Making Thinking Visible and the PYP

Last week, I hosted an IBSO (International Baccalaureate Schools of Ontario) Roundtable to look at how Visible Thinking Routines could used in the context of the PYP (Primary Years Programme). I have been working on incorporating Visible Thinking Routines over the past two years into my programme of inquiry but it wasn’t until I stopped and reflected on them that I realized how powerful they are in bringing together all of the essential elements of the PYP.

Visible Thinking Routines have been around for a number of years and were developed through Project Zero a research incubator at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The central idea of the roundtable was: Embedding visible thinking routines as part of the inquiry process, encourages active processing and can contribute to building a community of learners.

The lines of inquiry were:
• Defining Thinking • Features of Visible Thinking
• Connections between Visible Thinking Routines and PYP Essential Elements (knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes, and action)
• Core Visible Thinking Routines
• Application of Visible Thinking Routines within transdisciplinary learning

A few highlights from each line of inquiry

• Defining Thinking – When we try and define thinking, it quickly becomes very clear that it is a very muddy term that isn’t easy to pin point. There are many different skills or types of thinking that we can use at any one time. The foundation of an inquiry based program involves students asking questions and examining information in order to answer their questions; however it relies deeply on students developing a variety of ‘thinking skills’ in order to do this effectively.

• Features of Visible Thinking – One of the benefits that I have been by using visible thinking strategies in my classroom is the ‘meta-strategic knowledge’ that it builds within my students. In Making Thinking Visible, they discuss the idea of meta-stratetic knowledge as a sub-component of metacognition that was developed by Zohar & David (2008) as “knowledge about the strategies one has at one’s disposal to facilitate and direct one’s own learning.” (Making Thinking Visible, pg. 15). Through using ‘routines’ for thinking, just as we use routines for other aspects of the classroom, students develop an understanding of what type of prompts they can use themselves for specific thinking situations. Another benefit of the visible thinking routines is that they are designed to be easy to remember and implement. Usually they are only a few steps and can be done from memory after you have developed confidence with them.

• Connections between Visible Thinking Routines and PYP Essential Elements – Each of the visible thinking routines provides a plethora of opportunity for development of a wide variety of essential elements. Many of the routines can be done independently or as part of a collaborative process. During the roundtable, we broke into small groups and each took one visible thinking routine and mapped it against the essential elements. One example of this was ‘Compass Points’. Through examining the process of this routine the following components of the essential were identified as having the strongest connections:

Learner Profile – Reflective

IBSO PYP Teachers trying Compass Point Strategy.

PYP Attitudes – Independent
Key Concepts – Perspective
Self-Management Skills – Informed Choices

• Core Visible Thinking Routines – The routines are organized into three broad categories (1) Introducing and Exploring Ideas (2) Synthesizing and Organizing Ideas and (3) Digging Deeper into Ideas. One of the recommendations that is discussed in the resources provided is around selecting one or two routines to become comfortable with and make them a normal activity in a wide variety of scenarios.

• Application of Visible Thinking Routines within transdisciplinary learning – The teachers in attendance all were quickly able to think of places where the use of this routines would be beneficial, especially during the ‘Tuning In’ stage of a unit of inquiry. One place that I have been focused on incorporating them is throughout the PYP Exhibition. One of our first activities involved completing the Compass Point in order to gauge where the group as a whole felt about the Exhibition. I have also used Headlines and I used to Think … Now I think … as part of a video journal series students are producing throughout the exhibition process to track how their thinking is changing and evolving.

 

 

 

Mistakes Educators Make With Technology

This morning while going through my Feedly, I came across a article titled 3 Mistakes Parents Make with Technology. After reading through the article that outlined common mistakes including not setting limits, not engaging in family technology activities, and parents also being tech addicts, I was struck with thinking about what are the mistakes that educators make with technology. In thinking about mistakes that I have made with technology and observations I have observed, I have come up with this short list of mistakes that I think are important to address.

The first mistake that I think educators make is focusing on the technology. Often educators start with the technology or add the technology on top of what they are already doing, instead of focusing on how technology can be used to amplify strong pedagogical principles. I utilize TPACK as a framework when I am conceptualizing how technology can support my instruction. Through this process, I help to ground my use of technology with the pedagogical and content knowledge that is necessary to build a strong instructional program. I think that it is important that educators are constantly reflection on the relationship between technology-pedagogy-content to ensure that technology is enhancing the learning process.

