EDUC 4206

PROFESSIONAL
INQUIRY PROJECT:
REPORT

Sophie Tye
110 117 006
Professional Experience 4
Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

Table of Contents

1. FOCUS & JUSTIFICATION OF TEACHING BEHAVIOUR 2

2. CONTEXT AND CURRICULUM AREA 3

3. DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES 3

4. DATA RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 4

4.1 Supervising Teacher Feedback 4

Figure 1.1: supervising teacher feedback week 1 & 2 (school week 5 & 6). 6
Figure 1.2: supervising teacher feedback week 3 & 4 (school week 7 & 8). 7

4.2 Data Frequency Collection 8

Figure 2.1: Frequency chart – number of minutes. 8

4.3 Observations of Student Engagement 8

Figure 3.1: Observations of students 10

5. REFLECTION 11

6. CONCLUSION 11

7. REFERENCES 12

8. APPENDIX: PIP WEEKLY CHECKLIST 13

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Professional Experience 4
Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

Professional Inquiry Project

Findings Report & Data

1. Focus & Justification of Teaching Behaviour

The following professional inquiry project was conducted throughout a fourth year
practicum, from August 20th – September 19th 2018, as a pre-service teacher.
Teacher instruction was identified as the focus for this inquiry, established by
conclusions drawn from a self-review based on the Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers (AITSL 2018). After identifying gaps in my teaching practice,
and reflecting on feedback from my supervising teacher last year, it became clear
that I needed to refine my teaching practice whilst giving explicit instruction. In
particular, the aim for me was to reduce the amount of time I spend giving explicit
instruction, and pass more of the talking over to the children. This focus addresses
AITSL standard 3.3: use teaching strategies (AITSL 2018). To dissect this further,
based on last year’s teacher feedback, my extended instruction often occurred
during literacy, particularly writing. Beyond this, the school in which I was placed for
this current practicum had a strong focus on improving literacy outcomes, which
made literacy the ideal curriculum area to complete this inquiry. Existing research
supports my notion to refine explicit instruction in the area of literacy, as Blair,
Rupley & Nichols (2007, p. 433) claim that the quality of teacher instruction can
largely affect student outcomes in reading and writing. They continue to suggest that
effective teachers integrate explicit instruction, modelling and guided practice to
enhance their instruction. While these are important to factor into instruction,
McCutchen et al. (2002, p. 76) emphasise that young children are unable to
concentrate for large periods of time, and that reception teachers in particular should
reduce their instruction to below 8 minutes. Taking all of this into account, as well as
the fact that the classroom context is a reception class, I aimed to reduce the main
instruction at the beginning of the lesson to 5 minutes, while integrating the range of
strategies as mentioned by Blair, Rupley & Nichols (2007, p. 433).

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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

2. Context and Curriculum Area

The context in which the professional inquiry project was undertaken, is a category 2
school in the southern suburbs of Adelaide. The socio-economic status of the area is
low, and many families have one or no working parents. The classroom in which I
was placed is a reception class with 14 students. At the time of my placement,
reading achievement was below standard for 8 out of 14 children, and multiple
children had difficulty writing legibly. 8 children were taken out daily for 1-1
intervention with SSOs, and this would prove to be a challenge of the inquiry. Many
children were taken out of the literacy block for short segments, meaning that
instruction would be missed and needed to be repeated.

3. Design and Data Collection Techniques

Throughout the inquiry process, I used 3 methods of data collection. Initially, teacher
feedback was intended to be recorded by the supervising teacher twice per week,
although this actually occurred once per week due to the busy nature of the context.
I did however receive verbal feedback following each lesson, allowing me to tweak
my instruction each day. Teacher feedback included positive teaching strategies
witnessed, points for improvement, and recording the number of minutes I spent on
explicit instruction, which was the major focus of this inquiry. The second method of
data collection used was a frequency chart, recording the number of minutes I spent
on explicit instruction for each observed lesson, once per week. This provided an
overall insight as to whether the number of minutes decreased throughout the
placement block, which was the intended outcome. The third method of collection
was a checklist completed by myself, to record observations of students and also
add anecdotal notes about their engagement, which reflects the quality of my
instruction. As the methods of data collection suggest, the aim was to improve
instruction by reducing the number of minutes spent talking, and increasing student
engagement, using the strategies suggested by Blair, Rupley & Nichols (2012).

