N Stygall- Mindlab 2018 blog

Step 1 (What) : Identify an issue of ethics, or society, or culture, or professional environment that you have  come across as you  implemented your Action Plan. The ethical issue I have chosen to focus upon is the fact that implementing the "gamification" of my maths programme has taken a larger than normal proportion of my classroom time. The establishment of warm, supportive relationships at the start of a school year between children and their peers and teachers is critical to the children's academic success (see Fantozza, Sekino and Cohen (2004) for an overview on the subject). The time frame for my inquiry was quite tight, and I needed to have children start to take part in the maths activities as quickly as possible. The structure of the gamification comprised of points systems, rewards, certificates and peer/teacher monitoring. It was quite a complex system to set up, and as I write this reflection at the end of week 3, I have still not set up all of ...

Step 1 (What): What is your understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and what area mentioned above do you want to focus on for discussion? To my mind, indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness are separate concepts. While they obviously impact upon each other, it is important to discuss each of them in turn. Cultural responsiveness is a product of how we respond to the different cultures in our classrooms. Culture is the lens through which we view our daily interactions. In a video titled "Teaching Tolerance", Geneva Gay from the University of Washington talks about the difference between tangible and intangible culture. Tangible culture involves clear concrete examples you can easily experience, such as displays, music or art. The more important aspects of culture are the intangibles, aspects such as values, beliefs and feelings. This dichotomy can be seen in Milne's (2017) stages of culturally sustaining practice. Milne imagines ...

Step 1 (What): Describe something that is significant and has happened during your Inquiry so far A significant event that has occurred so far in my inquiry has been the results from some of the interviews that I conducted in week 2. My initial suspicion going into the inquiry was that the children in my class would show quite low engagement in maths. This suspicion was based on my observations of previous year 6 classes I have taught as well as interviews I conducted with a random sample of year 5s at the end of last year. The significant event was that generally speaking, the children I interviewed did not show particularly low engagement in maths. There was quite a large variation in the data produced which I will cover below, but generally speaking, children in the class seem to have more positive attitudes towards maths than in previous years. Step 2 (So What): Evaluate the most interesting/important/useful aspects of this event This finding surprised me. However, after referri...

Step 1: Briefly describe what you have done so far to take action I have completed my pre-testing on all the children and come up with number knowledge levels for each child. I have researched apps and programmes that I could use to gamify the number knowledge practice in my class. I have also briefed my children on the aims of the study, but I am yet to inform the parents. I have chosen the children that I will interview, but I have yet to conduct the interview.   Step 2: Reflect on the actions How do you  feel about the actions  you have taken? What works as  expectation  and what doesn’t? And why? What should be  done differently ? How would you  justify  this? The number knowledge tests went as expected, although I am a little surprised as my class seems to have a better standard of number knowledge than last years cohort.  I have decided to use the Banqer app as a reward system. It has taken some fine tuning to get...

In week 24 we conclude the Spiral of Inquiry - Learn phase. This week’s notes support you to complete your Action Plan (Part A of  RESEARCH Assessment 2 ). Evidence-based evaluation of the impact Consider how will you evaluate the impact of your Action Plan and how the data will help to provide an answer to your question, so that your evaluation will be evidence based. The following questions, which build on the sample inquiry questions from week 20, may help you as you consider which evidence you will use in your evaluation: If you plan to  explore  an innovation  consider   What  could be the intended outcome(s)/ result / consequence that affect target members of your community?  How  could you measure this?  When  could you gather this data? If you plan to  evaluate  an innovation consider to what  extent will  your innovation impact [intended outcome / result / consequence] on target members of your commun...