When the light bulb turns on.

                                           

I had an ‘a-ha’ moment this week with my AVID class.

In an AVID class, when a student finally sees the point of a topic or task, and their light bulb goes on -  we call that an ‘a-ha’ moment -  and we actually get them to make note of it in their workbook by putting an exclamation mark (!) next to whatever it was that helped them get the point. It’s my favourite moment in a classroom.

But this time it was my ‘a-ha’ moment. It was when the AVID students were partaking in the tutorial process and I was partaking in Quality Teaching Rounds. I saw how two independent parts of something I was involved in, came together - my light bulb went on and I mentally stuck an exclamation mark next to it.

Quality teaching is a term that I had heard, and thought I understood, before I became involved with the framework. Basically, the framework is a list of  qualities that a lesson needs in order to make it an engaging and relevant lesson. In the rounds a small group of teachers collaborate to discuss teaching strategies and observe and code lessons against the Framework, all the while seeking suggestions and feedback on how a lesson might become more engaging and relevant - adding quality.  It is a thought-provoking way to keep your teaching strategies on point. The framework gives you something to “hang” your skills on.

This is my second time being involved in QTR. The first time was prior to me completing any AVID training or knowing anything about AVID. During the AVID training, I had thought that the strategies link in extraordinarily well with  the Quality Teaching Framework - they just seemed to fit together. All the strategies could be hung onto an area of the framework. This was my first ‘a-ha’ and I thought the only way I would truly know if AVID equalled quality teaching was to be involved in QTR a second time. My goal was to have my QTR group observe an AVID lesson and code it against the Quality Teaching Framework.

So, this week my opportunity came around.

As part of the AVID process, the students take part in Tutorials. Each student has to think about the work they have undertaken throughout the week and consider a section that they have not thoroughly grasped - we call this the Point of Confusion (POC). They are then able to work with a small group of students to try and determine the answer to their POC. The most interesting part of a tutorial is that it is not run by a teacher - the students work with a tutors from the University of Newcastle - and the students love it!

A tutorial works like this:

1. Before the tutorial date, each student must complete a Tutorial Request Form (TRF) - this helps them to develop their Point of Confusion about a topic.

                                     

2. Students attend the tutorial and they present their POC to their group.
3. They work in the library with whiteboards and the whiteboard tables and they write down the process their thinking goes through. (You should try booking the library for group work activities - students like writing on the tables.)
4. The group’s job is to support the student to come to an understanding about the POC - they are not to tell the student the answer - they have to ask questions that will guide the student to the realisation - this realisation is the ‘a-ha’ moment!
5. Once a student has had their ‘a-ha’ moment, another student gets a turn to present and the process starts again.

It is a hard process. Next time someone asks you a question, try it - try not to answer their question directly. See if you can ask them a series of smaller questions that may lead them to understand how to come to an answer themselves. It’s a tough strategy, and sometimes it takes longer than others, but the process encourages students to think about their learning path.

Anyway, getting back to my ‘a-ha’ moment! This week, during Quality Teaching Rounds, we coded a Tutorial against the Quality Teaching Framework -  And it was brilliant!! Every section of the Quality Teaching Framework’s target was hit at a high level. This meant that the intellectual quality of the Tutorial was high - students engaged with problematic knowledge, used higher-order thinking through substantive communication. This meant that a quality learning environment was created through student engagement, high expectations and a positive social support network. It also meant that Tutorials have significance to students as they are all included in the process and are able to bring what they do know to the table and express their understanding - each Tutorial is about what they do know and using it to understand what they don’t know.

Light bulbs went off in my head - A-HA!!! For me, this is why AVID is working and the strategies are important. It fits beautifully into Quality Teaching.  Turns out AVID and Quality Teaching are not two independent projects I was involved with. They are intrinsic of each other and the students are benefiting from these two independent aspects of teaching working together.

AVID = Quality Teaching = AVID

If you get a chance to work with the Quality Teaching Framework by participating in a Round, I truly hope that you take the opportunity. Teachers should never stop learning and I have learned so much from collaborating with colleagues and inviting them into my classroom - I hope that you have many more ‘a-ha’ moments and your light bulb shines brightly.

