My Space and My Place

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:

1. Each member of the Tech Dept developed our own Visual Board relevant to a piece of text specific to our subject area
2. Karen shared a digital template for each of us to digitise our 'Explanation Writing'. We will complete this by the next department meeting
3. We are going to share our digitised 'Explanation Writing' with Marc Milford for feedback
4. Our 'Explanation Writing' posters will be colour printed to display in our classrooms.
5. 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!

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 a screenshot to show how I am collecting information about the implementation of my changed practice.  The screenshot shows student feedback in the [Current] DigiTech Level 1 Community.  The student feedback is a short comment "Very Helpful" that shows how the student feels about the video explanation to undertake the work.