reflection.
Responsibility and
trust -from trustworthy, authentic leadership practice within the learning relationships.
Shared learning -when
people enter the learning relationship as partners.
Support
Building capacity
-Building capacity – in oneself, others and the organisation. Intellectual
capacity building is not enough – and social, cultural, emotional and spiritual
capital
Quality -% for
all
Innovation and
improvement -Students are creative in their approaches to their work – and
their coaching partners, (their teachers), value different ways of
understanding and achieving results.
Critical
reflection, thinking, and awareness -this requires outside perspectives and
feedback through coaching relationships. In these relationship-rich
communities, time is prioritised for critical reflection focusing on policies,
values, beliefs and principles.
Belief – in
oneself, in others, and in possibilities. Self-efficacy and self-confidence is
one of the most powerful determiners of one’s ability to learn and to feel that
one can make a positive difference in his or her work and life.
Coaching
partnerships, is much more than a one hour session here and there within an
organisation. It can influence the whole learning culture of an organisation.
Tim White Session 2
·
Sustaining Improvements on Student Achievement
·
Embedded process of inquiry
·
Experts within and outside school
·
Cycle of
Inquiry
·
Effectiveness of practice
·
Need to know what to do and what to stop doing
·
Identifying new challenges and how they will be
acted on
·
Examination of data
·
Examine any improvements
·
Minimise other goals to focus on inquiry
·
Identification of specific student learning
needs
·
Focus of middle management to develop a wider pool of leaders to draw on
·
Interschool conferences
What it means to teach effectively
Style view –teachers are assessed against the students achievement
-effective teachers measured
against student achievement –teacher action against student achievement
1. Teacher characteristics –
warm etc. 2. Techniques 3. Approaches 4. Minimise time they spend
whole class teaching.
Outcomes view
Inquiry framework –most
coherent
Short phrases with familiar words can be introduced through chunking
machines. A chunking machine is a tachistoscope that allows a student to pull
the reformatted or chunked text through the window to increase speed of
recognition. (See Figure 4 for an example of a chunking machine.) 
Developing Anticipatory Set 
