Partnering with whānau

Whānau often ask what they can do to support their child's learning at home. We always recommend reading and talking about what has been read. We encourage whānau to find ways to enable their child to participate in our holiday blogging programmes to support literacy. However, with the change to the way in which Maths teaching and learning is happening in our learning spaces, there was the opportunity at last night's parent-teacher interviews to empower whānau to strengthen the connections between school maths and real-world maths.

The Developing Mathematical Inquiry in a Learning Community (DMIC) approach to teaching and learning in Maths requires learners to think, talk and collaborate to solve relevant, real-life Maths problems as a group. So, to support learning conversations about Maths at home, I created a Maths @ Home pack for each learner and enjoyed many conversations with whānau about how they might use this to support their child's learning at home.

Talking about Maths has never been so much fun!

Spark-MIT 2016: Reading over the summer holidays

As our new school year has begun with students heading into new learning in new environments, some questions remained about the reading habits and opportunities over the summer break for Room 10 @ Ruapotaka 2016 for my Spark-MIT inquiry.  How much reading was undertaken over the holidays? Did students participate in the Summer Learning Journey?  What levels of engagement were evident?  What has been the impact on reading achievement?  How were whānau engaged in supporting reading over the summer?

By December 2016, 15 learners remained in Room 10’s control group for this inquiry. Of these, four actively participated in Manaiakalani’s holiday blogging programme, the Summer Learning Journey: two learners published 20 posts each; one learner shared 18 posts; and the fourth student published seven posts.  Three of these learners had access to the internet and a digital device at home while one learner visited the public library to complete all blogging activities.  It should be noted that there were barriers to student participation in the Summer Learning Journey as all student chromebooks were kept at school over the summer.  Also, anecdotal evidence from students suggests that a number of families and whānau who actively support their children’s learning do not permit them to visit public libraries in the area to use the computer facilities for blogging or reading as they are viewed in a negative light.

On returning to Ruapotaka in February 2017, the Room 10 2016 control group was reduced further to 10: three students had moved to other schools and two students remained on holiday in Week 2 2017.  Three of these five students were active bloggers on the Summer Learning Journey but were not available for reading assessments.

Of the students assessed in February 2017, Student A’s reading level increased by six months between November 2016 and February 2017. He was an active participant in the Summer Learning Journey and engaged with digital texts at home online throughout the summer.  He made accelerated gains in reading between November 2015 and November 2016 and these were extended to a reading age of 10.5-11.5 during the 2017 summer holiday.

Student B’s whānau values reading and there is a collection of books to read at home. Student B read these “a couple of times a week” during the holidays but had no access to the internet or a digital device, nor was he allowed to go to the library.  Student B reads above his chronological age and maintained his reading age of 11-12 from November 2016 to February 2017.

Three students read books occasionally over the summer, either at home or at the library, and the reading age of all three declined by six months between November 2016 and February 2017.

Two further students did no reading at all over the summer holiday and it was determined that their reading age dropped by 12 months between November 2016 and February 2017.

To conclude, all students who engaged with reading over the summer, whether in digital or book form, whether they maintained their reading age or experienced some summer drop-off, were curious and self-motivated learners who enjoy reading, whatever their reading ability.  Significantly, those who were summer readers all received some level of support or positive encouragement from whānau.

Spark-MIT: Sharing at a staff meeting

On Tuesday there was an opportunity to share my hui and uLearn presentation at a Ruapotaka staff meeting to update my colleagues about my Spark-MIT inquiry: what have I discovered while involving and engaging whānau in their children's learning while trying to cause accelerated gains in their children's reading?

Our final Spark-MIT meeting for 2016

This week has seen the final Spark-MIT meeting for the year at Spark HQ - a time of sharing and reflection for our cohort of 11 teachers from within Manaiakalani and its outreach clusters. An updated video of my uLearn presentation shares my reflections.

So what have I achieved through my inquiry since August? Two more families have enjoyed whānau training with Manaiakalani's Whānau Learning Kaiarahi, Yayleen Hubbard. Whānau have begun to engage with blog commenting in response to student-created support resources and homework tasks! Year-end reading data has been collected and analyzed.

So what have I learnt from this data? 57% of the control group (currently 14) has made accelerated gains of 1.5 years in reading achievement since February 2016. Significantly, Alex’s new-found positive attitude to learning combined with whānau engagement and digital affordance caused a 1.5 year shift in reading. This model of engaging whānau with their child’s learning while striving to meet individual student needs will remain the central theme of my teaching practice.

And what next for my inquiry? Learners are excited about blogging through the summer holidays with the launch of the 2017 Summer Learning Journey. Further reading assessment in February 2017 will tell the final chapter of this inquiry’s story.