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4. Data Results and Analysis

4.1 Supervising Teacher Feedback

Blair, Rupley & Nichols (2007, p. 433) state that junior primary children in particular
require regular breaks, and are unable to sit still and/or concentrate for as long as
older children. For this reason I attempted to break the instruction into chunks to
decrease the amount of time that the children have to sit and listen. I implemented
this during book week, when I used the literacy block to have the children complete
some book making and create their own story. My supervising teacher stated
through her feedback that this was successful, and instruction time was decreased to
1-2 minutes at a time. This was consistent with my PIP proposal aim to spend no
more than 5 minutes on explicit instruction at a time. I did however find that with
some of the children my instructions weren’t clear enough, as not all of their
sentences made sense. I think that because of the age and stage of the children,
they were not yet able to think and construct sentences for themselves, due to their
developing ability to read and write. The book that I had scaffolded was a little too
long for them, and they required further examples during my instruction. My
supervising teacher suggested that for the following week, I should aim to focus
more on the quality of the instruction, rather than getting caught up on the number of
minutes. I would then use the children to clarify comprehension, by asking one of
them to repeat my instructions to the class, rather than summarising myself. Figure
1.1 shows teacher feedback.

During the second week of collecting evidence, my supervising teacher mistakenly

recorded a mathematics observation on the form, which skews the data. Her verbal
comment on my literacy instruction however, was that the children were much more
engaged in my instruction. The next step from there, was to introduce movement or
other engaging strategies to engage the children in my instruction even more.

The feedback given to me on the third week of the inquiry, was that my instructions
were really explicit and clear. This indicated a success point for the research, as I
had achieved what I was aiming. I used more clarifying strategies to hand some of
the instruction over to the students, and reduce my overall talking time.
Groundwater-Smith, Ewing & Le Cornu (2015, p. 255) suggested that teachers can
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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

enhance their verbal communication with students by using clarification strategies

and checking in to make sure that content is understood. The clarifying strategy that
I used was asking different students to tell the rest of the class what they were
required to do at the end of my instruction. What I gained from doing this was seeing
the students become engaged with the conversation, taking responsibility for the
instruction and seeing that they understood what was required of them. Henning,
Stone & Kelly (2009, p. 19) also mentioned that new teaching strategies are at the
core of action research. I believe that this type of instruction was successful, as I
used the Derewianka & Jones (2012) teaching and learning cycle, which sequences
the instruction in a way that is meaningful to the students. Based on my supervising
teacher’s feedback, we decided that for the final week of the inquiry, I would continue
to focus on handing the talking over to the students.

During the fourth week the feedback was mostly positive. The lesson structure
supported my instruction, and I was still only talking for less than 5 minutes. My
extensive use of questioning enhanced my instruction, which was evident by the high
levels of comprehension displayed by the students. The inquiry ended here, as
during week 5 of the placement block we had an excursion and school photos which
interfered with literacy time.

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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

Figure 1.1: supervising teacher feedback week 1 & 2 (school week 5 & 6).

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Figure 1.2: supervising teacher feedback week 3 & 4 (school week 7 & 8).

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4.2 Data Frequency Collection

The data frequency collection (figure 2.1), which recorded the number of minutes
spent on instruction once per week, showed that there was no overall decrease in
my instruction time. The initial instruction did however remain under 6 minutes, other
than in week 2, which means that my initial goal was met. While there was no overall
decrease, the number of minutes is justified by teacher feedback.

Day of the Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

week

Number of Week 1:
minutes for 1-2 minutes
literacy at a time. 10
instruction minutes in
total.
Week 2:
10 minutes
spent reading
the book
(Possum
Magic).

5 min
instructional.

2 min giving
examples.
Week 3:
6 minutes
Week 4:
4-5 minutes
Figure 2.1: Frequency chart – number of minutes.

4.3 Observations of Student Engagement

The data samples that I collected of students were inconsistent, as students were
regularly being taken out for intervention and not present during instruction, or they
were late to school. I did notice however, that as my lesson sequences became
more engaging, and as I followed Derewianka & Jones’ (2012) teaching and learning
cycle which begins with an engagement activity, students became a lot more
engaged in the instruction I was giving as they were eager to get into their activity
and find out what they were going to do.

