2025 - Inquiry!

 

End of Term 3 Update

How's my target group going?

My target group is interesting, they didn’t test particularly well in the mid-year PROBE assessments, but despite that, they are showing great progress in other areas. They are developing confidence and skills in extended discussions and podcasting. Within this group, some are naturally talkative but need to deepen their ideas, while others are quieter and are learning to contribute more regularly.

What change/s have you made to your practice?
I’ve introduced podcasting as a tool to create authentic discussion opportunities. This has included giving students real-world models (like our Podlab visit), teaching discussion moves explicitly, and using Vosaic to reflect on my own questioning and facilitation. I’ve also shifted from teacher-led questioning to encouraging students to ask each other questions, creating more peer-to-peer dialogue. I've started looking into Ad-Lib podcasts, giving students a chance to have more authentic discussions.

Alongside this, I’ve implemented a weekly reading task where students are given a single text with 5–6 questions. These tasks are designed to strengthen inferencing skills and encourage connections to the wider world, helping learners prepare for richer class discussions and podcasts.

Some observations about progress

• Even though their mid-year PROBE results weren’t strong, students are showing clear progress in their ability to think critically, make connections, and express themselves in discussion.

• Students are showing growth not just in how much they talk, but in the quality of what they say — linking ideas, giving evidence, and building on others’ contributions.

• Students are producing great, engaging podcasts about a range of different topics.

• Quieter students are beginning to contribute more regularly when the purpose feels authentic (e.g., recording for a podcast).

• My Vosaic reflections showed improvement in my use of open-ended questions, though students still need more scaffolding in developing their own questioning.

• The weekly reading task is beginning to build a stronger foundation for inferencing, which students then carry into wider class and podcast conversations.

Where to next
I want to continue developing student-led discussions by teaching explicit strategies for questioning each other. I also plan to give students more ownership over podcast topics and formats, so the motivation to participate comes from them. Finally, I’ll keep using Vosaic and peer feedback to refine my own practice, especially around balancing when to step in and when to let students sustain the talk (54 - 46 percentage Teacher Talk- Student Talk).

Dorothy also suggested trying the Mic Drop podcast idea as a reading activity. This would mean students recording conversations about random topics, giving them the chance to practise being more comfortable talking about a range of ideas with different people. This could be a powerful way to build fluency, confidence, and adaptability in discussion, which would then transfer into their more structured podcasting and text-based conversations.

PodLab Trip!

 

How Might Podcasting Support Meaningful Discussions in Our Classroom?

This year my inquiry question has been:
“How might podcasting support the development of my learners' ability to engage in extended, meaningful discussions about a text?”

This week Room 1, Dorothy Burt and myself had the absolute privilege of visiting Jay Jay and Jazmin at their Podlab studio to learn more about the art of podcasting. They gave us a full tour of the studio, from the editing software, to the lighting setup, to the microphones they use. The students were buzzing with excitement seeing what goes on behind the scenes!

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The Visit

This week we had the absolute privilege of visiting Jay Jay and Jazmin at PodLab. They welcomed us into their studio and showed us:

• The microphones and lighting setup

• How they edit podcasts

• The tools they use to make their shows sound professional

The students were so engaged and curious,
it was inspiring to see the behind-the-scenes world of podcasting!

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Recording Mic Drop 🎙️

The highlight of the visit was recording our very own podcast, Mic Drop. Every student had the chance to:

• Be the guest, talking about a topic of their choice

• Be the interviewer, asking questions and keeping the conversation flowing

Jay Jay got us started, and Jazmin kindly edited our episode. You can watch it now on our KPE blog!

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What I Noticed

Recording the podcast gave students the opportunity to:

• Have rich, extended conversations

• Share ideas about things that mattered to them

• Practise listening and responding thoughtfully

It was so exciting to see the students move away from short answers and really begin to build conversations together.

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Next Steps

At the moment, most of our class podcasts are 100% scripted. Moving forward, I want to:

• Give students more opportunities to ad-lib

• Encourage a greater sense of authenticity in their conversations

• Support them to ask questions and develop ideas naturally

This experience showed me just how powerful podcasting can be for oral language growth.

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Thank You 🙌

A huge thank you to PodLab, Jay Jay and Jazmin for giving us this amazing opportunity. Thank you to Mrs Burt for joining us on this amazing trip. We would love to come back again in the future!

Using AI to Reflect on My Reading Lessons

Term 3 Teaching Inquiry Update: Using AI to Reflect on My Reading Lessons

This term, I have been exploring new ways to reflect on my teaching practice, particularly in relation to my inquiry question:

“How effectively am I engaging my learners in extended, meaningful discussions about a text?”

