Voices From the Field Name: Vince Campolongo Board: Wellington Catholic DSB Learning Team Facilitator (Professional Learning Cycle) 1

2 Engaging Boys – A Collaborative Inquiry Project Challenges, Responses and Tools Vince Campolongo Vice-Principal Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School

Overview of Presentation School Improvement Context Collaborative Inquiry A Shift In Thinking Challenges Responses Tools 3

Literacy Collaborative Inquiry Project 1.Student comprehension needs were assessed through moderated marking of a diagnostic (Plan) 2.Student needs were addressed by explicitly teaching a literacy strategy (Act) 3.Differentiation in the context of using gradual release (Act) 4.Measuring success through artefacts that showed student progress using the strategy (Observe)

School Improvement Plan 5

School Improvement

Inquiry Based Professional Learning Cycle guides the process Purposeful staffing of targeted courses with teachers that were open minded and/or had experience with professional learning 10 teachers were chosen Half of these teachers were involved in collaborative inquiry devoted to supporting cross-curricular reading comprehension in the previous year 1 full day for orientation and 3 half days of facilitated sessions in semester 1 4 “vulnerable” students identified in targeted courses and these are used to track progress 7

Assessing Student Needs A survey (My Opinion Matters) was designed by the group to empower students and to develop lessons that were correlated to self-identified interests, needs and strategies that would promote engagement Student need was substantiated from both survey results and teacher observations Student work was used as the foundation for focused professional learning conversations 8

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Moving From… Instructional decisions based on teacher preferences To… Instructional decisions based on student need 10

Facilitation Challenges and Response Challenge It was common for participants to want to implement a familiar strategy for the entire class Response More emphasis and time on analyzing the diagnostic data and on creating profiles first to support correlating instructional decisions to need Grouping teachers according to common strategies to co-plan and using coaching to support co-planning Focus on supporting teachers in creating a maximum of 3 flexible groupings to meet more student needs 11

12 Tools

13 Source: Learning For All Draft Document, Ministry of Education, 2011

Moving From… Conversations that describe what was done during the lesson To… Teaching-Learning Connections 14

Facilitation Challenges and Response Challenge Descriptions of what was done during a lesson created a superficial focus on the actions of teachers which led to discussions on how to replicate the lesson Response Facilitators need to model questions that shift the conversations from “story telling” to how teaching decisions and actions influence student learning There needs to be an expectation that participants use specific artifacts to respond to these questions 15

16 Tools

Moving From… Major Emphasis on Achieving a SMART goal To… Gathering rich data which can guide teacher adjustments that are most likely to impact on student learning 17

Facilitation Challenges and Changes Challenge When the SMART goal becomes the major focus, what is lost is the dialogue that centres around student learning and progress Response Student work can come in many forms but the use of appropriate organizational structures, such as graphic organizers to help students gather, organize, manage and communicate information and ideas can form rich data that visibly shows student learning 18

19 Tools

Still Working On… Researching and adopting formal indicators of engagement to be used for assessment Incorporating co-teaching to provide more visibility into the classroom environment that supports the teaching-learning dynamic Ext