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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

Asking & Distracting Yawning/ Fidgeting Comments

answering others disengaged
questions
Olivia ✔ ✔ ✔ Able to respond to
✔ questions and keen to
ask them.

Annabel ✔ ✔ ✔ Very alert, showing

✔ comprehension and
the first person to ask
and answer
questions.

Sophia ✔✔ ✔ Quiet but engaged,

and a very successful
learner.

Monnie ✔ ✔✔ Able to answer

✔ questions, but is often
tired.

Sarah ✔ ✔ ✔ Easily distracted, and

✔ has a short attention
span.

Luna ✔✔ ✔ Excitable and

✔ engaged when it is of
a topic of interest. At
other times she
wanders off and is
very disconnected
from the topic of
learning. She will
often sit right at the
back of the class or
off to the side, far
away from others and
so she can’t see the
whiteboard.

Indi ✔ ✔ ✔ Puts her hand up to

✔ answer questions, but
lacks the
comprehension to
answer them
competently.

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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

Mason ✔✔ ✔ Arrived at school at

9.40am (30/8) and
missed the literacy
instruction.

He is regularly away
or late, and therefore
misses literacy
instruction. Another
goal for me is to get
him excited about
school to increase his
attendance.

Eliah ✔✔ Usually out with 1-1

SSO support for his
speech & language
NEP.

Caleb ✔ ✔ Often very tired in the

mornings during
literacy, and is often
late to school, but is
able to repeat
instructions to the
class.

AJ ✔ ✔✔ Hard to engage
unless asking him a
direct question or to
demonstrate
something.

Tyler ✔ ✔ Very alert, makes eye

✔ ✔ contact and is eager
to please. Often
asking questions and
responding to them.

Diezel ✔ ✔ ✔ Will chat with others if

the instruction is too
long. Otherwise he is
alert and can answer
questions.

Chase ✔ ✔ ✔ Shy and quiet, but

always keen to give
his input.
Figure 3.1: Observations of students

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Professional Inquiry Project (Findings)

5. Reflection
The changes that have been made to my teaching behaviour, when giving literacy
instruction, as a result of this professional inquiry project are as follows:

1. I use the students to repeat instructions, instead of repeating them myself.

2. I involve the students in the instruction process a lot more than I did
previously.
3. My language and vocabulary have become more explicit.
4. I ensure that I am pronouncing words correctly (e.g. emphasising ‘er’ in
cleaner instead of clean’a’) to reduce confusion in students.
5. My tone of voice is more engaging, which also helps to reduce behaviour
problems.
6. The amount of time that I spend on instruction is minimal.

All of these changes have occurred as a result of receiving daily feedback from my
supervising teacher, and continually refining my practice to suit my students. In the
future, I will continue to be conscious of these aspects and ensure that my instruction
is the most suitable it can be to the relevant group of students. For example, if I end
up teaching upper primary, my instruction will be a lot different to what it was at the
time of this inquiry with receptions.

6. Conclusion

The impact that the professional inquiry has been larger than I initially expected. The
huge overall change that I saw in the quality of my instruction, and the positive
outcomes that this produced for my students, enabled me to visually interpret the
impact of effective teaching strategies. While I will continue to refine this skill, I now
feel that I am confident in the AITSL standard 3.3 – use teaching strategies, and I
can do this effectively. My future direction will be to use this same meticulous
process to refine my behaviour management strategies.

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7. References
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) 2017, Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers, AITSL, viewed 20th September 2018,
<https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards>.

Blair, TR, Rupley, WH & Nichols, WD 2007, ‘The effective teacher of reading:
considering the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of instruction’, The Reading Teacher, vol. 60, no. 5,
pp. 432-438.

Derewianka, B & Jones, P 2012, Teaching language in context, Oxford University

Press, South Melbourne.

Groundwater-Smith, S, Ewing, R & Le Cornu, R 2015, Teaching: challenges &

dilemmas, 5th edn, Cengage Learning, South Melbourne.

Henning, JE, Stone, JM & Kelly, JL 2009, Using action research to improve
instruction: an interactive guide for teachers, Routledge, New York.

McCutchen, D, Abbott, RD, Green, LB, Beretvas, NS, Cox, S, Potter, NS, Quiroga, T
& Gray, AL 2002, ‘Beginning literacy: links among teacher knowledge, teacher
practice and student learning’, Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 69-
86.

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8. Appendix: PIP Weekly Checklist

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