To support this, I trialled Vosaic, a platform where I uploaded recordings of two of my reading lessons. The unique feature of Vosaic is that it uses AI to observe, analyse, and give feedback on my teaching. I also provided the AI with my inquiry question as a prompt, which meant the feedback was directly aligned to what I wanted to focus on.

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Lesson One Feedback

The AI feedback highlighted several strengths in my teaching:

• Encouraging Participation: I invited students to share their prior knowledge, such as asking “Who can tell me what they know about Area 51?” This gave students an open platform to contribute and set the tone for discussion.

• Clarifying Concepts: By unpacking terms like “conspiracy theories” and “reconnaissance,” I ensured all students had the vocabulary needed to participate meaningfully.

• Facilitating Critical Thinking: Questions such as “Why do you think the government kept Area 51 a secret for so long?” pushed students to think more deeply.

• Setting Ground Rules: I established discussion expectations, such as listening respectfully and asking questions, which supported a productive dialogue.

• Encouraging Diverse Perspectives: I prompted students to consider arguments for and against government secrecy, helping them see multiple viewpoints.

• Reflection on Goals: At the end, I reflected with the group on how well they engaged and what they could improve, encouraging ownership of the learning process.

Areas for Growth in Lesson One

While the feedback was largely affirming, two areas stood out as next steps:

• Extending Discussions Further: I could build on students’ answers more deliberately with probing or follow-up questions to deepen their thinking.

• Students Asking Each Other Questions: At this stage, most questions came from me. A next step is encouraging learners to ask questions of each other during discussions, which would shift ownership and create more authentic dialogue. This could be supported through strategies such as discussion roles, question stems, or modelling student-to-student questioning.

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Lesson Two Feedback

In my second lesson, I continued to explore strategies for building extended discussions. The AI observed:

• Encouragement of Participation: Open-ended prompts like “If you were allowed to visit Area 51 for one day, what would you do and why?” encouraged personal connections and expression of opinions.

• Building on Prior Knowledge: I linked back to previous discussions, such as conspiracy theories and Neil Armstrong, helping students connect ideas.

• Clarification and Definition: Again, I ensured all students understood key vocabulary, which allowed for more meaningful contributions.

• Encouraging Critical Thinking: Questions about government secrecy continued to drive reflective, analytical conversations.

• Setting Ground Rules: I reinforced expectations like “let everybody have a turn of talking” and “look at both sides of the topic,” which supported inclusivity.

However, the AI also identified areas for growth:

• Inviting Responses: While participation was encouraged, I could do more to explicitly draw in quieter voices. I acknowledged this in class, but I need to more actively implement strategies for it.

• Follow-Up Questions: After students shared ideas, I sometimes moved on too quickly. Asking further questions (e.g., “What do you think aliens would be like?”) could have deepened the conversations further.

The overall feedback suggested that my methods are effective but could be refined to create even richer discussions.

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Reflection

Using AI for feedback has been an interesting and valuable experience. The analysis affirmed the strategies I already use to foster extended, meaningful discussions, while also pushing me to think about areas I can improve, especially around inviting all voices into the conversation, encouraging students to ask questions of each other, and extending discussions with follow-up questioning.

As I move forward, I want to be more deliberate about drawing in quieter students, supporting student-to-student questioning, and practising deeper questioning techniques to extend their thinking. This inquiry continues to give me valuable insights into how I can create more engaging and meaningful literacy discussions.

Term 3 Update: Deeper Dives and a Brand New Studio!

Welcome back to the blog! As we head into Term 3, I'm incredibly excited to share some of the shifts and new developments happening in our classroom's literacy program. Last term, we focused heavily on using podcasting to analyze non-fiction, and the results were fantastic. This term, we're building on that foundation and asking our central question:

How might podcasting support the development of my learners' ability to engage in extended, meaningful discussions about a text?

I believe the answer lies in the unique combination of planning, performance, and authentic audience that podcasting provides. It's not just a book report with a microphone; it's a platform for transformative conversations. Here’s how it works:

• It Demands Active Listening: To have a real conversation, you can't just wait for your turn to speak. Podcasting forces learners to listen intently to their peers' points, so they can respond, challenge, or build upon them. This creates a dynamic where ideas are co-constructed in real-time.

• It Provides an Authentic Audience: When students know their discussion will be heard by someone other than their teacher, the stakes are raised. They are motivated to articulate their ideas with clarity, provide strong evidence from the text, and make their reasoning transparent. They're not just "doing school," they're creating a product for an audience.

