Programmes for Students:Accelerating Learning in Literacy

Evaluation and self-review day

Workshop 1, March 2014

ALL 1 - “What is acceleration and how do we achieve it?” Purpose of the workshop :• To evaluate current practices and prepare

for the short, intensive acceleration inquiry• Introduction to:

Theory of Action / Intervention LogicBES casesSelf-review tool

• Make initial organisational decisions

Programmes for students

• ALL focuses on using the expertise within the school to initially evaluate the effectiveness of current practices that support accelerated literacy learning and then to closely monitor the impact of a 10 -15 week intervention for a small group of students

– Theory of Action 2014 p14

Acceleration – what does that mean?

Acceleration in this context has three dimensions:• Acceleration is the student’s learning progress showing a

noticeably faster, upward movement than might otherwise have been expected by the trend of their own past learning.

• Accelerated learning is learning at a rate faster than

classmates progressing at expected rates in order catch them up; and

• Accelerated learning is learning at a rapid rate that brings the student achievement level to that consistent with, or beyond, a set of benchmarks or standards (NZ Curriculum Reading and Writing Standards).

A shift in the trajectory of learning

Weeks at School

Rea

ding

Lev

el

Is designed to build on:• effective classroom teaching and effective

leadership• Literacy as a key target for 2014

Expected outcomes:• Acceleration for small groups of students• A school curriculum and achievement

programme

Using the Intervention Logic

Starting with the Evaluation thread

• Curriculum and achievement– What works in our school, for whom and

why?– What does research say works faster, for

whom and why?

BES model for systematic improvement

School achievement • What is the pattern for your school?

• What do you know about the students who are not achieving as expected?

• Is there a pattern of under achievement?• What is already in place for these students?• What interventions are currently happening?• How are students selected? When? Who by?• Are the current interventions working? How do you know?• What happens when the intervention is finished?

Student agency

• students are supported to participate in the decisions about what is important to learn, how to learn, how to know how they are going and how they are going.

• Find out what the students you are going to work with think.

School self review and professional learning as inquiryHabitual

Inquiry

Cycle

Continual inquiry in to the impact of change. On-gong explicit discussion of the challenges faced.

The self review tools• The full set is available at: • http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Impact/Progress-and-achieve

ment/Self-review-tool-for-schools-focus-on-students-achieving-below-curriculum-expectations-in-Literacy-years-1-8/

• Rubric 6: Choices of approaches and interventions – an effective mix

• Rubric 9 : Accelerated progress for students achieving below curriculum expectations in literacy

– What is the evidence that supports my decisions?

Research - What works and why.The BES exemplars• 32 cases bring together research-based

evidence from New Zealand and elsewhere to explain what works and why in education.

• explain what works and why for diverse (all) learners in schooling, focusing particularly on what makes a bigger difference for Māori and Pasifika learners.

Other BES case studies include:• 10: Facilitate effective inclusion of learners with special needs• 11: Create educationally powerful connections with learners’

cultures• 12: Use effective strategies to include quiet learners• 13: Use effective teaching to counter the effects of reading

difficulties as a barrier to curriculum learning• 14: Facilitate the inclusion and achievement of new learners

of English• 17: Improve outcomes by actively engaging learners• 27: Treat appraisal as a co-constructed inquiry into the

teaching-learning relationship

– Education Counts. BESs and BES cases

Evaluation continued:

• OrganisationHow best do we resource this for:– Powerful connections with family/whānau– Classroom teaching– Supplementary inquiry team

The supplementary inquiry team

• ensure there are adequate conditions for sustaining and embedding effective practices

• support other classroom teachers to inquire into the effectiveness of aspects of their practice

• transfer learnings from the supplementary programmes to the classroom.

Selecting the teacher

• Adaptive teaching is teaching that deliberately responds to moment-by-moment and day-by-day interactions with students in ways that enhance the learning experience for the students.

Teacher inquiry is at the heart of improved learning outcomes for students

• The focusing inquiry establishes a base line and a direction

• It asks - What is important (and therefore worth spending time on), given where my students are at?

Workshop 2Planning the intervention

• What has to happen before next time?