I spent much of this week at buildings for the opening meetings and sharing by the principals. It is one of my opportunities to observe them in important teaching situations and to provide them with feedback. Today, I was at the high school where I was entertained by staff using humor to share information from The Brain Rules and also impressed by the focus and conversations around Classroom 10, teacher/student relationship, active processing, and Ethan’s continued sharing of strategies to check for understanding. It sounds like a lot in the context of focus, but all of these initiatives contribute to an understanding and implementation of Classroom 10.
Terry shared the draft Classroom 10 characteristics document that will be shared at all buildings to identify the five that are included in every lesson and the five that will be observed over the course of a unit. I posted about these on August 23rd where I also shared the difference of opinion at the administrative level related to a targeted thinking skill included in every lesson. When this first emerged, I was open to being influenced as there are many of you much more knowledgeable about this than I am. Since then I must admit that I have been influenced by Nancy, Kristin, and Jonathan’s comments, especially as it relates to wanting students to be thinking every day in every lesson and the teacher and students being able to label and use the thinking skill in their work. It is not about teaching to a thinking skill in every lesson. I encourage you to read their comments.
Though I could still be influenced, my space is only being filled by those that believe thinking and labeling these skills should be included in every lesson. In the absence of another voice it will become more difficult for me to unpack space and be open to influence. It is interesting that the comments from my post come from only one perspective. I wonder if it might be the voices, one from the assistant superintendent and another from a T&L staff person that are making it more difficult to share. Perhaps it might be the lack of experience or comfort engaging with the technology. Or, it might be that those holding a different opinion are not among those that follow my blog. In any case, it would be interesting and important to hear from them as we reflect on this important question. The outcome will have significant influence on our Classroom 10 journey so it is important to hear from all voices.
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OK..... well I guess I will chime in and give my quick thoughts on the subject of identifying "Thinking Skills" in every daily lesson.
First, I must admit that although I believe I am a veteran in the integration of Habits of Mind, Outcomes & Indicators and Thinking Skills into my lessons I am but a novice at identifying those items and purposefully sharing them with my students. This intentionality will be one of my goals for the year.
I am wondering if by identifying all of these items to the students each day that they may have a hard time focusing or truly comprehend any one item? Will we be providing them with sensory overload? What is wrong with intentionally building in the "Thinking Skills" and the students utilize them without an intentional mention.
I guess my thoughts expand beyond just "Thinking Skills" and could be expanded to "Habits of Mind" and "Outcome's and Indicators" as well. I do believe that these items are important and should be integrated into each lesson but am not convinced that each must be intentionally identified to the students on a daily basis.
I do not believe labeling these skills should be included in every lesson.
Some lessons do lend themselves to this authentic discussion of what Thinking Skills enable students to complete the task, and sharing these strategies give all students a broader base for approaching problems in the future.
That being said, some lesson are more efficient without the discussion. Sometimes 'teachable moments' occur within a lesson that were unanticipated, and other great designs fail to materialize.
I have not seen any research that shows direct instruction of metacognitive skills really works. What the research I've encountered seems to show as most effective is that teachers are trained to be on the lookout for opportunities to facilitate authentic metacognitive discussions in all lessons, and students have opportunities to engage in these activities. Metacognition just hasn't really been shown that it can be taught, in my opinion....just learned, somehow.
I know last year's fourth grade math problem solver assessments provided a vehicle for students to articulate diverse ways of expressing 'thinking about thinking' without having teachers write anything on their lesson plans.
Trusting teachers to be able to provide evidence of student learning, even if the goal is Thinking Skills, is a fair and authentic measure of effective pedagogy. Writing curriculum that looks right is usually not.
On one end of the spectrum lies a colleague of mine. Almost every morning they arrive at the building at 6 AM, bring out their laminated Thinking Skills/HOM/Outcomes sheets and compare them to the day's lessons... seeing where they can intentionally integrate them. I am in awe. I so respect their ethic. Me? Come 6 AM I am wrapping up a high-quality REM session, preparing to reach out and smack the snooze button. When I begin my day I proceed to teach a lesson that, often afterwards, I look over and realize, "cool...that activity, like, hit 3 Thinking Skills...sweet." Obviously we are in different places on this journey but we both agree that it would not be productive mandating daily intentional identification... there are simply many ways to reach the same goal and mandates often produce negative, unintended consequences. But then, that's just my meager opinion.