The second mistake that I feel educators make is not taking advantage of the expert in the room – the students. Even though I feel comfortable using technology and have been using it since I was in elementary school, the kids in my sixth grade class constantly amaze me with their knowledge – I cannot even imagine what the difference would be in a high school class. With this being said, I think that too often, educators don’t use the strengths of their students. Perhaps, you have one student who is very knowledgeable and keen with technology – they can become your resident tech support and help other students who run into trouble. You can ask your students to think of places where tools they are using can be incorporated in an academic setting. Give students a leadership opportunity by establishing a student tech team to help build teachers technological knowledge.

The third mistake I think educators are guilty of is not having the right mindset when things don’t go as planned. Technology will fail. The power will go out. The internet will go down. Your projector won’t work. There will be a program update and your instructions won’t work. Someone will forget their password. All of these things WILL HAPPEN, I guarantee it. When these things happen, you can either approach the situation looking to place the blame on someone else, or you can make the best of it and have a back up plan. Use it as an opportunity to teach kids problem solving skills – these things happen in real life. As the lead learner, these situations provide a wonderful opportunity for you to model a mindset that students can learn from.

I’m sure that there are other common mistake that educators make regarding technology but I feel that these three underpin some of the stress teachers feel when they consider where to begin with the effective use of technology.

Quick Tech Tip: Simple English

When my students are researching, they often find Wikipedia articles that they want to use to help them grasp a quick understanding of a topic before digging in to find other primary and secondary sources of information. Depending on the topic, some Wikipedia articles can be written at a very high reading level that can provide challenges for Elementary School students or English Language Learners to understand. One ‘solution’ to assist with this is the use of the ‘Simple English’ language from the ‘Language’ options on Wikipedia. Many articles have this as a language option and it does a good job on simplifying the content to make it easier to comprehend.

From the Wikipedia Homepage you can automatically select ‘Simple English’ as the language you would like to search in.

As you can see, the ability to select what language you would like to search in can be found on the left hand sidebar.

After clicking on ‘Simple English’, you will be directed to an onmibox (search box) where you can search for articles in Simple English.

You can also perform a search in English and then select ‘Simple English’ from the language menu if you find that the article is too challenging to read.

 

‘The Trading Game’ ~ A classroom simulation

As part of our final PYP unit of inquiry for this year my students are examining the central idea “Organization is critical to the effective use of natural resources.”  In researching Canada’s natural resources, we discovered that many ‘regions’ (physical or political) produce specific natural resources. This means, that it is necessary to ‘share’ or ‘trade’ them in order for them to be used effectively. As we dug deeper into our inquiry, I suggested that we could try and simulate how we could share the natural resources to discover why organization was so important.

My students were full of ideas about how we should structure the simulation that I was referring to as “The Trading Game”. One of the books that we had explored was from the Close Up Canada Series – Canada’s Natural Resources. This book had classified natural resources into 5 categories – forests (pulp and paper, habitats), water (fresh water, aquaculture), land/soil (agriculture), rocks/minerals, and energy. After we had learned about the various natural resources each group of students was assigned a physical region of Canada to research and had to learn about the natural resources present in that environment.

Then came developing the game!

As a class we decided that for our purposes each physical region would have the same ‘number’ of resources to export or trade in the game at the beginning of the game; however, as a few groups learned, the population is certain parts of the country (Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands) was a much greater percentage of the population so they would require a greater percentage of the resources. Thus, the amount of resources you needed to have at the end of the simulation could be higher or lower than your starting number.  It was interesting to develop the game as a class as a discussion because each physical region needed to make sure that they were representing the best interests of their region.

The following chart was created during our discussion. The blue numbers represent how many resources each group will begin with and the red numbers in the circles represent how many resources they need to finish with.

This was the chart that was created to record our starting values (in blue) and finishing values (in red).

