2. Teacher As Inquiry | Level 1 English
Department Inquiry: How does the use of AKO and
mentoring / facilitating at senior levels improve results?
In response to our departmental inquiry, I have decided to
do an inquiry with my Level 1 English Class.
The focus will be two-fold:
1. Are the students able to make meaningful links between AKO and the
levels of thinking (3 storey intellect) and NCEA achievement levels?
2. How can better understanding of AKO enhance and improve
academic results?
3. Teacher As Inquiry | Level 1 English
Key Strategies:
• Crafting Learning Intentions and Success Criteria that use the language
of learning and make links to the three storey intellect in meaningful ways
• Explicitly discussing LI, SC, AKO and NCEA achievement levels
• Implicitly linking work to AKO and three storey intellect through visual cues
and reminders (including the icons on student resources etc.)
• Asking the students to link their learning to the appropriate level of
thinking
• Discussing the meaning and practical application of key “thinking” words
• Examining essay and exam questions and breaking them down
4. Teacher As Inquiry | Level 1 English
Methods for Collecting & Analyzing Results:
• Verbal feedback and informal interviews: talking with students,
questioning, reflecting
• Surveys and questionnaires
• Data analysis:
- Comparing the students’ results throughout the year (e.g. their
achievement in their first practice essay, compared with their second
essay)
- Comparing the students’ grades with their responses in the AKO surveys
and questionnairs
• Reflections: on-going reflections on strategies, student results and student
feedback
6. • I devised 7 questions in a Google form
• 25 students completed the survey individually with no talking
• They had a maximum of 10 minutes to finish.
The questions assessed the students’ understanding of:
-> What “AKO” refers to
-> The different levels of “Three storey Intellect” and corresponding NCEA
Achievement levels
-> How the language in Learning Intentions and Success Criteria link to the
level of thinking/work expected of them
-> Making links between the language in exam questions and NCEA
achievement levels
Focus of survey questions…
The intention is to repeat a similar survey once or twice a
term to track their developing understanding.
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11. Total Results (Table)
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7
Correct % 80 36 40 36 48 52 68
Incorrect % 20 20 12 24 52 48 32
Half Correct
% 0 44 48 40 NA NA NA
Percentage of Correct/Incorrect Responses
20. Reflection on Results
As this is the first survey of this kind that I have conducted, rather than
attempt to analyse the results, I will predominantly note some observations
which will then inform my analysis in the future.
• 80% of students knew that “AKO” refers to our common language of learning
• Between 70-80% of the class could identify correctly some aspect of each
level of thinking in the three storey intellect
- However, looking at this from another perspective, between 50-60% of
students were incorrect or were not able to link the level of thinking to the
corresponding NCEA achievement level (this is a key area to work on)
• Approximately 50% of students were able to make some accurate
interpretations of language used in LI, SC and exam questions.
- This is positive but also shows that there is a long way for us to go with 50%
of class entering incorrect answers.
