My Space and My Place: June 2021

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Share three pieces of academic or professional reading and explain how they and other sources helped you form hypotheses about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning.

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2021 will be my Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class. This group of learners were my target group from my 2020 Inquiry.

The following are the pieces of academic or professional readings that I used to help form my hypothesis about aspects of teaching that might contribute to current patterns of learning:

Literacy Learning Matrix

The key findings that I gained from this reading, was seeing and understanding a concise breakdown of what students are likely to learn through the various concepts, or "Big Ideas", outlined in the matrix. This is particularly useful, when trying to enable learners who are new to the subject at NCEA Level 2, to digest terms and concepts that are completely foreign to them. This has definitely been the case with my 'newbies', but is also useful to my returning students, who may be struggling with NCEA Level 2 concepts, which is a huge jump from NCEA Level 1.

Visualisation of Key Concepts

Whilst this reading focussed on what learners gain from visualisation techniques as readers, I was also able to draw on this strategy of students using visualisation to develop deeper understanding of concepts. This technique I gained from work that I had undertaken with Marc Milford, with my Year 10 DGT Class, focusing on Climate Change, as well as my Year 9 DGT Class, focussing on Matariki. I know that my senior DGT learners still struggle with concepts such as the identification and prioritisation of Stakeholders, so this strategy could be useful in progressing learning student learning and understanding.

Summarising

The simplicity by which this resource has been put together, is a great snapshot on what to focus on when supporting learners to articulate and summarise their key thoughts and ideas. Learners often get caught up in the notion that volume, and great levels of descriptions, will 'cover' everything that needs to be communicated in a written summary. My Senior DGT students are no different. Text/lesson summary exercises, are another strategy that I learnt in the work that I have done with Marc Milford this year. This is an extremely useful strategy to help my learners to articulate their key findings, without waffling on, but by also meeting the assessment criteria in the achievement standard.

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Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2021 will be my Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class. This group of learners were my target group from my 2020 Inquiry.

Initially my target group of learners fro my Inquiry for this year, was the Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class that I had taught in 2020 as Year 11 students, and who were also a part of my 2020 target group of learners. The idea was to build and extend on what I had inquired into from the previous year.

As Year 11 students, 2/11 of the target group had gained ten achievement standard credits, and 5/11 of the target group had gained thirteen achievement standard credits; this was in addition to DGT credits that they had gained from external providers. Of this target group of learners from 2020, 6 out of the 11 students have returned to undertake DGT Level 2 in 2021, as well as an additional six new students who are taking DGT Level 2 for the first time and not having taken the subject at NCEA Level 1.

The student challenge that I identified at the beginning of the year, was for learners to be able to write and achieve at Merit and Excellence levels for NCEA Level 2 achievement standards. This is still the challenge. However, the main challenge impacting student learning for my 2021 target group at the moment is actually time in class. One of the original learners from the beginning of the year has now left. The remaining students in my class in involved in either one or two external courses per week. What that means for those students, is that they are offsite, all day, completing courses with external providers and gaining great success with those courses.

So, literacy is still one of the main barriers to learning. However, there are a range of other barriers to learning, or student challenges, that have and are superseding the original challenge. As opposed to inquiring solely into the use of Academic Writing exemplars specific to Digital Technologies to accelerate student achievement at Merit and Excellence levels, I need to adapt the inquiry and the use of Academic Writing exemplars specific to Digital Technologies to accelerate student achievement at all levels.

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My Space and My Place

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2021 will be my Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class. This group of learners were my target group from my 2020 Inquiry.

My target group of learners for my Inquiry 2021 will be my Year 12 NCEA Level 2 class. This group of learners were my target group from my 2020 Inquiry.

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Manaiakalani

Tamaki College

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