Next came the discussion about who would be allowed to trade with who. As we had not discussed ‘modes of transportation’ yet, it was decided that you would only be able to trade with your neighbour – based on the location on a map. This meant that if you were the Cordillera and you needed to trade with the Appalachians – you would need the Interior Plains and the Canadian Shield to assist you in the process. This added an interesting element of challenge – but also helped to develop the conceptual understanding of ‘organization’ within the process of utilizing natural resources effectively.

In looking for an easy way to represent each ‘natural resource’ in the trading game we used the ‘square tiles’ from a math manipulative bin. Each colour represented a different resource which made it visually easy to see. In order to keep track of all of the ‘natural resources’ each group used white stickers as labels to stick on their ‘squares’ and write the name of their physical region so we could track where each resource had started. As they needed to export their resources, at the end of the simulation they needed to have resources from different regions – not their own. They also needed to be conscious about having a ‘variety’ within the type of resource as ‘land/soil’ from one region would provide different resources than ‘land/soil’ from another region. This simple tracking step seemed to do the trick.

This photo shows the labeling system that was developed to keep track of where the resources had originated from.

Throughout the trading, students were required to record the ‘trades’ that they were making. The first ’round’ students found this difficult and many partnerships were having discussions about it. When we experienced a ‘deep freeze’ in the ‘Winter’ that required us to pause the game because all transportation methods were closed, we had a good discussion about using ‘systems’ and ‘strategies’ to ‘communicate’ within the partnership to make the process more ‘effective’. It was so great to hear the students using the language from the central idea and related concepts to the unit in trying to resolve the problems that they were experiencing.

After we had our discussion, the students returned all of the resources to their ‘origin’ and we began the game again using our new knowledge to see if we could do the process more effectively. It was so interesting to see how the strategies that students were using changed, but also how the roles within the small groups also adjusted. They were much more strategic and aware of communicating clearly with the other members of their group in the second round.

At the end of the second round, we had a large group ‘knowledge building’ talk to try and make the connection between our ‘game’ and the real world. Some of the question prompts that I used are:

What are some of the things you noticed playing the trading game?
What were some ways or strategies that you used to be more organized?
Why was it important to be organized?
How does this game represent what happens in Canada? around the world?
What do you think would happen if we weren’t organized in the ways that we used our natural resources?

Some of the comments were:
“there wasn’t many connecting trades because it was too difficult to organize”
“when it got near the end it got more difficult to make your trades, you also needed to keep certain things that could be traded later”
“think about what you are going to trade – plan – helps you not make extra trades”
“have specific roles that help each other so we weren’t try to do the same thing at the same time”

I am looking forward to our continued discussion and ideas that students use in the reflection on this process.

Think, Create, Innovate – A Project Zero Adventure

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Project Zero Perspectives conference hosted in Atlanta by Atlanta International School and the High Museum of Art. It was one of the best organized conferences I have attended from a pedagogical perspective as there were 4 themes (educating for global competency, encouraging creativity and maker thinking, growing up in the digital age, making learning and thinking visible)  than ran throughout the entire weekend. The various keynotes and sessions built on these themes and really allowed the participants to see the big ideas emerging as the weekend went on. The overarching inspiration for the conference was the following quote:

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. – Theodore Levitt

I could not possibly share everything that I was able to take away from this conference, but here are a few of the highlights.

Day 1

Shari Tishman – Keynote
Big Idea: By looking slowly at things we can understand the ways in which things are complex – complexity is a powerful performance of understanding
– understanding is something that you do rather than something that you have
– slow looking – taking the time to notice more than what meets the eye at first glance, it is a purposeful action that is done intentionally to look beyond what comes naturally
– many of the ‘Visible Thinking’ strategies have been designed to include a slow looking phase
– 3 types of complexity
1. complexity of parts and interactions
2. complexity of perspective
3. complexity of engagement

Designing for Disaster (@BuildingMuseum) – Interactive Workshop
– Resilience is a systematic approach
– The built environment is not arbitrary. It is the result of human decisions making.
– How should be build? Where should we built?
– What does a city need to function? What should a city offer its residents?
– What infrastructure or buildings are needed for each of these services?
– How do we organize all of it?
– Who should help decide where to build?

