INQUIRY QUESTION
Will taking the less is more approach improve student outcome?
My Inquiry question was directly related to coming back to school post COVID. Our schools big focus coming back was allowing the students to come in at whatever level they were and putting no stress on whether or not they engaged with online learning. I knew I would feel the pressure of trying to get the students to where they needed to be while plugging some major gaps in some of my lower levelled students. How could I help the lower levels while also engaging the higher levels and without going 100 miles an hour. I thought I'd start with Yolanda phonics. I had watched one of our teachers teach phonics during level three and it just clicked for me. The students were engaged across all levels and it was explicit teaching of things my students needed at the time. Below are some of the things I implemented into my teaching practice in order to accomplish this.
Instead of this being a 10 minute in and out session I started to link our phonics into our writing. The phonics lesson plan went like this.
- 2 minute recap of phonics the day before. E.g. letter name, phoneme, word, word meaning robot arms etc.
- What's today's letter? What words do we know?
- Go through each word, do robot arms.
- Students write a sentence with the word in it.
- Extra activity (not all the time): students would write a silly sentence that attempts to include all the phonics words we have talked through.
Explicit instructions was another big thing for me. With 4 students hard of hearing and another handful with focus problems taking the time to give meaningful instructions was extra important to me.
Discussing New Words
Some of the things I found really important was asking questions about words they might not have understood and taking the time to talk through those words.
Using the whiteboard
Using the whiteboard is a good way to allow students a point to return too if they need support. I find students tend to go there for help before coming to me. A common question I started to get asked was, "where is the word ______" because the students know we talked about it and are happy to put it in their writing. The next step for me will be allowing this to be done digitally so the students can come back to it if they need to.
Peer share
Another good thing I learnt from Marie Hirst (who does maths personal development) is peer share time is important. Get students to turn and touch knee's, this ensures they are focusing fully on their partner. Sharing with their peers is a great chance for students to exchange ideas, check their own ideas and get new ideas from a child's perspective.
Repeat instructions back
A simple but effective strategy. Targeting those students you don't think are understanding and asking them to repeat the instructions back to you or asking them content specific questions. This often gets those not paying attention to pay attention and it helps gauge how many of our students are understanding.
Taking the time to complete projects is something I am still working on. The same students are finishing work on time and the same students are struggling to keep up. One of my focuses has been allowing opportunities for students who are finished to publish and extend their learning while allowing the students still finishing to get work done. I constantly felt bound by my weekly plan/ LTP so would constantly feel rushed. Now I schedule time to complete tasks. Students who complete all work get an option to complete extra blogs (something they are currently enjoying).
Integration as been a big one for me. Killing two birds with one stone as it were. Curriculum overcrowding is something we struggle with daily. Trying to fit everything we need to do and teach into a 25 hour week. Doubling up allows us the opportunity to cover all topic areas as well as showing students how these skills are important across the curriculum. My example about doing phonics but tying it into writing is just one example. You could integrate it with art, maths, reading and P.E if you wanted to. Moving forward I will look to take a main focus area and integrate it throughout the curriculum in order to get a true understanding from the students but also to minimize the busyness of the timetable.
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