In relation to the challenge I faced this year, VTaL Tracking did not increase student achievement in my Yr 11 and Yr 12 History classes. Because progress on completing tasks was so laboured the tracking sheets often only presented information indicating that tasks were incomplete. Hinerau Anderson has noted in her blog that this phenomenon could be a major drawback when using the VTaL Tracking system.

My History students certainly found the BLACKS and REDS demoralising. Some students also felt they could ease up on their workrate when they saw that many of their peers had not completed a number of assessment tasks. I agree with Hinerau Anderson’s point that different learning activities and teaching strategies need to be examined if REDS are continually being loaded onto the VTaL sheet. However, the completion of assessment tasks was affected by time constraints and alarming attendance rates from many students.

Looking towards 2018 this teaching challenge has encouraged me to think critically about how my teaching strategies can be adapted to help my History students complete assessment tasks in timely fashion. I will also think about implementing a simplified checklist for each assessment that students themselves can monitor and update in order to better improve their own achievement and overall learning.     

I challenge I have faced this year is trying to help students understand and track their own progress in terms of completing the necessary number of tasks for particular NCEA Level 1 and NCEA Level 2 History internal assessments.

I have tried to address this challenge through the use of Vital Tracking sheets that use colour-coded spreadsheet cells to indicate levels of task completion: RED indicating that a task has been started, YELLOW indicating that progress has been made on a task and GREEN indicating that a task is complete.

Over the course of 2017 I have made adjustments to the Vital Tracking colour-coding system in order to place greater emphasis on certain aspects of the tracking sheets in the hopes that students will respond more readily to the information being presented to them. Initially, unstarted tasks were indicated by a blank cell but I have now changed these to BLACK to bring attention to the fact that work on a task has not yet begun and NEEDS to begin. I have also begun highlighting student names in RED to indicate that I am concerned at the number of uncommenced BLACK tasks that a student has beside their name. I have begun highlighting the names of students who have completed all tasks to a satisfactory level in PINK which is Mr Brown's favourite colour and emphasizes the fact that these students are 100% on track to achieving their credits for a particular assessment. Student feedback on the updated colour-coding scheme has been positive and I will continue to monitor the entire Vital Tracking system over the course of term 3.           

Mr Brown's First Blog Post - Te Wheke (played by Anzac Wallace) from the 1983 film 'Utu'