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Week 25 - Act on your plan (Take Action)

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 the levels of the rewards right, and I think I am still experimenting with this. 

 A problem I have is making sure that the children do not choose a too easy level (for example their 2x multiplication tables) just to gain the rewards. The whole purpose of the experiment is to encourage children to push themselves. This system needs some work.

 However, I am conscious of the work of Boticki et al (2015), who found that leaderboards can have a demotivating effect. I need to have a way that children's current levels of knowledge are easily accessible (and available for me to check), without being too public.

Step 3: Examine your reflection in relation to other phases of the Spiral of Inquiry and within wider frameworks/theories

A key test of my leadership of this change initiative will occur in week 3, when we have a "meet the teacher" evening. During the evening I will explain the initiative and give a quick summary of the rationale behind it. According to the University of Kent leadership style test I took as part of my Leadership 1 essay, I tend to have quite a laissez-faire style of leadership. Indeed, I wrote in my Leadership 1 essay that "in my role of leading our parent community along our ILE journey, I have not had to have any ‘difficult’ conversations without support." I can forsee that I will need to preplan some answers to difficult questions that parents may ask.

 With regards to other phases of the Spiral of inquiry, I think that week 27 on "Examining your cultural context" will probably help with this process. A number of studies have looked at causes of Maori disengagement in educational settings (see Bishop et al, (2009) for a review,), and in order to lead the parents of my target group of boys, I will need to consider how Kaupapa Māori can be integrated into my inquiry.

References 

 Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T., & Teddy, L. (2009). Te kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5), 734-742.

 Boticki, I., Baksa, J., Seow, P., & Looi, C. K. (2015). Usage of a mobile social learning platform with virtual badges in a primary school. Computers & Education, 86, 120-136.

 University of Kent Leadership style test (12th February 2019). Retrieved from: https://www.kent.ac.uk/ces/sk/leadership.html

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