Spark-MIT 2016: sharing at uLearn

As part of the Spark-MIT 2016 cohort, I am inquiring into raising reading achievement while enabling family and whānau to engage with and support their child's digital learning journey. Each of the Spark-MIT 2016 teachers was tasked with sharing key learning and reflections from these individual inquiries to date in a five minute IGNITE presentation at uLearn 2016. Here is my presentation:

Spark-MIT 2016: a milestone for whānau

Yesterday, digital training to empower whānau within Manaiakalani was undertaken for the first time by a family at Ruapotaka. After much persistence on the part of the student, a one-on-one training session was organised between a parent and Yayleen, Manaiakalani's Whānau Learning Kaiarahi. Alexandra's mum spent an hour with Yayleen learning about kawa of care and setting up a personal email account.

It has been two months since our Chromebook hui, but this significant meeting is further evidence that whānau do want to engage with and support their child's learning. As well as being a milestone for whānau, it was a proud moment for Alexandra too. She is now able to take her Chromebook home more frequently: Training with Yayleen. Time will tell whether other learners follow Alexandra's model to facilitate such whānau meetings!

As we look forward to new learning and new opportunities in Term 3, it is exciting to report that all learners in Room 10 @ Ruapotaka now have a personal Chromebook. Parent interviews at the end of Term 2 enabled me to catch up with those families/whānau who were unable to attend our whānau hui earlier in the term. This development affords every student the opportunity to learn at home using a personal digital device from now on.

Whānau will continue to have opportunities to find out more about their child's digital learning journey by training with Manaiakalani's Kaiarahi/Whānau Engagement Facilitator. Our whānau blog is supporting the connections between home and school too: A group of students recently shared their screencast to explain the basics of a Chromebook for whānau.

Despite the Chromebooks remaining at school during the holidays, three learners have been actively blogging about the Olympics as part of the Winter Learning Journey blogging programme run by Rachel Williams of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. 

In Term 3, while we learn about the challenges faced by Olympians going for gold, learners will be challenged to go for reading gold by taking the opportunities afforded by ubiquitous learning.

The future looks rosy - and golden!

Connecting with whānau

Room 10 @ Ruapotaka held a Chromebook celebration last Thursday to engage with family and whānau and in order for learners begin taking their Chromebooks home to experience ubiquitous learning. To strengthen connections with whānau, two of the Manaiakalani team, Fiona Grant (Professional Learning Team Lead) and Yayleen Hubbard (Kaiarahi/Whānau Engagement Facilitator) offered support at this hui.

Creating

Students were actively engaged in preparing for this event by creating personal invitations for whānau. A small group of students also created a video invitation in English, Māori, Samoan and Tongan to maximise whānau understanding and involvement. To encourage learners to reflect upon the transition from homework to learning at home through this digital affordance, each student created a screencast to share with their families how and why their learning would benefit by taking a Chromebook home. Here is an example shared through individual learner blogs.

To support communication and engagement with whānau, an additional whānau page has been added to Room 10's class blog, where students have posted the first of a proposed series of screencasts to support parent and whānau understandings about being a Cybersmart parent.

Sharing

Each student led the experience for their family. To promote student independence and agency, learners were scaffolded to present learning and work through a series of tasks and activities with their visiting whānau.

An important aspect of this celebration was gathering data from whānau through a whānau survey to gauge attitudes to learning at home, and information about digital learning, use of public libraries and languages spoken at home.

Overall the celebration was highly successful as a model for engaging with whānau. Although there are a few students in Room 10 who have yet to complete the paperwork to purchase a Chromebook, only one family (of those students with a personal Chromebook) was unable to attend.

To reflect on this event, all students have been asked to write about their experience at our Chromebook celebration: here is Alexandra's writing. It is poignant that at this exciting and unique milestone event in their digital learning, a highlight for many students was sharing afternoon tea.

Learning

Through this Chromebook celebration, I have learnt that:

1. Learners co-operated and collaborated with new-found confidence when creating the various DLOs for this event as it represented a significant milestone in their personal digital learning journey.
2. Parents were excited to come and see digital learning in the classroom and excited that their child was able to begin learning at home using a Chromebook.
3. All learners were proud of their achievements and proud to share their digital skills with their visitors.
4. Google does not offer translation into Tongan.
5. Learners need a password to access the Tamaki Learning Network (TLN) on their Chromebooks at home!

Next steps

Learners will create additional screencasts to support whānau engagement with their child’s digital learning. Additionally, primary caregivers will attend some initial training with the Manaiakalani Kaiarahi/Whānau Engagement Facilitator to enable learners to take Chromebooks home more than twice per week. While maintaining relationships with family, it is now time to begin addressing the reading aspect of my Spark-MIT 2016 inquiry.