Inquiry - What is mindfulness?

I am very interested to learn about mindfulness. My students have made huge progress since the beginning of the year. They are more willing to take risks. The more I keep to my routine and make the transition into class easy, the more they calm down, however, I still find that they are very hyped up after any activities outside the class e.g. Kapa Haka or assembly.  My hunch is that they get over stimulated and find it hard to calm down or they are just tired and don't want to go straight back into learning.  I tried letting them lie down and listen to a story, but was surprised to find about 6 of them, struggling to settle, to such a point that I had to stop trying, but the class was immediately a bit calmer due to the rest of the class having 3 minutes "resting time".

My DP suggested Sparklers Christchurch website. I started the one activity where they lie down for 30seconds without talking, just listening to their breathing. I still have 2 students that cannot settle. But it is becoming easier for the rest. I have 2 boys that is able to immediately relax and nearly falls asleep.

Then I watched 1 News Now where Point England's principal advises that mindfulness
training is the thing that will make a huge positive change in the behaviour of school students.

So....what is mindfulness really? How can it improve my children's performance in school work and behaviour? Is this the magic pill that will improve co-operation, kindness and volume levels in my class? Will this help my students with coping strategies when they feel angry and teach them patience?

So I snooped around on Google and found this...

This linked in with the observation that Susan(Our science tutor) and I observed during a science lesson. The children could not identify feelings or read expressions. So we worked a little on emotions. It seems like mindfulness can build on this. 

Here is a website with some ideas of mind fullness activities. Teacher Starter

Next step: 

Find out what mind fullness really is, how it works and how can this help my students. (Exciting)

TAI - Gradually increasing student participation in academics

IN the last few weeks we have paid a lot attention to behaviour in room 1. Rhys, Gretchen and I have started to communicate about our focus points, and am all working hard to remind the children of that focus point. I have seen a shift in behaviour in the majority of the class. (we still have some tier 1 learners that we are focussing on).

Our first focus was listening. We applied the STOP, LOOK and LISTEN approach. Explicitly explaining what this sounds and look like.

Our next focus will be on how to look after our "stuff" in the class. How to care for it. (Demonstrating AROHA). We will still be focussing on listening, but now be highlighting caring for our environment all the time.

With all this in mind, we would also like to gradually increase learning.

My last reflection on my TAI, I mentioned that I wanted to eliminate risk. I took as step back, and tried to observe what my children liked and liked to do. I have noticed that most of my boys particularly like cars, zombies and superheroes. And my girls loves cats. I also noticed how some boys particularly loves colouring in, and how others like to build lego and play with slime, rather than colouring in. (When I had all these options available at the same time, none of the children asked for Ipads - interesting)  I would really like to use this knowledge in a way to encourage participation in learning.

I have also started using the phrase, "Don't worry, I will help you" a lot. Also, "bring your picture with you and you can continue when you are done". This has seemed to calm the children down, so it might have been a fear of 'loosing' their activity that made them not wanting to come to me for learning.

So what? 
I am going to ensure that there are activities available that caters for all my children.
I am going to try and get all groups to come to me for learning, but not keep them long, so that they can continue with their choice of activities.
I am going to eliminate the fear of loosing out on things by preparing things for each child by name eg: when making clay, break it up into small bags (one for each child) so that they don't have to argue about sharing. (A next possible focus point).

I also read up on TKI Online independent literacy activities  and got some more ideas for literacy activities which I want to try out:

1. Providing magazines for children to cut from.
2. topic word cards to match each word with its meaning. Arrange word cards in \
3. alphabetical order as a step towards using a dictionary or index or locating fiction by the author's surname in the library.

TAI - Understanding why children don't want to take risks

READING AND RISK TAKING:THE TEACHER'S ROLE by Arleen Michael

I read this article by Arleen Michael about her research about reading and risk taking and what the teachers role is. She is from the DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

She highlighter that "Most likely, repeated confrontations with expectations related to the reading task have met with- failure. Parents, teachers and peers value reading, and people who read well are valued in the classroom. The child's self message may reflect the certainty that there is something wrong that causes failure at this very important task. The response is to avoid the situation which causes the exposure of this inadequacy, and the child says he/she does not want to learn to read."

I have often heard the following in my class: "this is dumb," or ''I'm not going to do this stuff." As well as children leaving the classroom in order to avoid reading.

This confirms my thoughts that reading puts my group of children with learning needs in an uncomfortable spot and possible creating anxiety. I suppose I can even describe it as the fight or flight response to fear.

Marleen summarised the characteristics of structure, the Hierarchy of Risk Taking and the Design Considerations.