Fostering Global Competency (Clarkston Community Schools) – Interactive Workshops
– Children grow into the intellectual life around them. – Vygotsky – cannot create a culture of thinking for kids if the adults don’t have a culture of thinking as well – need to model thinking
– importance of the whole person – need to be well rounded to function in a global world
– culture is shared – we all have to be part of creating a culture of thinking
– building culture of knowledge  in community through sharing of authentic information from members in your community

Keynote – Daniel Wilson – Director of Project Zero
– What does it mean to learn for a global competency?
– How can we encourage creativity and maker thinking?
– What are the civic, moral, and ethical opportunities and challenges in growing up in a digital age?
– How can we make learning and think visible? – learning is constructed through the making of artifacts and actions – performance based – highly reflective journey that is done socially not heirarchial, learning from one to another
– learning is not done in one mode
– learning is complex
– learning as a verb, an emerging action
– we cannot ‘control’ learning; the best we can do as designers of learning for others is to create places where this complex actions can emerge

Day 2

David Perkins – Keynote
Theme: Wondering to Learn: Education with Questions for Tomorrow’s World
– develop a culture of questions in contrast to a culture of answers
– What is worth learning now?
– we need to teach students to LIVE WITH questions, they are not done at the end of the day or the end of a unit
– questions need to be part of the content not the drivers of content
– to speak of a culture of questions does not mean that we don’t care about the answers
– if you imagine a culture of questions, you spend your time on looking for good answers – abundant answers but often not final answers

Qualities of Effective Learning Communities – Daniel Wilson
– How to YOU (as an individual) CREATE a learning community? – interesting to think about your own personal contribution to fostering a learning community
– tell your story – “Here’s something that happened …” – invite someone in to you classroom to observe/participate in a lesson
– having a provocative perspective – “I strongly believe…” – Teachers need to be model learners and need to be provided the time and space to do this, not just have it be another expectations
– A puzzle – “Something I really wonder about is … ”
– A probing questions – “Tell me more about this … ”
– Elicit ideas – “What do you think about … ”
– These 5 conversation moves have been show to be strategies from which people learn
– How can we be more explicit about cultivating the routines and space to support the language that creates learning communities?
– informal learning opportunities are the gold mine of learning because the participants set the goals, the process, and the evaluation/outcome
– 80% of professional learning is built informally
– How do we better help capture the informal learning opportunities in our schools for the adults?

Interactive Session – Making Learning Visible – Mara Krechevsky
– importance of relationships and listening – documentation – practice of observing, recording, interpreting, and sharing through different media the processes and the product of learning in order to deepen learning
– we don’t document what happens – we document what we think happens
– “making learning visible makes learning possible”

Closing Keynote: Tina Grotzer – Thinking About Complexity
– human cognitive architecture is not particularly well adapted for perceiving, attuning to, and reasoning about complexity- complexity doesn’t have to be wicked – it can be engaging and beautiful
– complex, ill structured problems offer terrain for some of the deepest, most rewarding learning
– different forms of complexity – spatial (space), temporal(time), perspectives

Day 3
Keynote – Howard Gardner – Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Re-Reframed – wondering about and wondering at – Teaching for ‘Wonder’standing
– Technological Challenge – young people see and think of the world very differently than before
– media is a two way experience now
– the fast changing yet also oddly permanent digital world
– need to focus on teaching students methods of discovery/verification of information
– critical examination of information
– establishing truths is a distinctly CONvergent experience
– neighbourly vs. ethical good
– What does it mean to participate in a community whose size and extent you cannot know?
– There is no easier way to completely go wrong than to think you can solve a complex problem on your own.

The Global Lens Project – Veronica Boix Mansilla
– preparing youth for our times through interdisciplinary studies, quality journalism and global media – the best starting point for our curriculum is the world
– the media is where we get almost all of our information about the world
– we need to teach students to navigate the world of media
– understanding the world, our place, and ourselves through quality journalism and global media
– we consume around 92-95% of our media from domestic sources
– journalism as a mediator between us and the world
– quality journalism can be a tool for provoking learning about global issues

Finding Meaning
What’s the story? What is the human story? What is the world story? What is the new story? What is the untold story?

Finding Significance
Why might this matter to me? to my community? to the world?