Learning to learn

Published: 04 Sep 2017
Audience:
Education
Parents
Schools
Topics:
Improvement
Learning
Curriculum
Teaching
Evaluation indicators
Video
Improvement in Action Te Ahu Whakamua

Summary

“You’re set up for success. You’re all ready to go. You know what you are doing and you just hit the ground running.”

Clarity of expectations within a supportive environment are key to scaffolding children into the behaviours of effective learners. Those expectations are realised through structures and processes that ensure everyone knows what to do to achieve success.

 

 

Key messages:

  • The poutama is a metaphor for learning being made visible and scaffolding provided
  • Targeted teaching accelerates progress 
  • Learning to learn behaviours are explicitly taught 
  • The learning of the individual is supports within a framework of manaakitanga

 

Things to think about:

  • How do you set up students to monitor and evaluate their own learning and progress?

 

The evaluation indicators this video illustrates

  • Domain 4: Responsive curriculum, effective teaching and opportunity to learn 
    • Evaluation indicators
      • Assessment for learning develops students’ assessment and learning-to-learn capabilities
      • Students learn, achieve and progress in the breadth and depth of The New Zealand Curriculum and/or Te Marautanga o Aotearoa 
      • Students have effective, sufficient and equitable opportunities to learn
      • Effective culturally responsive pedagogy supports and promotes student learning

 

This video is part of a series

This video is part of the series Improvement in Action Te Ahu Whakamua. We created this series to inspire schools with examples of success in action. These examples highlight the benefits of fulfilling the evaluation indicators we use to review schools.

Remote video URL

(The video opens on a woman sitting in a school library speaking into the camera, a shelf of picture books behind her. Text along the bottom of the screen reads, “Katie Pennicott, Deputy principal, Invercargill Middle School”.)

 

We call them target students, but some people say priority learners.

 

(As she says “dropped” the scene shifts to show Katie sitting in a classroom across from two young boys.)

We'll, quite often we'll organise with the parents to help them get dropped off at 8 o'clock or half past 8.

 

(The camera zooms in on the desk and we see Katie push a flashcard with a mathematical problem towards one of the boys. Other cards sit by it with answers written on the desk in black marker.)

And they have target lessons at that time with their teacher.

 

(The camera pans up to the other boy sitting with them, who makes gestures with his hands as he listens to the lesson.)

There's routine, repetition, expectations in that time.

 

(The camera zooms back out and one of the boys picks up another card.)

And that's just to help them move up the Poutama or to accelerate their progress.

 

(One of the boys now speaks. Katie listens intently.)

I already knew the answer because I knew that 8 take away 6 equals 2.

 

(Katie replies and the camera zooms out. We can see another boy sitting on the other side of the table behind her. As she says “awesome” she holds her hand out to the boy who spoke and high-fives him.)

So you used a fact you know and you thought of it in your head, awesome.

 

(One of the boys raises his hand as we hear a different woman speak over the scene.)

Accelerated Progress structures everything.

 

(The video now changes to show the new speaker, who also sits in the school library. Text along the bottom of the screen reads, “Teresa Monteith, Year 4/5 teacher, Invercargill Middle School”.)

We find where they need to be and how we're going to get them there.

 

(As she says “or” the scene changes to a classroom, where two boys stand in front of a large cabinet. Stuck to the cabinet doors are six paper zig-zagging shapes with a kete pattern, each with three stair-like tiers. The shapes are labelled “Stage 6”, “Stage 5”, “Stage 4”, “Level 4”, “Level 3” and “Level 2”. The three tiers of some of the shapes are labelled “A”, “P” and B” from top to bottom. Small photos of students are placed at various places throughout the doors. One of the boys points towards one of the shapes.)

 

And that doesn't matter if you are a target student or if you are two years above where you're supposed to be.

 

(The camera zooms in and pans across the shapes.)

And every child has that right to move.

 

(One of the boys points to his photo stuck on shape labelled “Stage 5” and speaks to the other boy.)

I'm on Stage 5 on this.

 

(Zooming out, the boy continues to explain as the other boy listens.)

 

I want to get up to Stage 6 by doing 2 times, 5 times, and 10 times.

 

(Katie’s voiceover continues at the boys continue looking at the cabinet.)

Even the kids that are above need to keep going.

 

(We return to Katie in the library.)

That's why we use the visual representation of the Poutama, because it never ends. So in the morning before school, there's certain things that they do when they get to school so that they can, at 9:00 AM, boom, straight into it. And they run their own little programme.

 

(The camera returns to the classroom, now filled with students. In the foreground three boys sit at a desk with Katie, each with a book open in front of them. As she says “seven” the camera shows several shots of different students around the classroom reading and writing.)

And within that programme, there's about seven different things they do that sets them up for reading, writing, and maths for that day.

 

(The scene continues as a girl’s voice now speaks over it.)

Our classroom is very independent.

 

(She continues as the camera zooms in on a workbook a student is writing in.)

We know our routine, like get our books ready, our stationery ready, make sure that we have the right sheets.

 

(We briefly see two girls writing at a table before the camera changes to show the speaker. She sits in the same classroom speaking into the camera, Katie teaching a lesson behind her. She wears a badge on her hoodie that reads “YOUNG LEADER”.)

And so we're not rushing around the classroom to get them.

 

(As she says, “and” the camera shows a boy sit down at a table holding a tablet computer.)

Where we can just be straight on time, and carry on with our day and work.

 

(Katie’s voiceover returns, and we see a girl set up a laptop on the table next to the boy.)

So that when you come to writing time, you're set up for success, you're already ready to go. You know what are you doing, and you just hit the ground running.

 

(The camera zooms in on the girl with the laptop.)

Reluctant writers are made, not born.

 

(We return to Katie in the school library.)

And reluctant writers are reluctant because their teacher hasn't provided them with the right motivation and structure and self-belief that they can actually do it.

 

(The scene shifts to another woman who sitting in the library, speaking into the camera. Text along the bottom of the screen reads, “Matalaoa Taito, Year 5/6 teacher, Invercargill Middle School”.)

We're very deliberate, we want the kids to know that they can achieve, that they have a goal and they can get to it.

 

(We now see several students sitting on the floor, stands filled with books behind them. The camera then cuts to a different group of students sitting on the floor who talk amongst themselves. Matalaoa speaks in voiceover.)

And all of the kids show a lot of manaakitanga to each other. They care about each other.

 

(Two girls chat as they work at a desk. Another joins them and places a large book in front of her.)

They take their learning seriously because we take it seriously too.

 

(A group of students talk amongst themselves sitting on the floor, then a boy writes at a table. A different woman’s voice now speaks in voiceover.)

 

We didn't just say one day learning is going to be the key focus from now on.

 

(The camera now shows the speaker, again sitting in the library. Text along the bottom of the screen reads, “Cindy Neilsen, Year 3/ 4 teacher, Invercargill Middle School”.)

We had to build that up over time. We had to teach the children that they are at school to learn.

 

(Her voiceover continues as we see a different teacher in a classroom, speaking to a group of students that sit with her on the carpet.)

And to learn, you have to be able to listen.

 

(Students sitting on the floor talk amongst themselves.)

To learn you have to be able to independently work at your desk and complete a task set by a teacher.

It's just the same as for the teachers.

To grow as teachers, we have to keep learning, doing our readings for our staff meeting, contributing to those staff meetings.

 

(The camera returns to Cindy.)

Everything we do works towards an end goal, which is the children.