The magic of WICOR

When I first found out about WICOR and developed an understanding of how it works, I thought to myself "this is what I thought teaching was". It changed the way I saw my role within the classroom. I describe it as moving from a passive teacher to an active teacher. WICOR is the foundation of teaching and learning within the AVID Program. I use it as a structure for programming and lesson planning and once you see how it works you'll never look back. I have learned that if you provide students with the structure in which to learn, they develop the knowledge and skills required without me, as their teacher, telling them what it is they need to learn. It is showing them how to learn - not what to learn.

So, what is WICOR and how does it work its magic?

WICOR incorporates teaching/learning methodologies in the following critical areas: Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organisation and Reading to learn.

WICOR is a model used to guide students to comprehend materials and concepts, and articulate ideas, at increasingly complex levels with developmental, general education and discipline-based curricula. The WICOR structure aims to improve critical reading and thinking skills using writing as a thinking and communication tool, and fostering collaboration among teachers and students while providing "real world" experiences. 

By using the framework of WICOR to write a program, I am ensuring that students have access to the topic, or syllabus dot point, or concept, or chunk of work, through writing, inquiry, collaborating and reading.

Using WICOR has changed the way I approach planning to teach. For example, the first topic of year 7 history is called “What is History?” My old program required me to have a series of notes on a power point which students copied into books and a teacher lead discussion, after which they would answer a series of questions and write the answers into their books – comprehension style. 

When I introduced the same unit using WICOR, it looked like this:

·         Inquiry – I posited the question – “What is History?”

·         Write – students had 2mins to write down their thoughts

·         Collaboration – in groups (all my classes sit in groups now) students share their thoughts

·         Read – students given a reading with the purpose of answering the question

·         Organisation – as they read students highlight words that they do not understand

·         Collaborate – students compare words with their group to gain meaning. If the group is unable to explain the meanings, these words are discussed as a class.

·         Organisation – Mind map the key ideas under the subheadings in the reading.

·         Inquire: Aim to answer the question “What is History?”

·         Write: Using the key points in the mind map, write a response to the inquiry question

Using this approach, the students are active in their learning. No longer are they passively copying notes and being given the questions to repeat answers too. They have created their own notes from a purposeful reading, developed questions, practiced writing, organised their work – learning skills on how to learn while they are learning. Yes, it took twice as long to teach this section of the syllabus and students were responsible to engage with the work. Some of it even needed to be completed at home – but they couldn’t move onto the next part without completing the first part as the information was not being given to them – they had to engage, be responsible and, more importantly, THINK.

I’ll be honest in saying that it was not an easy, quick fix, to teaching. Students don’t always like it – thinking hurts! It also took me a fair amount of time to re-program what my purpose of teaching was. But when I repeated the strategies in another lesson and I saw students starting to question information and actually think about the process – not just tell me what they’ve been told to – that’s when I felt I was a really doing my job – a real teacher - and WICOR had weaved its magic

From an AVID perspective the importance of WICOR in programming is fundamental to learning and my goal as an AVID teacher is to give students the skills on how to learn by following the following principles:

Writing - consists of an essential, complex set of tools that enhance critical thinking - good writers tend to be good thinkers, and improving cognitive skills enhances one's writing abilities. 

Writing is:

• is a learning tool
• a personal and public communication tool
• a record of thinking

Students who write:

• consider audience and purpose
• engage in various processes to address specific situations
• support their thinking
• demonstrate understanding

AVID strategies that support student writing:

• Cornell note-taking
• learning logs
• Quickwrites and reflections
• process writing
• peer evaluation
• authentic writing

According to the Foundation of Critical Thinking, "thinking is not driven by answers, but by questions," positioning inquiry as foundation to the higher level cognition required for academic success. 

Inquiry is:  

•  uncovering one's understanding   
• asking critical questions   
• engaging in thinking learning and discussion

Students who inquire:

• analyse and synthesise materials and ideas 
• clarify their own thinking
• probe others thinking 
• work through ambiguity

AVID strategies that support student inquiry:

• skilled questioning techniques
• Costa’s levels of thinking
• Socratic Seminars
• Tutorials
•  Investigations
• Guiding questions

 AVID’s high engagement learning strategies involve collaborative activities through which individual students help each other learn, thereby strengthen their own learning.

