25 February 2019
Step 1: Briefly define your audiences
The audience I will be identifying for the purpose of this reflection is our school representative for the Community of Learning - Literacy. Her role is to "enhance Literacy and Learning Progressions and Visible Learning. This role supports the Community of Learning Goal and the staff of RBHS to embed the use of the Reading, Writing and Mathematics Learning Progressions and the Learning Progressions Framework in Year 9 and Year 10, as well as, introducing the use of PaCT. It also includes providing professional development on embedding the principles of Visible Learning into classroom practice." This is a relatively new partnership that bridges the gap between our school and what we do amongst ourselves in faculties and across faculties, and the wider community of teachers in other member schools within our community. Their intention is to bring the member schools together, with a shared focus working together towards shared goals. The result is that schools are no longer siloed from their communities - what we do in our school is relevant to all the other schools in our community and should benefit the wider school community. We are also motivated by what's of interest and concern in the wider community and not only within our own school. I have chosen this audience for the purpose of my action plan because I am interested in the effect flipped learning has on students' achievement and in particular, their writing. As writing is the primary focus at the moment for our COL, collaboration would be mutually beneficial I hope.
Step 2: Analyse the audiences’ perspectives
The CoL's attitude towards my inquiry should be positive, as the purpose is to determine whether flipped learning could be a successful tool to enhance students' writing, a literacy skill. I would imagine that the CoL would be supportive of any initiative to boost Literacy skills, especially if the method used incorporates other key areas of interest within the CoL such as visible learning (flipped videos use visible cues to promote writing skills), Learning with Digital Technology (the learning takes place at home in the form of online videos and tutorials) and Aiming for Excellence, in that the whole rationale behind my inquiry was whether flipped learning would boost achievement by increasing engagement and metacognitive thinking (a higher order learning skill that kicks in when students are given agency in their learning and are encouraged to collaborate in order to learn more). I suppose, however, that the alternative to such a positive uptake by the CoL would be that they might have their own strategies in mind that they feel would better boost Literacy (the use of Literacy Learning Progressions and the PACT tool) and they might not want to have too many different strategies in the mix, especially early on, while they are still trying to get all members on board. Some might be of the opinion that using videos to improve writing is unorthodox and would prefer more traditional methods such as reading exemplars of good writing taken from books and students (this would have a wraparound effect for literacy - using reading to promote writing). Interestingly, if we are to consider future-oriented learning and teaching, then embracing the 21st Century skills mentioned above would be powerful and future-focused. "Commitment to personalised learning, embracing diversity, re-thinking learners' and teachers' roles, forging new partnerships - all fueled by disciplined innovations and new technologies - are identified as the key dimensions of a re-designed, connected and coherent learning system." according to the New Zealand Council for Education Research.
Step 3: Discuss how you are addressing the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives while you are taking action.
One of the biggest advantages of partnering with the CoL is the data that they bring with them. The Progress and Consistency tool is an online tool that supports teaching and learning. "The capability to track progress and identify achievement challenges across a Kāhui Ako has been added to the Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT)". The International Centre for Leadership and Education has identified that "effective and rapidly improving schools use data to make decisions" to "monitor progress and to diagnose the effectiveness of instructional practices in real time". Therefore, overall I feel that CoL as an audience will be most beneficial to my Action Plan.
References:
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306
https://curriculumprogresstools.education.govt.nz/
Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing current and future challenges in education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
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