• It Encourages Going "Off-Script": While planning is crucial, the magic happens in the moments of spontaneous interaction. A well-placed question from a co-host can spark a new line of thinking that wasn't in the notes, pushing the discussion from a simple summary to genuine analytical depth.

• It Makes Thinking Visible (and Audible!): Podcasting captures the entire process of grappling with complex ideas. Learners can hear themselves and their peers working through ambiguity, refining their thoughts, and making connections. This metacognitive practice is invaluable for developing robust conversational skills.

Our Focus for Term 3

Building on this, we have a few key goals for the term ahead:

1. Connecting to Wider World Questions: We'll be moving from the "what" of a text to the "so what?" I’ll be scaffolding this by providing learners with essential questions that push them to connect themes to their own lives, society, and universal human experiences. The goal is to foster more robust, critical conversations that extend beyond the four corners of the page.

2. A Shift to Narrative: After a fantastic term with non-fiction, we're diving into the world of stories! Narrative texts offer a rich landscape for discussing character development, author's purpose and plot structure. I can't wait to hear the learners debate a character's motivations or predict a complex plot.

Watch This Space: Exciting News!

We have two major developments that are going to take our podcasting work to the next level.

• New Studio Alert! Our little storage room has been cleared out, revamped, and is currently getting a fresh coat of paint! It's being transformed into our official, dedicated podcasting studio. Having a professional space legitimizes the students' work and provides them with a fit-for-purpose environment to create. Watch this space for the grand reveal!

• An INCREDIBLE Opportunity! And for the biggest news... I am absolutely thrilled to announce that our class has been invited to collaborate with the amazing Jay-Jay Feeney and her company, Podlab! Our learners will have the chance to visit a professional studio and work with industry experts. This is a money-can't-buy experience that will connect our classroom learning directly to the real world. A huge thank you to Jay-Jay and her team. Watch this space for updates on this amazing partnership!

It’s going to be a massive term of growth, conversation, and creativity. I can't wait to share what our learners produce. Stay tuned!

Podcasting for Deeper Conversations: An Update on Our Learning Journey

Kia Orana!

It's been a busy and incredibly rewarding few months here at Pt England School with ERO, Samoan Language week and Camp, I'm excited to share an update on my teaching inquiry:

How might podcasting support the development of my learners' ability to engage in extended, meaningful discussions about a text?

Before I dive into our podcasting adventures, a quick shout-out to our fantastic KPE (Korero Pt England) blog! It's been absolutely buzzing with comments from our Manaiakalani staff and Pt England students. Your engagement and thoughtful feedback have been great. We sit down and read these comments together, and it's a joy to see our learning community so actively involved. We're doing our best to post as regularly as possible, sharing insights and reflections from our classrooms. 

Our next big step? We are signing up for 'Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu' – ready to connect students all over New Zealand and share our learning with them.

Unpacking Our Mid-Year Progress: Where We Shine, and Where We Grow

Recently, we completed our mid-year probe testing, and I was so impressed with my students' progress! They demonstrated a strong grasp of the texts, excelling in answering literal, reorganising, and vocabulary questions. It's clear that our dedicated work with the word wall is really paying off – a huge win for building foundational comprehension!

However, the data also highlighted some key areas where our learners can grow even further, particularly when it comes to moving beyond surface-level understanding. The questions where students need more practice are those requiring evaluation, reaction, and relating to the wider world. These are the questions that ask them to bring their own perspective, make connections, and think critically, rather than simply finding the answer directly in the text.

This is precisely where our inquiry into podcasting comes into play!

Podcasting as a Catalyst for Deeper Thinking

My hypothesis is that by giving students a platform to voice their interpretations and engage in authentic dialogue, podcasting can be a powerful tool to develop these higher-order thinking skills. Instead of just "finding the answer," students will be prompted to:

Evaluate: Form their own judgments about characters, themes, or events.

React: Share their personal feelings and responses to the text.

Relate to the Wider World: Connect the text's ideas, characters, or messages to their own lives, current events, or broader societal issues, drawing on their prior knowledge and experiences.

The beauty of podcasting for this purpose is that it encourages extended verbalization. It's not just a quick answer; it's about articulating a viewpoint, supporting it, and potentially responding to others' ideas. This process naturally fosters more meaningful and sustained discussions.

In our upcoming podcasting sessions, I'll be explicitly providing students with questions designed to target these areas. The focus will be less on rote recall and more on encouraging them to use their prior knowledge and personal perspectives to build a richer understanding of the text.