Collaboration is:

• Teamwork with shared responsibility
•    Sharing of ideas, information and opinions
•   Formal and informal discussion

Students who collaborate:

• Work together toward a common goal
• Develop positive interdependence
• Work in focused study groups
• Support the learning of others through inquiry

AVID strategies that support student collaboration:

•        Socratic seminars
•        Tutorials
•        Philosophical chairs
•        Group activities and projects
•        Peer editing groups
•        Service learning projects

Consistent with its focus on promoting “individual determination,” AVID provides support for the organisation of materials, assignments, assessments, handouts and notes.

Organisation is

•  Managing materials and practising methodical study habits
• Planning and prioritising school, work and social task
• Engaging in mental preparation and goal-setting
• Strategically and intentionally taking responsibility of one’s own learning

Students who organise:

• Develop and use processes, procedures and tools to study effectively
• Manage time through prioritising and goal setting
• Are prepared for courses, participate during instruction, and interact with instructors
• Self-direct, self-evaluate, self-monitor, and self-advocate

AVID strategies that support organisation:

•  Binder and organisational tools
• Calendars, planners and agendas
•  Graphic organisers
• A focused note-taking system
•  Tutorials and study groups
•  Project planning

AVID’s approach to “critical reading” provides research-based strategies designed to help students read more effectively. Skills such as “reading with purpose" can be scaffolded with more complex activities to ensure that students are connecting reading material to prior knowledge, understanding the structure of texts, and using text-processing strategies during and after reading to improve comprehension.

Reading is:

• Strategically gaining meaning, understanding and knowledge from print and other media
•  Purpose driven
•  Interactive

Students who read:

• Understand text structures
• Apply prior knowledge and make connections to other texts, self and the world.
• Make predictions and ask questions
• Create visual images as they read

AVID strategies that support reading:

• Deep reading strategies
•  Note-taking
• Graphic organisers
• Vocabulary building
• Summarising
• Reciprocal teaching agendas 

What is AVID?

You may have heard the term AVID being used around the school - AVID class, AVID training, AVID strategies. We have introduced this learning program to Wadalba Community School over the past two years. But what is it? What does it do? Who does it involve? This blog is being written by the AVID R&D team. We aim to introduce you to AVID at Wadalba and encourage you to use the strategies with your classrooms.

What is AVID?

In a nutshell AVID stands for Achieving Via Individual Determination.

It is a learning program that was developed in the USA to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for University and other post-secondary opportunities. Simply, AVID trains teachers to use proven practices in order to prepare students for success in high school, university, and a career, especially students traditionally underrepresented in higher education.

AVID is not just another program. At it’s heart AVID is a philosophy.

Hold students accountable to the highest standards,

provide academic and social support,

and they will rise to the challenge.

What is AVID at Wadalba?

At Wadalba, we have introduced the AVID program in a couple of ways. We have an AVID class and we have introduced various strategies to teachers to include in their classrooms.

The AVID Class

2015 saw out first AVID class. 30 students were selected to begin year 8 in an AVID style classroom. English, HSIE, Science and Maths would be taught by teachers who had received AVID training and the classes would run using AVID strategies. The selection process is fairly simple. They needed to meet the following criteria:

• ·         Not the high end student, not a low end student – an in-betweener who engages with work
• ·         Has potential to and might be considering going to university after school
• ·         Their parents have not completed a university degree
• ·         Recommendation from their year 7 teachers.

Once we have a range of names, letters are sent out to the parents of the students and they attend an information night and the final class is decided in consultation between HT AVID (Jenny Bennett), DP AVID (Jane Harris) and the Principal (Jason McGrath).

2016 has seen our second AVID class take off and hopefully this program will continue to grow as the whole community engages the strategies and students achieve success.

The AVID Strategies

There are literally hundreds of different strategies that are part of the AVID program. Teachers who have the AVID class are introducing them to students through their programming. However, these strategies can be used by teachers independent of being in an AVID class. At it’s core, AVID strategies teach skills and behaviours for academic success. There has been some opportunity to attend aspects of AVID training at in school PD days and there will be more opportunity, so keep an eye-out for this. Below is a list of the most common and popular strategies used by AVID teachers and over the coming year this blog aims to introduce, explain and encourage teachers to use them in your classroom.

• ·         W-I-C-O-R
• ·         Binders
• ·         Cornell Notes
• ·         Philosophical Chairs
• ·         Critical Reading/Listening
• ·         Socratic Seminars
• ·         Costas Levels of Questioning
• ·         Interactive Notebooks

    Also, ask and AVID teacher about the strategies and how they work for them - we are more than happy and willing to help out.