Saturday, March 30, 2013
Reflective Friday: Time out to think
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Douillard, K. (2000). Reflective Friday: Time out to think. The Quarterly, 22(4). Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/775
In this article, Kim Douillard reflects on her experience of implementing "Reflective Fridays... a day set aside for reflective thinking, talking and writing" in her multiage classroom of six- through nine-year-old students.
"Reflection, as I define it in our classroom, is thinking about the ways new learning fits into what we already know. It allows us to make connections between new learning and previous experiences... Reflective activities in the classroom help to make thinking visible, enabling students to learn from one another and to gain greater insights into their own thinking and learning processes."
Douillard's schedule for the day included reflection in all different forms. She began with "focused reflection about classroom learning for the week and ended with time for students to have an opportunity for unstructured thinking about topics of their choice." There was also time built in for sharing reflections among classmates and she, as the teacher, carried on dialogues with students in written conversation, as well.
"A teacher aspiring to cultive reflectiveness in students needs patience." Students began simply by recounting experiences from the week; but this developed into more complex thinking - the types of which Douillard labels: observation, questions, connections, evaluation, self-awareness, new information, and details.
"While developing different types of thinking is not, by itself, the goal of reflective thinking, it is clear that students show greater understanding as they are able to move past telling what happened toward drawing conclusions, connecting their learning to their own experiences, making observations, and evaluating their own learning."
She cautions that the results of this implementation were slow and students responded with varying degrees of thought.
"...students develop different skills at varying rates... need for patience and trust in the belief that students will become more reflective over time."
Douillard did recognize that the results of these Reflective Fridays were similar to the results of our own reflective behavior as adults. As students reflect they "become more aware of their own learning" and "they are able to set goals and evaluate their progress."
I was immediately struck in reading through this article by the idea that she set aside an entire day of each week for reflection. This is so powerful! I imagine it creates a culture of reflection in the classroom and teaches students to think about their experiences (and their thinking) in very deep ways. Douillard mentions that initially, students would get stuck trying to reflect and she would ask them questions to "nudge them forward." I wonder what other strategies she used to motivate students to write and to "go past done" as they began to get restless with writing or thinking about their experiences. Though she says she refrained from giving written prompts because she didn't want to limit her students, I wonder what methods she used to scaffold reflection (beyond the one or two she mentioned in the article). Perhaps, it was the variation of reflective activities, that kept the students interested and inspired to participate in Reflective Fridays. The day included a schedule of thinking time, writing, time, reading time, sharing time, goal setting, etc. With all of these activities, I imagine students become very aware of what is necessary to be self-directed learners.
I wonder how incorporating such a large amount of time to reflection can contribute to helping students become more aware of their thinking. Douillard suggests in her article that "Reflective activities in the classroom help to make thinking visible" but I wonder if she incorporates conversations to help students see their thinking (in their writing and reflective discussions) or if the thinking of the students is merely visible to the teacher. And is it even necessary that it be explicitly visible to students? Must the teacher point out the various types of thinking to students to promote more use of these types in further reflection? Or does the experience of just doing these reflections drive students to more advanced thinking in their reflections without the need to explicitly 'teach' about or model deep reflection?
Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible. American Educator, 15(3), 6-12, 38-47.
Cognitive apprenticeship is a 'paradigm for teaching' that mimics the way we learn most naturally.
"In ancient times, teaching and learning were accomplished through apprenticeship... Apprenticeship was the vehicle for transmitting the knowledge required for expert practice... It was the natural way to learn."
"Cognitive apprenticeship" is "an alternative model of instruction that is accessible within the framework of the typical American classroom. It is a model of instruction that goes back to apprenticeship but incorporates elements of schooling."
"In schooling, the processes of thinking are often invisible to both the students and the teacher. Cognitive apprenticeship is a model of instruction that works to make thinking visible."
"Too little attention is paid to the reasoning and strategies that experts employ when they acquire knowledge or put it to work to solve complex or real-life tasks."
This article aligns with those written on making thinking visible from Harvard Graduate School's Project Zero. The general idea is that students learn best when the process of an activity (thinking or otherwise) is made visible and then when they are supported in their adoption of the strategy or completion of the activity.
"There are four important aspects of traditional apprenticeship: modeling, scaffolding, fading and coaching."
- Modeling: the master makes the target processes visible
- Scaffolding: the master gives apprentices support in carrying out the task
- Fading: slowly removing support
- Coaching: a thread running through the experience - observing & giving feedback
In order to translate the model of traditional apprenticeship to cognitive apprenticeship, teachers need to:
- identify the processes of the task and make them visible to students;
- situate abstract tasks in authentic contexts, so that students understand the relevance of the work; and
- vary the diversity of situations and articulate the common aspects so that students can transfer what they learn.
