Uru Mānuka Manaiakalani Outreach WFRC Feedback

Today Outreach Principals and leaders hosted our Woolf Fisher Research Centre (WFRC) colleagues Aaron and Selena, and Dorothy from Manaiakalani Education Trust (MET).

Aaron and Selena presented our Uru Mānuka 2016 Student Achievement data and its implications for next steps.

The day provided a wonderful forum to focus on student data and the implications for teaching and learning practice that will accelerate student achievement. The data provided clear evidence that we are accelerating student achievement in writing in Years 4, 5, 6 and 7. Our next steps are to identify the teaching and learning practices that are making these significant shifts so all learners across Uru Mānuka can benefit.

Our next meeting will clarify our achievement challenge and how and what we will do to achieve this goal. We have a wealth of data and emerging findings to focus on.

Leaders LEARNING
Leaders CREATING
Leaders SHARING

A big thank you once again to the Hornby Working Men's Club for hosting us and supplying us with yummy food!

Woolf Fisher Research Centre Feedback (WFRC)

Recently the Uru Mānuka Outreach Principals met with Dr Aaron Wilson, Dr Rebecca Jesson and Selena Meiklejohn-whiu from WFRC for our student questionnaire and classroom observations feedback.

Hornby Primary Student Questionnaire
Students who use a digital device for their learning participated in the questionnaire. The results were very positive, a summary is provided below

Using a digital device and learning in a digital environment

• has made my learning more interesting
• has made me a better learner, reader, writer and better at mathematics
• has made me more independent
• has helped my family know more about my learning

Classroom Observations

For the first 3 minutes of each interval, the teacher's' teaching actions were noted. For the second 3 minutes of each interval, the digital learning provisions were noted.

What is the teacher doing? What are the students doing? How are digital devices being used to support teaching and learning?

One of our achievement challenges is writing. After analysing the WFRC data we have begun to ask ourselves the following questions and identify if the following may have an impact on achievement:

• Providing experiences for children
• Authentic context for writing
• Individual blogs and blogging
• Providing feedback on blogs
• Multi modal approach - single texts/multiple texts
• Chn accessing a range of texts - are we restricting access? Chn are not reading widely as espoused
• Teacher dashboard on screen in class
• Critical questioning - Teaching by foci - why do you think McDonald’s advertise with …?
• Reduce navigating and organising time
• Nature of Task s
• Agentic learning - what do you give freedom over?
• Engagement - how do we engage chn that leads to improved learning outcomes?

For example, if teachers were to provide authentic learning contexts for children, opportunities for choice and more time to blog and comment on blogs, thus increasing the amount of time children spend writing, could this have a positive impact on achievement?

Below is a summary of a previous WFRC feedback session.

Our next step is to identify common hypotheses as a cluster and develop an action plan.

Lastly, a special thank you to WFRC for this wonderful opportunity. Having access to research and student achievement data is a luxury and also innovative. We have focussed on student data for a long time but have not always explicitly matched teacher practice to the equation - this provides us with a wonderful opportunity to transform our teaching and learning practice in order to make a positive difference for our learners!