Teaching inquiry Term 1-2 (2019)

The first two terms I have decided to focus my Teaching inquiry on my students writing. And this is what I have noticed.

Students learning profile and responsive learning design.

This study is focusing on the use of data triangulation (work products, assessments, and

observation) to build up a comprehensive students’ profile to help determine the design of

the tool that will have that domino effect on the three underachievers in Year 6 students in an

East Auckland primary school. These three underachieving Year 6 students required acceleration

in Writing because they are making very slow progress and are dropping further and further

behind their classmates. The use of formal, informal, formative, and summative assessment

outcomes confirm why these students need acceleration.

According to their Asttle levels, these students have been featured at 2B to 2P since last year.

E-Asttle writing assessment is one of the best tools because it is a diagnostic test that allows

national normative analogies of students' achievements nationally and gives a structure to

inspect and track students' progress in Writing (Parr, 2016). 2B is the curriculum expected level

by the end of Year 3 and 2P is the norm at the end of Year 4 and starting point for Year 5.

Although they are both 2P the mean score can differentiate each level. The mean score for Year

4 is 1421 whereas Year 5 is 1434. The e-Asttle Norms and Curriculum Expectation by Quarter

(Ministry of Education, 2013, n.d., Appendix A)

confirmed that the expected curriculum level at the fourth quarter for my Year 6 students is
3P and the mean score is 1509.  Two of my students were at level 2P at the end of 2018
where they scored 1426 which is equivalent to 2P, the Curriculum level at the end of year 4
and a starting point for year 5 but the third student scored 1468 which is the mean curriculum
level and expected outcome for the end of the third quarter for Year 5 (Appendix B2, B3,
B4 and B5). At the beginning of term 1 2019, one of the threes remain at level 2P with a score
of 1431 that equates to the curriculum level expected at the beginning of the first quarter for
Year 5 students, the second person started off the year by achieving level 2P (score 1431) which is also equal to the first person and the third student has scored 1362 and working at
the expected level at the end of Year 3 students.  This means my first two students who scored
1431 and worked at the curriculum level of the first quarter of the Year 5 students are 12
months trailing and the third person who accomplished level 2B is 27 months which is far
behind the expected achievement for these students.  According to the e-Asttle Norms and
Curriculum Expectation by Quarter (Ministry of Education, 2013, n.d., Appendix A) at this point
of time, these students are expected to be accomplishing level 3B and by the end of the last
quarter, the outcome should be level 3P with a score of 1509.  Consequently, there is a huge
gap of 149 for one of the pupils and the other two people have 78 points to achieve in order to
reach the National Norm. I have even gone through the blogs of the schools and compare their
writing and ours and noticed the differences. I didn’t know where to start so I utilize some
activities from ARBs (https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/) to test and firm my hunches.   The first thing I
found is that their writing lacks detail, they will have some ideas but can not elaborate it and if
they have some elaboration it only to some extent (Appendix C1, C2, C3).

Referring to the Reading and Writing Standards (http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Archives/Assessment/Reading-and-writing-standards/The-standards/End-of-year-6) it pointed out that the demand of the curriculum for Year 6 students are expected to create more complex texts and demonstrated increased fluency and accuracy as it showed in (Appendix D).  I chose several activities from these formative assessments resources banks (https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/) which validate the elements in writing which we need to focus on using describing words  in their sentences (Appendix E1, E2, E3), 

writing sentences that utilised speech marks and other punctuations that are needed ( Appendix F1, F2, F3, F4)

and the last part that I really needed them to work on was adding details which will teach them to elaborate their story but I didn’t find any satisfactory activity so I have decided to use an activity that was created by Jude Parks ( Appendix G1, G2, G3). 

These summative, OTJ’s, work products, student interviews, questionnaires, and observations Appendices H1 - H3) were vital tools to inform student profiles indicated by Glasswell and Parr (2009). ARB activities, Asttle outcomes showed on their individual learning pathways and students’
written achievement results are indications of the seriousness of acceleration.