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.