What stood out for me was that the recipe to helping this group of children is to start with activities that proves to be of NO RISK to the children. The teacher takes all the responsibility for success in the reading lesson.
* Beginning with tasks that don't look like reading (the same as in reading recovery's roaming around the known) e.g. games, conversations, exploratory walks, etc.
* Create situations where the child is "caught" reading (recognising signs, labels, etc.) and demonstrating surprise and pleasure that the child can "read"
* Reading to, the child
* Rewarding the child for engaging in the activity
* Planning the activity in such a manner that the child's responses are acceptable
* Teacher taking responsibility for all materials

After this risk can gradually be introduced.

"For those children who can tolerate little or no risking, the teacher takes the major responsibility for the success of the sessions and little or no attention is given to correctness or quality of response. At this level, an individual session with the child is probably necessary. "

So what? 
I am going to focus on my lowest group with learning needs. Start with activities where there is no risk. In order to do this, I thought I would use one of Jill Eggleton's ideas from Lightening the literacy fire. I want to start my reading sessions with a shared reading activity where the children share some news. I choose one child's news (using ice-cream sticks with names on) and write about three sentences of their news. The child's whose news I used, can draw the picture. We do this every day, and re-read the previous day's news.

I am hoping to use this no risk activity to get them to start to like reading, and instil in them a feeling of achievement without putting them on the spot.

Arleen Michael and Mary Clay suggests that I should work with each child individually (reading recovery style) in order to start the process from no risk to gradually increasing the risk. But what do I do if the children leave the class and refuse to come back? How can I strengthen our relationship and encourage them to stay in class in order to participate? What games can I introduce that will engage them and create opportunities to read, without them knowing it? How will I cater for this group and still teach my other groups?

Teaching as Inquiry

My Hunch: 

Most of my students are now ready to learn. 

I base my hunch on the following:
It has taken my class a while to settle in and get use to two teachers and room 1 routines.  What I have noticed, is that many of my children are scared of failure, and therefore prefer not to try activities or have huge behaviour reactions the moment they feel forced to do something that they feel is too hard. Some of them, hover at the outskirts of the class, not participating, until they have gained the courage to try things out. Or even worse, they disappear from the class. Some of them don't return for the rest of the day. My thoughts are that this is learned behaviour out of fear of failure. So how do I eliminate this fear?  How can I accelerate this specific group of children with learning needs? How do I get them to take risks?

My inquiry is: How can I cater for these pre-literate academic group while accelerating their learning. 

Where to start: 
* Lightning the Literacy Fire by Jill Eggleton
* Literacy Lessons for individuals by Mary Clay
* Effective Literacy Practice
* Helping children take good risks by Nancy Eppler-Wolff and Susan Davis, clinical psychologists
* READING AND RISK TAKING:THE TEACHER'S ROLE by Arleen Michael

My Inquiry - Creating a class culture of learning.

An update on my TAI:

How has implementing this writing programme gone?

I tried the 3 writing groups. Implementation was a bit tricky, as they are still learning to work independently. The level of work was much better. The children were more engaged than previously, and the lesson felt a lot more organised. There are some strategies that I need to introduce to assist independent work more e.g. word cards/charts. And a buddy system. The children are still very much dependant on me, especially the lower two groups. I felt a little like a chicken without a head dividing my attention between the groups. And the children that don't have the confidence to write on their own, keeps yelling out "Miss how do you write...." and if I don't respond fast enough, they just yell louder. 

Have you seen shift in their engagement and learning?
Engagement was a lot better, but not perfect yet.  The fact that the lower group were only 3 at a time, and was writing for a only a few minutes, kept their attention. They did not feel anxious or pressured which kept the behaviour easy to manage.  And they were able to go back to an activity that they enjoyed after their writing. 
So yes, I have seen a shift, especially in my lower group. There was a slight shift in my top two groups, as they were a lot more settled, and engaged in their work, but there's is still room for improvement. 

So what? 

I have learned that grouping in writing, as well as clear and reasonable expectations are crucial. Setting achievable goals for my children, will set them up for success. Having systems in place to support independent work, is very important. Behaviour is influenced by the level of work. If my work is either too easy (boring) or too high (hard), then the children's behaviour plays out. The secret is in knowing your children, having the correct data in order to create groups and present work on the right level. 

Next steps: 

* Set systems in place to support independent learning more. Word cards in a central place available at all times. Do PB4L lesson around how to use them and care for them. Possibly look at personal dictionaries. 

* Find out what writing prompts I could use for my lowest group, especially as they are pre-writers. 

* Organise my modelling books better. Teach the children how they can use the modelling book to help them. 

* Practice a buddy system. Find out if I should allocate buddies, have a leader per group or let them choose a buddy.  

My Inquiry - Creating a class culture of learning.

Yesterday I tried something new. I created a links on a site hoping that this would ignite excitement about learning, as well as giving the children choice in their writing topics.

