Teaching and Learning at Albany Primary School

All teachers within Aotearoa New Zealand are accountable to and attested against the standards for teaching practice. These are known as Our Code, Our Standards and are freely available to be viewed on the Education Council Website.

At Albany Primary School, our teaching and learning practice is underpinned by the pedagogies of the widely known 'Assessment for Learning' approach to pedagogy. This is a highly rigorous process that centres a student within their learning, assessment and understanding. We have worked closely with our professional learning partner over the past three years to embed these practices into classrooms and enhance student learning opportunities.

Teaching at APS

Teaching pedagogy at APS utilises the six elements of Effective learning, identified by Michael Absolum. When teachers are familiar and confident working in each domain, student learning is accelerated and ownership is greatly improved.

Below is a breakdown of each element and some examples of what this looks, feels and sounds like in classrooms around our school. Check out our 'Cut the jargon' video in each section.

Information below compiled in part from: https://assessment.tki.org.nz/Assessment-for-learning/

Clarity about Learning

To be successful students must understand what they're learning. At APS, this means providing clarity around the learning intention, what it means and what successful outcomes look like.

The essential components of clarity are:

learning intentions (goals, aims, achievement objectives or whatever it is you would like to name them)
relevance
examples and modelling
success criteria
checking for understanding.

When there is shared clarity in the classroom, both teacher and students are able to describe:

what is to be learnt – using learning intentions
how the learning intention relates to the “big ideas” or global intentions
how the learning is relevant
how students will go about the learning
how students will know it has been learnt – using success criteria.

When these are in place, what exists is a partnership between teacher and students, where:

planning reflects student needs
learning intentions and success criteria are jointly constructed
learning intentions capture the depth of learning at an appropriate level for each student
the teacher has sufficient depth of understanding of the specified curriculum and its progressions of learning to work with any student to identify his/her next learning step.

Cut the Jargon: Clarity in Learning

Cut the Jargon: Clarity.mp4

As fundamental to the success of the learning and teaching process, the teacher frequently checks students’ understanding of the intended learning and whether it meets the students’ expectations and needs.

Building Learning Focused Relationships

Establishing powerful relationships sits as the foundation of this model both visually and physically. Relationships with learners sits at the heart of everything we do. Learning focused relationships take the connection between the teacher and student to a much deeper level. To establish these we have identified three key elements to success:

The locus of control needs to be flexible within learning spaces. This means students have the ability and opportunity to take control of their own learning and the direction it has taken, while the teacher acts far more as a guide, rather than the leader of knowledge. Students are encouraged to share their passions and ideas to intentionally inform learning. Students are active participants in the learning process, including the planning of experiences.
Students need ownership and freedom within their learning spaces. They are actively involved in making decisions about layout, displays and functions within the learning environment. The key is to empower children to give them the confidence and ability to construct their learning space to best meet their needs.
Actively involving parents and whānau in learning. Teachers seek to understand the backgrounds and beliefs of the students within their classes with the intention of developing a programme that reflects the depth and identities within the room.

Cut the jargon: Learning focused relationships

Cut the jargon: LFR.mp4

Assessment Literacy

To really understand their learning, students need to understand how they can be successful and what their next steps are. This is all part of the ongoing assessment within learning tasks. The assessment between teacher and student and their shared understanding of assessment is paramount to successful learning outcomes. A teacher is able to skilfully gather summative data through testing, and formative data through observations and conversations with students. Students themselves need to not only know the success criteria for their learning, but have been a part of its construction. This will lead to a much greater sense of ownership and engagement. In creating a shared understanding between the teacher and the student, both are able to work towards supporting personalised and clear goals for the learner.

Use of assessment information:

The teacher understands that assessment, both informal and formal, is central to teaching and learning and uses it formatively at all times to determine where individuals and groups are with their learning.
The teacher always involves students in all forms of assessment (what to assess, how and when, how to use the results to assist their further learning). Students see assessment as essential in helping them monitor their learning.
The teacher is aware of the essential value of self and peer assessment and enables students to independently assess their own and other students’ progress.

Use of assessment tools:

The teacher knows when and how to use appropriate assessment tools in the relevant subject, and is skilled in all aspects of administration, marking, and, interpretation (for example, asTTle, PAT, Star, Gloss, NCEA).
The teacher understands and can explain all relevant statistical terms; for example, norm, mean, standard deviation, and stanine.

Cut the jargon: Assessment Literacy

Cut the jargon: Assessment Lit.mp4

The teacher uses assessment materials fully in accordance with guidelines to deliver dependable information. Validity, reliability, and quality control are seen to be important. Moderation is carried out carefully. Routine cross-checks are made on marking and data entry accuracy.

The "big picture" of assessment:

The teacher understands how aggregated achievement data is used school-wide, nationally and internationally, and how these "big picture" analyses relate to his/her classroom practice and whole school review.

Effective Feedback

Students need a strong trust based relationship to experience feedback successfully and to know that the person feeding back to them understands the task and context on a deep level. Teachers and students at APS are encouraged and supported to both give and receive learning feedback regularly. Sometimes this can be in the form of conversation and conferencing, whereas at other times, peers will provide written feedback on one another's learning using a carefully scaffolded process.

Feedback is most effective when:

initiated by the student, in conjunction with self and/or peer assessment
teachers carefully gauge when feedback is needed to promote learning
teachers use the kind of feedback prompt that best meets the need of the students, at the level of support they need
teachers provide strategies to help the student to improve
teachers allow time for, and students can independently act on, feedback to improve their learning
feedback takes place as a conversation
teachers check the adequacy of the feedback with the students.

Feedback is most effective when it is given at the time of the learning so that students can make improvements as they go. Written feedback can be beneficial to learning if the following points are taken into consideration:

Some students have difficulty understanding and processing written feedback.
When students are presented with grades and comments, the grades can cancel the beneficial effects of the comments.
Teachers often give too much feedback, which students find overwhelming and difficult to understand.
These "negatives" of written feedback can be avoided if there is good communication between teacher and student, so that the student can say if the feedback is helpful or not in providing paths for improvement.

Cut the jargon: Effective Feedback

Cut the jargon: Effective feedback.mp4

Self and Peer Assessment

Effective self and peer assessment supports students to identify their next learning steps. Student capability in self and peer assessment is developed through teachers deliberately modelling and scaffolding the skills and processes.

Students who are confident assessing their own learning are often able to transfer these skills to the assessment of other peers. We know that peer assessment and learning from one another is an incredibly effective tool for both achievement and engagement.

Effective self and peer assessment requires:

exemplars clearly demonstrating what is being learnt
clear and specific success criteria on manageable chunks of learning
opportunities for students to identify success and a place for improvement
opportunities for students to make improvements independently

Cut the jargon: Self and Peer Assessment

Cut the jargon: Self and Peer Assessment.mp4

Reflection

Reflection is about students becoming aware of their own thinking processes, and being able to make those transparent to others. It enables assessment of the "why" and "how" of the learning, and what needs to be done as a result.

Reflection readily follows on from self or peer assessment.

When students and teachers routinely reflect they will be able to easily describe:

what is intended to be learnt
where they have got to
the learning process
where they will go next
the learning culture in the classroom.

Teachers at APS support both collaborative and individual student reflections in a variety of forms. These range from guided questioning through to written reflections via a template. Regular reflection teaches learners the value of understanding where you have come from before planning on how to move forward. Powerful learning reflections can lead to those all important 'A-ha' moments for students, often helping them make sense of and join multiple concepts.

Cut the jargon: Reflecting on Learning

Cut the jargon: Reflection.mp4

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