Act to know:

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Act to know
Interaction between assessment data and practical
knowledge in writing classes
Presented by SKH St Peters Primary School (AM
PM) T.W.G.Hs. Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School
11 May 2005
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What makes teachers change their instructional
practice?
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Interaction between assessment data and practical
knowledge in writing classes
Episode 1
School SKH St Peters Primary School (AM
PM) Teachers 3 AM teachers 3 PM
teachers Level P.2
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Evidence-based practice in local school context

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Action in progress
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• Act to know
• Reflecting on territory-wide assessment data and
  relating the data to the day-to-day problems in
  our classrooms

How do we interpret the TSA papers?
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What are our challenges?
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How is our interpretation related to the
day-to-day problems in our classrooms?
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Report on the Basic Competencies of Students in
English Language (KS 1) Hong Kong Examinations
and Assessment Authority (November 2004)

• General Comments on Writing
• Strengths
• Students wrote well when writing about their own
  likes as well as some personal experiences, such
  as good friends and school activities.
• Some students could produce a piece of writing
  where use of imagination is required.

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• Weaknesses
• Although students might make mistakes in spelling
  words, in many cases, it did not always interfere
  with the communication of ideas.
• Some students showed difficulty with sentence
  structures and verb forms.
• Most students required more support on how to
  sequence their ideas and give more details.

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TSA Paper for KS1 (July 2004)
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• KS1 Writing BC
• Writing and/or responding to short and simple
  texts with relevant information and ideas
  (including personal experiences and imaginative
  ideas) with the help of cues (IS, KS, ES)
• Writing short and simple texts using a small
  range of vocabulary, sentence patterns and
  cohesive devices fairly appropriately with the
  help of cues despite some spelling and
  grammatical mistakes (KS)

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A birthday present for Garfield (Module 1)
I will buy Gogo for Garfield. It is brown. It is
fat. It has got very big eyes. It has got a small
mouth. It has got short hair.
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• Act to know
• Identifying students areas of weakness

My Toy Friend (Module 2)
The students rely quite heavily on the models
given by the teacher. How can they move away
from modelled writing?
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How can we bridge the gap between modelled
writing and free writing?
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Can experience help? But what is experience?
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• Act to know
• Challenging the presumed practice

Ive tried this way in my class. It worked quite
well.
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Really? I feel that something is still lacking
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Based on this finding, lets try an alternative
way and look at the student work again.
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In this context, the alternative way seems to
work better in terms of the students responses
and the quality of their work. Why?
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What is experience? How to connect personal
experience to writing?
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My Toy Friend (Module 2)
My name is Jenny. I am a cat. I am a girl. I am
white. I have got big eyes. I have got a small
mouth. I have got a small nose. I have got small
ear. I have got a small tail. I am young. I am
fat. I like to eat fish. I am happy.
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• Act to know
• Freeing ourselves

But I used to be like that I was taught that way
as a student and I have been teaching that way
for a long time.
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The students tend to pay more attention to
language forms than expression of meaning. Why?
Is it related to our teaching?
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We are the students role models. We cant just
challenge our students. We should also challenge
ourselves!
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Shared writing -gt group writing -gt individual
writing (Module 3)
Activating previous knowledge
Writing about a monster (Module 3)
Encouraging activeuse of vocabulary
Connecting previous knowledge with new learning
Shared writing
Modelling writing skills
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My name is Alan. I am a monster. I am a boy. I am
old. I am forty years old. I have got small eyes,
a big mouth and long ears. I am black. I am fat,
short and clean. I like to eat children and
hamburgers. I can eat but I cant read and write.
I am ugly.
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Shared writing -gt group writing -gt individual
writing (Post-exam activity)
Maximizing the input for students
Fancy Dress Party (Post-exam activity)
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Modelling skills but not merely contentsor
formats
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More risk-taking withthe students
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Concept map
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Vivian At the fancy dress party Today, we have a
fancy dress party in the school hall. We are very
excited. I want to be a dancer. I have got long
brown and black hair. I am tall and thin. I have
got a crown. My dress is pink and yellow. I can
sing and dance. I like eat cakes and grapes. I
like to drink pear juice and grapes juice. Lucy
want to be a dancer. She has got long green hair.
She is short and thin. She has got a ball. Her
shirt is orange. She can jump and play the ball.
She like to eat pear and biscuits. She like to
drink apple juice and cake. Jane want to be a
drcider (designer). She has got long orange hair.
She is short and thin. She has got a picture. Her
trousers are yellow. She can paint a picture and
sing. She like to eat sweets, lemon and grapes.
She like to drink coke, pear juice and lemon
juice. We play games, eat candies and take
photos. We are very happy.
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Collecting evidence for collective reflection
critical inquiry