What happened? 
The children struggled with technical issues such as enlarging the video clips, listening to the videos, without earphones, taking facts from the videos.  Further, there were 5 children that got angry (of which one had a total melt down) because the animals that they wanted to write about were not one of the options. Taking into consideration that we had a class discussion collecting students voice around this.

So what?
Today I reflected on it with management after my PAC observation.  What I learned was that the level of work is too high. My expectations were not on the right level for the specific children I have. This was on the right level last year, but this year, I have a whole new cattle of fish.

What we decided?
We grouped my writing into 3 groups. Pre-writers, beginner writers and capable writers. We discussed ideas on how to assist especially the pre-writers.

What I have learned?
I have to research on ideas on helping my pre-writers. I can talk to our NE and year 1 teachers to get some ideas on what could be interesting topics for them.
Reasonable Expectations:
Pre-writers - One idea. Writing every day. 2 or 3 students in a group. New topics each day. Lots of talking and support.
Beginner writers: Planning and Writing on the same day. Planning to have 2 or 3 ideas. New topics each day.
Capable writers: Complete writing process. They could work on one topic for a week.

How do I feel? 
I feel excited to have more direction with my writers. I am not use to such low writers and realise that I have not catered for their needs. Most of these learners are showing that that they are ready to learn, so having work on their level and creating situations where they can be successful, will increase the speed at which they learn.

My Inquiry - Creating a class culture of learning.

Scanning:
What's going on for my learners in my classroom? 
About 70% of my learners are ready and eager to learn, however, the other 30% is disengaged, and have mayor behaviour issues. Leaving the class as soon as they are not interested in what we are doing in the class or as soon as I challenge them academically. This group of children struggle even to keep quiet while I am teaching, they don't want to join in class discussions, they won't work unless I or Peter sit with them individually. The only time I manage to keep them in the class, is when they can do what they want to do, which is either drawing, or playing games on the ipad.

The 70% of children that is probably ready to learn, gets tired of waiting for the children that is playing up, and then they start to talk, or play and then the effort to get the class settled starts all over.

I feel frustrated, tired and on the edge of giving up at the end of each day. I am not enjoying the power struggles, the emotional blow outs, kids hurting each other and tantrums. I don't enjoy it when children refuse to cooperate and jump on my couches after being asked to show Aroha by not doing so.

I am not using my PB4L system as well as I did last year, because I feel rushed to get a lot of work done. Although I am giving verbal positives, I am not using the school wide reward system.

I need to take a few steps back and look objectively at my students. Why is this behaviour happening? How can I change it?

Focussing: 
What's going to give me the biggest impact? How am I going to shift my students from behaviour problems to enthusiastic leaners?
What popped out for me during the scanning process is that I should give my children a choice, get them engaged on topics that interest them. I should spend some time introducing expectations for a learning culture, I tend to rush and just jump into learning, even though I see them for the first time after morning tea. I don't spend time with them talking about what is going to happen for the rest of the day, or talking about what the expectations are. I should give my students choice. Choice of materials and topics.  Find out what my children's strengths are, how can I use that to build a class culture of learning and kindness.  I should use the school wide PB4L system consistently.

What can I do? What is going to make the biggest difference?
* Use students voice to find topics of interest.
* Spend time working on PB4L, on all three our values. Explaining the why!
* Meet with co-teacher, and decide on how we can consistently use the school wide reward system.
* Research on why children are defiant.
* Set up a classroom site, in order for children to work at their own speed. (giving them some choice).

Developing a hunch: 
What's leading to this situation?
My hunch is that I don't have a good relationship with all of my students. I don't have proper learning conversations with them.
I am not using PB4L as effectively as I did last year.
My students are not motivated to learn, and is not willing to try something if there is a chance of not getting it right. Fear of failure.

Learning: 
What do I need to learn? How will I design new learning? 
* How can I build positive relationships with my learners?
* How can I promote a growth mindset in my students? TKI Online
* How can I implement challenges yet interesting activities?

Taking action:
What will I do differently? 
First I will have to read up on growth mindset, find strategies that I can implement in order to build positive relationships with my students.
Second, understand how I can influence the way my students feel about challenging work.  Design lessons that will develop my students growth mindset. Make time on my timetable for these lessons. Make time for PB4L lessons in the time that I am with the class. Set classroom goals.
Create a journal where students can voice their ideas and thoughts. (This can be done on Seesaw)
Create a caring classroom culture.  

Checking: 
Have I made enough of a difference? What's going on for my learners? How do I know?
What evidence will I be seeking to know I made a difference?
Students will calm down, not running away, talking over me, have a growth mindset. There will be a culture of learning and kindness. There will be an improvement in their assessments.


My target students for this will be Yoleena, Te Neha and Neo.