I'm incredibly excited to see how this podcasting journey continues to unfold and the impact it has on our students' ability to engage in truly extended and meaningful discussions. Stay tuned for more updates as our KPE podcasting studio gets into full swing!

Please leave a comment with feedback or advice.

Term 2 Update

This term we have got the ball rolling with our podcasting already! This terms focus is Our Solar System, we have lots of excited learners with great questions about space, make sure you watch our podcasts! This is our new KPE (Korero Pt England) blog, please have a look and comment on our blogs.

I've been wondering a lot about how I'm able to assess my learners throughout the year without having to probe them every second week. I remember a workshop I went to with Gabriel Hughes, he gave us a prompt that you can put into Gemini/Chat GPT, this gives you a text relevant to the students' reading age, and multiple different questions for them to answer about a small text that is created. This is the prompt you put in below.

"I would like an article on the topic of the race to the moon. Use language that is appropriate for students reading at 12 years old.

Based on this text, I need you to create follow-up questions for my students. I would like 2 questions that target vocabulary, 3 questions which target comprehension, 3 which require inference, and 3 questions which connect the text to the wider world."

I'm going to do this with my learners this week. I will score them on vocabulary, comprehension, inference, and connection to the wider world. Once I've done this, I'll graph the results and see what comprehension questions I need to focus on, I can add these questions to our podcasts we are creating.

This can be a summative assessment I can do with my learners a couple of times a term, to see where they're at and what our next learning steps are.

In my podcasts I'm finding that it's taking my learners to long to create the questions for each other in the Non-Fiction texts, I have either been giving the questions to them or co-constructing these questions in our small groups.

Will be back soon with my results!

Brian Oshiro - Encouraging Critical Thinking and Creativity

 Encouraging Critical Thinking

- How to get children creative?

- What questions are we asking our learners?

- Learner selected texts

- What questions do we ask? Bringing the text to life, are we engaging students? Or is it the continuous respond to text. 

Do you know what Climate Change is?

What are three causes of Climate Change?

Brian discusses the difference between these 2 questions, what one of these questions better assess' student learning? Do our learners know these answers?

The next question - Why do some claim that climate change is the biggest crisis facing this generation?

This questions gets students using what they've read and having to apply it to a real life situation, making connections.

This relates really nicely with extended discussion and how it is so important to have a great provocation.

What - Why - How!

Start with a what question (giving learners an easy engaging question to start with), follow this up with a why question, finish with a how question. Get your learners to defend their answers, how do you know this? Where is your evidence? Search through the text. Ask learners how they can solve a problem? They then have to synthesise information.

Ground rules for talk are so important. The provcation could be the best you've ever made, however, if the ground rules for talk aren't there.

How can we foster creativity and critical thinking in schools?

Are we giving students questions that don't just have one answer?

Integrate higher-order questions. 

This video is such great watch, would highly recommend.

How does this relate to me? What are my takes from this?

Look at the 3 step questioning, What, Why and How. Getting my learners to be more curious about different ideas, I understand that I will need more learner selected texts for this to work as well. In our podcast scripts I am going to look more at scaffolding the questions that my learners will ask each other and select those questions as a group, rather than being a group task, this will get more higher order questions that they will discuss, looking specifically at the 'how' questions.

If we can get students understanding the What, Why and How questions, the best thing would be during our extended discussions, our learners asking each other these questions, I will keep modelling this throughout our lessons.

Watch this space!

Mid-Term Reflections: Getting learners inferring more complex texts.

 2025 is flying as we are halfway through Term 1, all our testing is done and we are getting stuck into our learning. What I'm finding in my class is that my students are stuck on having a deeper understanding of the text.

The data - Priority Learners - These are my 2 middle groups that I'll be focusing on. These learners are Year 7&8, most of them can read fluently, they need to work on comprehending the text.

Looking more deeply into the PAT reading comprehension data, I can see that our students did really well with basic retrieval questions. However, our Year 7/8 cohort really struggled with complex inference questions and local inference questions.

Going back to my inquiry question: 

How might podcasting support the development of my learners' ability to engage in extended, meaningful discussions about a text? 

A big part of my inquiry is based around my learners having extended discussions. I was lucky enough to be apart of the RPI cohort last year where we were taught why and how to have extended discussions, you can see more about this if you scroll through my blog.