• Comparison within the same class
• Whole class
• More able / average / less able students
• Individual students (writing portfolio)
• Comparison across different classes

Self interpretation of the evidence collected
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Under this context, what practical knowledge have
we generated through collective reflection and
critical inquiry to promote improvement in the
identified areas of weakness?

• Freeing ourselves from language forms before
  freeing the students
• Modelling skills but not merely contents and
  formats
• Challenging the presumed practice
• Maximizing the input for the students when
  shifting the focus from language forms to
  expression of ideas
• Promoting student learning through school-based
  curriculum development but class-based
  adaptation

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Interaction between assessment data and practical
knowledge in writing classes
Episode 2
School T.W.G.Hs. Leo Tung-hai Lee Primary School
Teachers Six teachers (5A-5F), PSMCD 2
panel heads Level P.5 Students Streaming at
P.5, most students without parental support in
English learning
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• Modular design
• Use the topic Public transport in the textbook
  as context to write about a story that happened
  on a bus/the MTR/the LRT etc
• Focus on particular writing skills like
  paragraphing adding details

• Teaching and Learning Strategy
• shared writing
• brainstorming, use mind map to organise ideas
• verbal correction
• use the above strategies to practise 3 times on
  seemingly different topics like On the bus, on
  the MTR, on the LRT, on the mini-bus etc,
  introduce one skill at a time

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• Number of Practices (5B)

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• Teachers Initial Reflection

• Observation
• Students participated actively in shared writing
  and brainstorming
• They could master particular writing skills like
  paragraphing and adding details
• Students Performance in the Exam
• They did quite well in the exam, even the weak
  ones could organize their ideas and express in
  simple words

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• Questions we were interested in
• Did the students memorize their own scripts and
  regurgitate them in the exam?
• How much did the students learn in each practice?
• Who could benefit most from this strategy?
• Was 5 times better than 3 times?

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Case 1 John
Simplified Version

• Area of improvement Content

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Case 1 John
Area of improvement Word level
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Case 1 John

• Area of improvement Attitude

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Unabridged Version
Case 1 John

• Area of improvement Paragraph Level

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• Case 2 Michelle

Simplified Version
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Case 2 Michelle

• Area of improvement Word Level

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Case 2 Michelle

• Area of improvement Attitude

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Teachers Reflection

• Low achievers (e.g John Phobe) can benefit more
  from such strategies, especially in terms of
  accuracy
• High achievers (e.g. Michelle) cannot benefit as
  much as low achievers from such strategies, not
  much improvement in terms of accuracy, show signs
  of boredom (careless mistakes)
• e.g. 1st Practice I played and talked with
  her.
• 5th Practice(Pre-exam practice) I played
  to him and talked to him.
• Review on the number of practices

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Tom and David is good friends. Last Monday, They
went to they school. In the recess, they played
under a big tree. Suddenly, David saw a handbag
near b big rock. And then he went to the bag and
opened it. It was a lot of money and toys. At
that time, David thought,If I took the money, I
chould be a rush boy and I chould took the toys
to my friend look. When David was stealing the
handbag, Tom saw it. Tom thought, I will not
stop him. We will rush and we can brought many
things too. No! No! We chould not took the
money. When we took the money, we will be
dishonest person. Therefore we chould not took
the money, he thought again. And then Tom told
David we should took the money to the teacher. At
that time, They took the money to they
classteacher.
Anna
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