One of the hardest things for students to get skillful at is the ability to transfer a thinking process from one context to another. Being more conscious of the type of thinking we are expecting students to do in a lesson helps us be more intentional about the strategies we select to engage and support students in that thinking and labeling that for students helps them be more conscious of the thinking they are doing. This increases the likelihood that when faced with a problem they don’t immediately know how to solve they will be able to consider other experiences and types of thinking they have done and been successful at and apply it in the new situation. Teaching for transfer is something I talked about when teaching in the classroom but I didn’t have specific strategies I used to help students acquire that skill. Being conscious and labeling thinking skills and habits of mind is one of the strategies we can build into our lessons that assist students in making those connections. As I am partnering with teachers in designing lessons two questions we try to be conscious of are:
• What is the type of thinking I want students to do today?
• What habit of mind will assist them in being a successful learner today?
Sometimes I worry that we are over complicating our journey. As I think about implementing Classroom 10 and the thinking skills component, I don't feel that we need to teach to or even discuss the thinking processes we are asking our students to apply in every lesson. What I do believe is that when we do our lesson planning, we need to be intentional about what thinking skill(s) our students can apply to make meaning from the content objectives. In the absence of this intentional thinking, we may inadvertently miss the mark on helping our students reach the goals of the lesson.
When we reflect on the research that Marzano and others have done on what works in classrooms, we learn that having students apply thinking processes such as comparing and contrasting, summarizing, and others reinforces the learning. We can support student learning by being thoughtful and intentional about engaging students in these thinking processes. When asked how we will engage our students in the learning, we should be able to identify the type of thinking they will be asked to do in the lesson.
The brain develops schema through language. When the teacher does label the thinking that the students are doing, the students are better able to transfer this process to other content areas and to more complex problems.
What does it mean to have an element of Classroom 10 be in every lesson? From my point of view, the most important part is the intentional planning. All lessons should engage students in processing and/or creating with information. This is the definition of rigor. We invite this processing by guiding students in applying one or more thinking skills. These thinking skills should be intentionally selected and integrated into the design of the lesson.
I do believe that students benefit when the teacher labels what the students are doing: "Let's make a prediction based on our data;" "Let's compare and contrast the two passages;" "Let's sequence the steps in the project you will be doing;" We're going to analyze the author's style;" "Please summarize the main idea from today's lesson;" etc.
We reinforce our 21st Century curriculum when we name what we are asking our students to do. Naming doesn't require explanations, discussions or special teaching. There are times when explicit instruction is important, but not on a day to day basis. Daily, we can ask ourselves: How will I have my students process information? What thinking skill(s) will I have them apply? How will I support and reinforce student thinking in my lesson today?
As we internalize the 21st century curriculum of thinking skills and Habits of Mind, we will more naturally and intentionally incorporate these elements into our daily lessons. Let's not eliminate an important goal because this may be newer learning for us. Rather, let's support each other as we become more skilled in our ability to integrate our content with the processes of Classroom 10.
Masterfully said, Nancy.
Thank you.
Jonathan
Here's an example to illustrate Dawn's and Nancy's comments. One of our Health & Fitness teachers used to begin each new semester by having students analyze the impact of their own health-related behaviors on their lifestyles. When he reviewed the the thinking skill of Analysis by asking students what it meant, students invariably raised their hands, semester after semester, and answered "Analysis is when you look at what a character says, what a character does, and what other people say about a character."
Does this mean that students only practiced analysis in English class? In no other subject area did they break down complex ideas or concepts to make meaning? Certainly not, but because character analysis was the only instance in which the thinking skill was intentionally named and labeled, students needed tremendous support transfering the strategy to a new situation.
In what ways might students' approach to analysis in Health & Fitness class look different if all teachers were reinforcing that thinking process when planning for analytical thinking in a lesson?
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