My Space and My Place

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One of the Technology Department Goals for 2020 was based on Literacy, in alignment with the School Goal 2 for Literacy and Numeracy.

The Technology Department Literacy Goal for 2020 is:

To develop ‘Explanation Writing’ classroom display resources for each specialist technology subject, based on SOLO taxonomy

After the department literacy session on understanding the Explanation Writing process, I developed an 'Explanation Writing' template for Digital Technologies. I shared this with Marc Milford, who provided feedback and changes as shown below.

Discussion Points about the Explanation Writing Digital Technologies poster

In order for teachers to assist learners with fluent writing, beyond the use of sentence starters, it is important to master three types of functional verbs used in writing. These are:

relational verbs (small auxiliary verbs that express tense)
mental verbs (what you do in your head)
action verbs

Final Writing Explanation Poster for Digital Technologies

The Final Writing Explanation Poster for Digital Technologies looks as follows. This will be colour printed, laminated, and displayed on my classroom wall.

Next Steps

I have been developing a slide deck of Academic Writing that relates to Game Development. The academic writing exemplar follows SOLO taxonomy, and I intend using this as an exemplar with my students, to support them to gain Merit and Excellence. I am seeking feedback and support from Marc Milford, after which, I will be further developing the exemplar to follow the Explanation Writing model demonstrated in the poster. This will enable a Visual Representation to be used on my classroom wall, Working Exemplars that the students can follow, and hopefully the consistency of the design, both within my own practice, and also across the department, will reinforce the key literacy features that we are wanting our learners to apply in their own work.

As a department, Marc Milford has been providing feedback to Technology staff on their Explanation Writing Posters, such as the Digital Technologies poster shown in this post. Marc is going to attend our department meeting, and give an overview and explanation of the feedback that he has provided, and changes that he may have made to our posters. From there, we will be looking at literacy strategies that we will address in the future with our learners.

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The following is one of our Department Goals for 2020:

To develop ‘Explanation Writing’ classroom display resources for each specialist technology subject, based on SOLO taxonomy

Discussion Points about Literacy Issues

Staff have been trialing a range of different Literacy Strategies with their learners within our different learning environments.
Students struggle with the physical act of writing. Blogging is inconsistent, and time constraints is an issue.
Students are struggling to read and understand instructions, including identifying and understanding key words.

And so, as a department we decided to prioritize this goal as a Dept Goal focus for 2020.

We are extremely fortunate that Karen has been working closely with Marc Milford to develop an Explanation Writing frame for her students in DVC. Karen lead us through the initial process that she has undertaken to break down a piece of text relating to our specialist subjects areas. The workshop was great, and everyone enjoyed the activities that Karen had organised for us.

The following is a general outline of the process that are following:

Each member of the Tech Dept developed our own Visual Board relevant to a piece of text specific to our subject area
Karen shared a digital template for each of us to digitise our 'Explanation Writing'. We will complete this by the next department meeting
We are going to share our digitised 'Explanation Writing' with Marc Milford for feedback
Our 'Explanation Writing' posters will be colour printed to display in our classrooms.
As a department, we will decide through the development of the Explanation Writing display poster, how the resource would and could be used to measure literacy progress for the students.

I'm really looking forward to experimenting with this literacy strategy with an upcoming assessment I have with my DigiTech Level 2 students.

A huge thanks to Karen for leading this session with the Tech Team, and also for modelling the process that she has applying in her subject area. Thanks Karen!

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Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2020 will be my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 class. I intend inquiring into the process of using the LearnCoach online programs (content) and VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning (workflow) to accelerate student achievement for Tamaki College students undertaking courses in Digital Technologies NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3.

The following is another intervention that I would like to apply with my target group, after I attended the presentation I attended about Student-Design-for-Learning by Naomi Rosedale. The intervention includes students highlighting aspects of their learning that that they believe meets the standard criteria, and linking the evidence of their work into an Evidence Gathering Sheet. As the Teacher, I will underline sections of the student work that meets the standard criteria, so that both the student and myself can differentiate between the self assessment and teacher assessment of the students' work.

Prior to this intervention, I was highlighting the students' work that meet the standard criteria. However, students were just following the task instructions, and not undertaking any level of self assessment to ensure that the criteria was being met. I believe that this has been contributing to learners not being able to demonstrate their understanding of the work.

So, by implementing this intervention 'of highlighting the work that meets the standard criteria' with my target learners, I believe that the students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the work, and my hunch is that this will positively impact the turnover of completed tasks in the Class Tracking Sheet.

Student Work - Example

The following is an example of one of my Year 13 learners, highlighting sections of their task that meets the assessment criteria outlined in the Design Brief, as well criteria outlined in the Evidence Gathering sheet. I have underlined the work that actually meets the criteria.

Standard Criteria - 91611

The following is a snapshot of the standard criteria for AS91611. The sections that apply to the highlighted work included 2 (bullet point 1) and 3; both sections making reference to the context that students need to consider when making the prototype.

Evidence Gathering Sheet

The following is section of the Evidence Gathering Sheet that includes links to the evidence of student work, and allows the student to see what aspects of the evidence are contributing to standard criteria being met.

As mentioned, I am not currently using this particular intervention with my target group of students. I will aim to implement this strategy when both myself and my learners are back onsite from next week onwards.

The way that I will collect information about the implementation of my changed practice and intervention is by collating the evidence of student work that includes highlighted sections of the task. This will be relatively straight forward, as learners need to provide evidence of how criteria has been met for internal and external moderation purposes as a requirement of NZQA. The main difference will be that students will be highlighting their work that meets the standard criteria, and I will be verifying this by underlining work that meets the standard criteria.

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Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2020 will be my Year 11 NCEA Level 1 class. I intend inquiring into the process of using the LearnCoach online programs (content) and VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning (workflow) to accelerate student achievement for Tamaki College students undertaking courses in Digital Technologies NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3.

Prior to Level 3 lockdown I attended the Manaiakalani Leaders Meeting. One of the presentations during the meeting was Student-Design-for-Learning by Naomi Rosedale. I was really intrigued by the use of DLOs by students, to articulate their learning in the manner in which they were doing at a secondary school level.

My learners were already used to developing Screencastifies to provide of certain aspects of their work. The change in practice and intervention that I have implemented recently with my target group, is that they will produce a screencastify at the end of end module within an achievement standard, to demonstrate what they had learnt within that module. I integrated the Screencastify task at the end of each module or section of work within the Workspace for the Assessment. The workspace can be accessed by clicking on the image below.

The following is an example of how Olever is creating Screencastifies as DLOs in this assessment.

1 Introduction to Web Design

Create a screencastify to show all of the tasks that you have completed for the 1 Introduction to Web Design section.

1 Introduction to Web Design

What is a Website Screencastify
Creating Your First Webpage Screencastify

Identify informal & formal ways you are monitoring the effects of your changed practices/intervention on learner outcomes. Explain the reflections and tweaks you are making along the way (Don’t wait to the end of your inquiry cycle and find it didn’t work)

The way in which I will be able to monitor the effects of my changed practice, is by the Class Tracking Sheet within the workspace. The tracking sheet will enable myself and the learners to identify, who has completed the screencastifies for each section. The screencastifies themselves, will enable me to see whether the student was able to demonstrate their understanding of the work in the DLOs that they created, and the depth of understanding.

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My Space and My Place

Academic Writing - Online Game

Discussion Points about the Explanation Writing Digital Technologies poster

Final Writing Explanation Poster for Digital Technologies

Next Steps

Describe how you will collect information about the implementation of your changed practices/intervention (so it is clear what you doing differently)

1 Introduction to Web Design

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