It occurs to me that the first step requires teachers to be explicit about the thinking or process involved in an activity; the second and third steps align with the purposes of PBL. Already, in our PBL classrooms, we are choosing to make relevant the work students complete and giving students the opportunities to transfer their learning in various situations. At least in my classroom, I am aware that I am not specifically paying attention to the first step such that every process my students undertake is modeled and scaffolded for them. Comparing the thinking and activities in a classroom to the work done in a traditional apprenticeship I realize how much we assume students should just be able to do or take on, without the proper modeling and scaffolding. Imagine giving a novice blacksmith a hot iron and assuming he can immediately repair a tool?
The authors give examples of cognitive apprenticeship in reading (using Palincsar & Brown's reciprocal teaching of reading), in writing (using Scardamalia and Bereiter's approach to teaching writing) and in math (using Schoenfeld's method for teaching mathematical problem solving to college students). In each example, teachers model strategies or activities of expert readers, writers, and problem-solvers, provide scaffolding to try the strategies or activities, coach the students and fade out the support. Throughout each approach, teachers are delineating the thinking involved. Modeling for students is an explicit action meaning students are not simply directed to complete a task, but given the thinking behind the task and clearly shown the process(es) required to achieve the task. Teachers even highlight the natural struggle that sometimes comes along with problem-solving (or completing any task) and the benefit of collaborating with others.
It seems this model coincides with the model of homeschooling (generally called 'unschooling') that successfully works to engage students in learning. With homeschooling, a parent or guardian works closely with a child or children communicating with them constantly about what they see, hear, and do. That communication is the illumination of the thinking behind the action - the 'educator' is modeling and being explicit about the processes involved in thinking, observing, and completing activities. In a classroom, sometimes it feels that this is not possible. The teacher to student ration takes away the apprenticeship feel so we go directly to 'directing' action rather than modeling, scaffolding and coaching. It is interesting to see - through very specific examples with reading, writing, and math - how an 'apprenticeship' can be carried out in the classroom.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Making Thinking Visible
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Perkins, D. (2003, Dec.) Making thinking visible. New Horizons for Learning. Available: http:/www.newhorizons.org/strategies/thinking/perkins.htm
"Thinking is pretty much invisible." Perkins reminds us that we learn so much by watching, imitating and adapting what we see in our world and building from there. Not only is the skill of thinking invisible, but the circumstances that invite thinking are not clear. (Music invites dancing; kids have seen this happen; so when music plays, kids dance. Rumors told invite skeptical thinking strategies; this thought is invisibly undertaken; so when kids hear an unlikely rumor, they don't naturally question it.)
"People are often simply oblivious to situations that invite thinking."
"a dispositional view of good thinking... pays as much attention to people's alertness and attitudes as it does to thinking skills as such. We ask not only how well do people think once they get going but how disposed are they in the first place to pay attention to the other side of the case, question the evidence, look beyond obvious possibilities, and so on. Our findings argue that everyday thinking may suffer more from just plain missing the opportunities than from poor skills."
This last quote touches on part of the inspiration for research in my classroom around visible thinking. I not concerned about the skills my students have around thinking - they use thinking strategies when I prompt them to and develop deep understanding around the topics we study through our projects with thoughtful practice. BUT, I am concerned that their alertness to situations in which they should employ their thinking strategies is undeveloped. I have created students who can think, but not students who will think without prompting.
"As educators, we can work to make thinking much more visible than it usually is in classrooms. When we do so, we are giving students more to build on and learn from. By making the dancers visible, we are making it much easier to learn to dance."
Ways to make thinking visible:
"We don't notice how easily thinking can stay out of sight, because we are used to it being that way. As educators, our first task is perhaps to see the absence, to hear the silence, to notice what is not there."
This reminds me of the constant comparison I've seen made throughout articles about learning how to think to the way we learn other things life: we learn to drive by watching other drivers; we learn to play soccer by watching others play; so if we want students to learn to think, we must make thinking visible!
Perkins, D. (2003, Dec.) Making thinking visible. New Horizons for Learning. Available: http:/www.newhorizons.org/strategies/thinking/perkins.htm
"Thinking is pretty much invisible." Perkins reminds us that we learn so much by watching, imitating and adapting what we see in our world and building from there. Not only is the skill of thinking invisible, but the circumstances that invite thinking are not clear. (Music invites dancing; kids have seen this happen; so when music plays, kids dance. Rumors told invite skeptical thinking strategies; this thought is invisibly undertaken; so when kids hear an unlikely rumor, they don't naturally question it.)
"People are often simply oblivious to situations that invite thinking."
"a dispositional view of good thinking... pays as much attention to people's alertness and attitudes as it does to thinking skills as such. We ask not only how well do people think once they get going but how disposed are they in the first place to pay attention to the other side of the case, question the evidence, look beyond obvious possibilities, and so on. Our findings argue that everyday thinking may suffer more from just plain missing the opportunities than from poor skills."