Moving Forward: Implementing Strategic Adjustments

I've been watching a few different Class OnAir episodes to help me get better at teaching extended discussion. I watched one of Rob Wiseman's episodes, one thing he did was give the students the provocation before reading the text, so they're able to think about it more and are ready to share when it comes to having the extended discussion. This is something I will try as I often find my kids haven't had enough time to collect the ideas they want to share during our extended discussions.

Another thing I noticed that Rob did, was that he had the extended discussion first and then had response to text questions following that. This is something else I'll try in my reading lessons.

The Podcast Initiative: Progress and Implementation

I'm having a lot of success with my podcasts, we've got to the point where my learners are able to use Google Vids, for filming and editing, they're starting to post these on their blog which is great. 

The KPE (Korero Pt England) blog is still currently being made, we can't wait to post our podcasts on this blog. 

Next Steps and Ongoing Development

To further enhance this inquiry, I intend to implement the following strategies:

• Provide explicit instruction in inference skills, utilizing modeling and think-aloud to demonstrate effective techniques.
• Use AI to create text and follow up inferential questions as independent and group tasks.
• Implement scaffolding strategies for extended discussions, including pre-discussion prompts and structured discussion formats.
• Explicitly connect the podcasting process to the development of comprehension skills, encouraging students to utilize podcasts for summarizing, analyzing, and inferring.
• Upon the KPE blog launch, utilize it for peer feedback, reflection, and to share.

Stay tuned to hear more!

New Edublog? New site? Podcasting Worldwide!

Welcome back! 

We had our first meeting with everyone, what an amazing experience connecting with other teachers in our cluster. I had some great chats about the podcasting i'm doing in the classroom.

I have created a YouTube channel to which I will be uploading our podcast videos. Matt helped me create an edublog where we are going to be able to share all our 'Korero Pt England' episodes. I have been thinking about what I want the edublog to look like, I really like the Cybersmart site and want it to look something like this, but also having this format relate back to the original Korero Pt England blog with the different episodes and a link back to the original 'Korero Pt England' blog.

Student Voice Questionaire:

Rating out of /10 - How much do you enjoy podcasting?

Average - 7.8/10

How often would you like to do podcasting?

Weekly - 10  ,  Fortnightly - 18

Why do you like podcasting?

• Gives me confidence
• Share my learning to the world
• It's fun
• Get to work with my friends
• Can be myself
• Learn new words
• Work with new people in my class

Would you rather use Camera or Google Vids?

Camera - 8  ,   Google Vids - 22

Collecting the data of Student Voice was great.  I'm happy that they're enjoying podcasting, and am currently working on my reading programme to integrate podcasts every second week. It was great to see the reasons why my learners were enjoying podcasts. The reason a lot of my students picked Google Vids over camera was that they enjoy decorating their vids.

Next steps:

• I have a meeting with Dorothy on Tuesday to pick her brain about a few queries I have with my reading programme.
• Create my 'Korero Pt England' edublog account and begin sharing our podcasts.
• Make a website for teachers and show them how they can use podcasting in their classrooms.

Stay Tuned!!

COL 2025 - About Me

Kia Orana, my name is Zac Moran and I am a year 7/8 teacher at Pt England school. I have been teaching for 9 years and am very passionate about education.

This year I have been lucky enough to be selected for the COL group in our cluster of schools. Last year my inquiry was based on getting my learners participating and engaging in extended discussion to improve vocabulary and reading comprehension. Last year I was apart of the Reading Practise Intensive with Naomi Rosedale this taught me that extended discussion leads to the improvement of reading comprehension and an increase in vocabulary. This then led me to my inquiry this year.

How might podcasting support the development of my learners' ability to engage in extended, meaningful discussions about a text? 

This year I will be continuing to have extended discussions in my class. For the first few weeks we will be setting up group norms and looking at the ground rules of talk.

Why Podcasting?

In 2007 Dorothy Burt and multiple Pt England teachers started 'Korero Pt England' a platform for our children to share their learning with the world. What an engaging and creative way for our learners to share their work. Last year I had a lot of success with rich conversations, creativity and enagement

Throughout the year I'll be sharing podcast scripts that I have created and trying to get other teachers on board with podcasting in their classrooms.

These podcasts below are from my learners last year, the first one is a podcast based on a text set we were reading that week - Rosa Parks.

The second link is 'Whanau Podcasting', something I'm going to try and do more often this year, hopefully this gives our learners a platform to have conversations with whanau around what they are learning.

Rosa Parks Podcast - Angelina

Whanau Podcast - Nunu

I will be updating my blog regularly with updates on what we are doing in our class. Please leave a comment