Final Inquiry Presentation 2017

This is my final inquiry presentation for 2017. I used this presentation which was created on Keynote to present my inquiry findings at ULearn 2017 in Hamilton. The last few slides summarises my findings in Term 4. I am grateful to have been a member of the SPARK MIT group in 2017.

Term 4 Paideia Practice with Y5&6 Extension group

Y5&6 Paideia practice Term 4 2017 from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

This terms theme is 'Musical Madness' with a focus on music and making music. The year 5 and 6 extension group practiced their thinking, speaking and listening skills through a Paideia practice session. They were encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions as well as piggy back off the ideas of others.

Most students participated well. Compared to Term 1, the students have a better understanding of how to be considerate of others, and how to wait for others to share their ideas especially if they have already spoken. Most are now more confident to share and express themselves during the group discussion. They are more focused and now put more thought into their answers. I am really proud with how far they have come.

ULearn 2017 - Day 2: SPARK MIT Presentation

On Day 2 of ULearn 2017 our SPARK MIT group presented at ULearn in Hamilton at the Claudelands event centre. Dorothy Burt had already set up the main presentation which appeared on a gigantic screen. We were given a briefing about the order of our presentations and a quick reminder that the audience would be given time to ask questions after every speaker. Each presentation would be delivered in the style of an ignite talk which meant that we would have 20 slides at 20 seconds each.



I was first up after Dorothy's presentation. I was confident that my presentation would be ok because I had already delivered much of the same information earlier at the Manaiakalani Hui. The main focus of my inquiry was about my experience with the use of the Paideia Seminars and my Year 5 & 6 Extension group. My goal was to use the Paideia method to improve critical thinking skills.

At the end of my presentation the floor was opened to the audience to ask questions. One of the questions asked was 'Why did you decide to use the Paideia method with your students?' My answer referred to the fact that we have many Maori and Pacific Island students at our school and that developing oral language skills was a key skill that needed to be developed amongst our students. Another question was 'How did I assess the students using SOLO?' In my reply I talked about the fact that the Paideia seminars were videoed so that I could analyse the footage and what the students said. I could then plot the answers according to the types of responses that the students had. This determined where the students sat on the SOLO framework in regards to their level of thinking.



After my presentation and question and answer session, the other SPARK MIT teachers delivered their presentations. Each of them spoke about their inquiries and findings which were all quite impressive. Angela was the only other teacher from Pt England, Dot and Hinerau were from Tamaki College, Troy was from Papakura College, Kelsey was from a cluster in Christchurch and Alicia was from a cluster in Northland.

Overall I think that the SPARK MIT group of 2017 did a great job. We all connected well with each other and enjoyed our ULearn experience. Thanks to SPARK and Manaiakalani for supporting us and for providing us with this experience. I am also really grateful to the help, guidance and support that I received from Anne Sinclair throughout my inquiry this year.

3rd Paideia Seminar Reflection

On Tuesday the Year 5 & 6 Extension students had their third Paideia Seminar for the year. The provocative statement was: ‘Is being civilised such a good thing?’ The statement was kept quite general and broad so that the students had the opportunity to take their thinking in many different directions. One of the discussions was about the idea that the advancement of technology was actually the cause of many of the problems that society now faces. Another was about the possibility of living on another planet.

The seminar provided opportunities for students to talk about the school wide theme: Guardians of the Galaxy. They have been learning about space exploration and the basic elements necessary for life e.g. soil, sun and water. In extension class they have been exploring the possibility that humans may need to physically adapt to survive on other planets.

Once again tokens (lollies) were provided on each table to encourage our speakers to participate and also remind them that they need to share an idea at least three times. Our less confident speakers were given cue cards to prompt them. Their names were also put onto the whiteboard and ticks were put next to their names after each time they spoke.

The idea was that this was going to be a collaboration and that students would participate equally and fairly. Less confident students were supposed to be encouraged to share. However things didn’t quite work out as planned. The same students tended to dominate much of the conversation and had to be asked to wait for others to speak first towards the end of the seminar. One of our less confident students declined the offer to speak and share an idea at one stage which was disappointing. Students also had to be reminded to connect with other ideas that were shared or to piggyback and acknowledge what was previously said.

The highlight was that a student who had been very reluctant to share ideas in the last two seminars was surprisingly one of the students who tended to dominate talk time during this seminar.

Next steps:

1. Continue to encourage the less confident students to participate more often. Next time these students might need some written statements handy to read out during discussions just to practice speaking in front of their peers in this type of situation more often.
2. The more dominant speakers may need cue cards to remind them what they can do to support others who have not participated enough.
3. Keep providing practice conversations/scenarios for students to practice piggybacking off the ideas of others, to extend their explanations and to think more deeply about what they are saying.

Second Paideia Seminar Reflection

Paideia Seminar Term 2: Year 5 & 6 Extension

Today we held our second Paideia Seminar for our Year 5 & 6 Extension students. The students had plenty of support during the lead up to this seminar. Throughout term they continued to practice how to disagree agreeably, listen to what others had to say and think about how to share their ideas based around an issue. The main topic was based around our school wide theme for the term - ‘Now That’s Thinking’ and about the impact of technology on our lives.

During the term the students practiced arguing their point of view about an issue. Once again we were lucky to have the guidance and support of Anne Sinclair who helped throughout the term. The main task in Term 2 was to create a mini production. The students were put into 5 main groups: Script writers, set/background designers, dancers, costume designers, and light and sound team.

