EPCI Early Primary Collaborative Inquiry Maple Leaf Public School Teston Village Public School Sixteenth Ave Public School Bond Lake Public School R.L. Graham Public School

7 Principles of Collaborative Inquiry Iterative Collaborative Reciprocal Reasoned Reflective Adaptive Relevant

7 Grandfather Teachings Wisdom Love Respect Bravery Honesty Humility Truth

Oral language is the basis for literacy, thinking, and relating in any language. All young children need learning experiences that help them understand, acquire, and build on oral language. (Full-Day Early Learning– Kindergarten Program, page 18)

Umbrella Question for all 5 Schools What is the impact of providing real life opportunities to foster oral language development and using strategic teacher prompts as feedback on students' ability to respond with complex thoughts and relevant questions in authentic conversations and when responding to texts?

Network SEF Indicators Assessment for, as and of Learning: 1.2 During learning, students receive ongoing, descriptive feedback based on the success criteria, from teacher and peers. 1.4 Assessment tasks are aligned with the curriculum, collaboratively developed by teachers and the resulting demonstrations of student learning analyzed to ensure consistency with success criteria Curriculum Teaching and Learning: 4.5 Instruction and assessment are differentiated in response to student strengths, needs, and prior learning

Inquiry Question for Maple Leaf P.S. In what ways does using strategic oral feedback ( i.e. prompts) impact students’ abilities to use their schema to think critically and respond with increasingly complex thoughts to a variety of texts during shared reading.

“little kids got to learn and need to talk. People look at other people’s eyes and talk and learn. It makes me learn harder stuff.

What occurred 2 Sessions with full-teams with a focus on Action Research and how to collect and analyze data 3 Sessions with team-leads for Web-conference and teleconferences with other School Boards participating in EPCI 1 Session with full-teams to de-brief and look at common themes and learnings 1 session with full-teams to present Inquiry Project/Action Research at the Board Level 1 Session with team-leads to present Inquiry project at the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat Learning Fair

What occurred at Maple Leaf P.S. 5 in-school sessions with the full –team 4 data collection days in each classroom  Review of shared reading lessons  Moderation of oral language for each child  Review of question, learning goal, success criteria  Review of prompts  Next steps  New Learnings

Primary Action Research K– 2 Agenda: Friday April 29, View Carmel Crevola video demonstrating use of prompts 2. Debriefing Videos - Without You:  What evidence is there of student learning?  What evidence is there that the instructional strategy is supporting student achievement? 3. Diagramming 4. Next Steps  Choosing a subsequent text  Use of future release half-day (May 16) 5. Reflections - Teacher learning and Student learning – what impact is this instructional strategy having 6. Collecting and organizing evidence that will be shared with the larger group for the Ministry Inquiry Learning Fair in Barrie O ur Question: In what ways does using strategic oral feedback ( i.e. prompts) impact students’ abilities to use their schema to think critically and respond with increasingly complex thoughts to a variety of texts during shared reading

I had people around me but not too many. There was more room to move around. I could talk more because we were good at taking turns.

Video One: SKVideo 2: Grade OneVideo 3: Grade Two Use of prompts: Evidence of effectiveness? Evidence that further changes need to be made What are the students saying? Are they using their schema? Are they responding to their peers? Are they asking questions? Is there evidence that they are responding with more complex thoughts? What are the students doing? Are they engaged? Are they looking at the text? Are they looking at their peers? Overall: Observations Reflections Questions Video Viewing Guide

Using the Carmel Crevola Prompts – narrowing the focus What do you notice? What are you thinking? What did_______ say? Can you tell me more? Can you make a connection?

Instructional Strategy: Shared Reading Multiple readings of each text Focus page or question Conversations directed next text choice

Teacher Learning Shared reading with small groups is a very effective instructional strategy Small group learning provides opportunities for reluctant speakers to express themselves The use of instructional prompts increases the amount of talk There is a need to differentiate the prompts based on student need Continuum of thinking from SK – 2 (ability to think more deeply/ with complex thoughts) Text selection impacts engagement – use their interests to guide text choices

Teacher Learning Need to explicitly teach how to have a conversation Need to Re-arrange the seating to illicit more conversation Important to create a safe environment for students Need to provide multiple opportunities for students to share their opinions Group dynamics impact the level of conversation Time of day impacts the conversation and learning Environment impacts the conversation and learning (familiarity is important) Need to narrow the prompts used so that they were shorter, more focused, less fluent, and open ended enough to illicit conversation Learned that teachers were leading the conversations rather than providing the opportunity to think more deeply independently Know that we want to guide the conversation and facilitate the discussion rather than lead it

Student Learning Conversation skills (eye contact, body language) Able to respond to teacher prompts – now the focus will be to respond to their peers and add to the thoughts of others (SK) To listen to their peers, retell what their peers have said and they are beginning to respond to what is being said by their peers To make connections to a text by using their schema Beginning to make increasingly complex connections by adding relevant details In grade two students are beginning to ask questions relevant to the text

Key Learnings/Themes that were common among all schools Teachers strategically select and use prompts based on the growing development of children’s oral language and complexity of thought. Feedback for students is embedded in the instructional prompts chosen. When teachers consider student interests and wonderings as an integral part of planning, then real-life experiences and text selections lead to increased student engagement and authentic conversations.