Each team collaborated and contributed to the creation of the production. They also researched about an aspect relating to their group focus e.g. history sewing machines, dancing, and set designs. They began to see how the development of innovative technologies has changed the way things are done over time e.g. digital technology now means that music and set designs can now be digitally created. The students then participated in the mini production in front of the school at the end of the term.

Today’s panel discussion was the culmination of the students research and work around the issue of collaboration and technology. Once again a room was setup to create the atmosphere of a conference. Students in each group received lollies as a form of token. Each student could eat a lolly once they had shared their thoughts. Everyone was encouraged to speak, share and respond.

I noticed that the students were quite shy to begin with. Further into the seminar the students began to gain confidence and were more willing to participate and speak up. One student in particular needed to be reminded to let others speak as this person tended to dominate the conversations.

Overall I think that the seminar was very successful. I am proud of what the students have achieved. It reinforced the knowledge that we have some very bright students in this group. However a couple of students still need to learn how to listen and give others a chance to share. A few students also need to be more prepared, or have more courage to share their ideas.

Our reflection will look at:

1. How are we going?
2. What worked well?
3. Where are we going?  
4. What could we improve?
5. Where to next?

For a first time in Stage 1 of the Paideia Seminar the students did so well. We can ask them these questions as well and also what they would like to see and what ‘rules’ we could use, eg:

• Only one person talks at a time
• Respect the speaker
• Give others a chance to speak
• Look at the person you are talking to or asking a question of
• Say their name when you ask them a question or challenge an idea
• Be supportive of others and help them to participate
• Be prepared
• Expand on the discussion ideas next time using the prompts
• Extend the discussion

Reflection about Fake News Inquiry Enactment

Fake News Inquiry Enactment

Search for the Kraken on the internet.   

• Decide: Is the Kraken real, imaginary, or something in between?
• How do you know?
• Why might it be important to be able to figure this sort of thing out?

This was another opportunity to practice the Paideia method leading up to our seminar. Students were instructed to search for the ‘Kraken’ and decide whether it was real or not. Students took sides and interestingly enough there were a couple of groups who thought it was either real, fake, and/or something in between.

The process of making a decision based on evidence or lack of evidence found on the internet (or from personal general knowledge) was encouraged. Through discussion, students were asked to justify their positions based on their findings. There were interesting and plausible answers for and against the existence of the Kraken.

Students questioned the reliability of the internet and the lack of concrete evidence. Others made comparisons to dinosaur fossils and the possibility that the Kraken may have existed as a type of ancient species. Regardless of their positions, the students continued to practice how to listen to others, build on the ideas of others and argue their point of view backed by evidence.

Paideia Practice The Kraken July 2017 snippets from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

Talk Science and Talk moves - relation to Paideia method

Link to article

Talk Science

This article is about academically productive talk and how to achieve it in a classroom setting. Although the focus in on improving discussion and thinking around science concepts, it can apply to any subject.

I read this article because it completely compliments and supports the Paideia method that we have been using with the Year 5 & 6 Extension group this year.

(From the article)

Four necessary and foundational goals that underpin academically productive discussions:

1. Help individual students share, expand and clarify their own thoughts.
2. Help students listen carefully to one another.
3. Help students deepen their reasoning.
4. Help students engage with others reasoning.

 

Too often in a classroom, discussion about a subject is only at a surface level and deep thinking about concepts and ideas by students is never reached. The teacher usually asks a question with a single right answer and calls on a student to respond. The teacher indicates whether the answer is correct and then moves onto another question. This approach does not encourage students to take risks or develop critical thinking skills.

Academically productive talk is about students being fully engaged in a discussion, sharing ideas, listening to others, and taking risks. It is also about conversation being focused and coherent, based around a given idea or issue.  

Well established ground rules are needed for talk. I feel that this was accomplished during term 1 when the Year 5 & 6 Extension students were constantly reminded about what a Paideia style discussion looked and sounded like. They were given plenty of opportunities to practice thinking and talking about an issue or topic.

The end of term Paideia seminar consolidated their learning and understanding of the Paideia method and about the issue of pollution. The students reflected on the seminar and talked about the areas that needed improvement. Some of the reflections mentioned that a couple of students had dominated the conversations and that they needed to be more inclusive of others by taking turns and encouraging others to participate more.

More importantly the students realised that they needed to build on other students arguments and points of view. They tended to have lots of individual disconnected ideas which is talked about in the article. We looked at ways in which they could connect their combined ideas by listening thoughtfully, building/piggy-backing on ideas, clarifying etc.

By the middle of Term 2 (just recently) the students were able to show that they could build on arguments and use effective language in their discussions e.g. ‘ Can you clarify...’, ‘I agree with ___ because…’, I’d like to piggyback on ____ idea because…’  and so on.

The answers were more focused, specific and varied. Students were thinking more with little prompting to inspire conversations. The topic that was put to the students was about ‘fake news’. Some students were interested in using their background knowledge of the recent terrorist bombings to talk about the idea of ‘fake news’.  The students talked about the evidence that was needed. They understood that providing proof was important and they could give examples of what to look out for. They could identify some of the key indicators of ‘real news’ items e.g. footage, photos, interviews with witnesses, reliable sources etc.

The biggest difference from last term was that more students were confident enough to share their ideas. Last term there were at least 3-4 students who could speak confidently and most of the group tended to keep quiet. Now there are 3-4 students who still need to build their confidence while the rest of the group are confident to share their ideas freely.