This last quote touches on part of the inspiration for research in my classroom around visible thinking. I not concerned about the skills my students have around thinking - they use thinking strategies when I prompt them to and develop deep understanding around the topics we study through our projects with thoughtful practice. BUT, I am concerned that their alertness to situations in which they should employ their thinking strategies is undeveloped. I have created students who can think, but not students who will think without prompting.
"As educators, we can work to make thinking much more visible than it usually is in classrooms. When we do so, we are giving students more to build on and learn from. By making the dancers visible, we are making it much easier to learn to dance."
Ways to make thinking visible:
- use the language of thinking: hypothesis, reason, evidence, possibility, perspective...
- be a model of thoughtfulness for students: do not expect instant answers, display uncertainties, express the process of thought by asking questions out loud
- surface the many opportunities for thinking during learning using thinking routines: "patterns of thinking that can be used over and over again and folded easily into learning in the subject areas" (Perkins provides 3 examples highlighting that an important trait of thinking routines is their "ease of use")
"The ultimate aspiration is building a strong culture of thinking in the classroom. Culture, after all, is the great teacher." Perkins quotes Vygotsky who emphasized the "fundamental learning process of internalization: making part of one's silent repertoire cognitive processes played out through social interaction." I agree that the classroom needs to have a very clear culture of thinking. This suggests that not only will visible thinking routines be utilized for academic activities, but applied to all types of activities in the classroom: part of morning meeting - part of classroom discussions - part of project planning - etc. And it should be explicit, rather than implied.
Personal sidenote/analogy:
Prior to living abroad, I couldn't easily identify facets of the American culture that set us apart from other cultures. After moving to Samoa and immersing myself in their culture for many months, I started to see my own culture better and now can speak to it - describe it - to others better. Although I couldn't explain my culture well (prior to having a very different one to which I could compare it) I lived it easily because I grew up with it surrounding me. I like to think that my students, surrounded by a culture of thinking, may not be able to describe their thinking routines or strategies well, but are learning to do them - just as I learned to 'be American'. BUT... they are also surrounded by many non-thinkers in their lives... people who simply accept the things they say or hear without questioning. I fear that they may also learn from these people. So, it is not enough to give them six hours a day surrounded by a culture of thinking, we need to make explicit how this culture is different (and important) such that they CAN name the routines they are involved in throughout the school day and can continue to practice them outside of school.
"Artful teachers establish cultures of thinking from the very first class days of the year." Perkins gives examples of how teachers do this and I recognize the activities mentioned because we use them in our school, too. What I fear is missing is the explicit explanation to students about how these activities (such as open-ended problems or Socratic dialogues) drive thinking or direct us to think critically. Perkins doesn't mention this, but I think it's implicit in his argument for doing these activities that we need to be clear with students what these activities do for us in helping us build understanding or develop learning. Again, I suggest that it's not enough to DO the thinking routines, but we must be very explicit that these routines are driving at deeper understanding or learning so that students are inspired to utilize them elsewhere.
"In the quest for a culture of thinking, the notion of visible thinking helps to make concrete what such a classroom should look like and provides a kind of compass to point the way." Perkins suggests that thinking is visible in a classroom when you can see students explaining things to one another, offering creative ideas, using the language of thinking, and brainstorms or procon lists are around the room. He suggests that the result of making thinking visible is "students are more likely to show interest and commitment as learning unfolds in the classroom. They find more meaning in the subject matters and more meaningful connections between school and everyday life. They begin to display the sorts of thinking dispositions we would most like to see in young learners not closed-minded but open-minded, not bored but curious, neither gullible nor sweepingly negative but appropriately skeptical, not satisfied with "just the facts" but wanting to understand."
Again, I question why this has not happened in my classroom? My students ARE thinking... but I don't feel they have developed thinking dispositions; they have the skills to think and are doing the routines, but have not internalized the drive to do so voluntarily or the alertness to situations in which they can apply the thinking strategies they learn. Am I not using visible thinking routines frequently enough in the classroom (totally possible) OR is it this combined with the fact that I'm not explicitly teaching my students that these routines are the framework for how we think about things.
Inspirational quote Perkins closes with...
"We don't notice how easily thinking can stay out of sight, because we are used to it being that way. As educators, our first task is perhaps to see the absence, to hear the silence, to notice what is not there."
This reminds me of the constant comparison I've seen made throughout articles about learning how to think to the way we learn other things life: we learn to drive by watching other drivers; we learn to play soccer by watching others play; so if we want students to learn to think, we must make thinking visible!
Thursday, March 28, 2013
A Brief Review of Strategies and Tools That Make Thinking Visible
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Chen, E. (2005). A brief review of strategies and tools that make thinking visible. Journal of Educational Computing, Design and Online Learning, 6. Retrieved from http://coe.ksu.edu/jecdol/Vol_6/pdf/abriefreviewofstrategies.pdf
This article is mostly helpful in its mention of other authors' discussion on visible thinking. Chen mentions that researchers suggest "thinking is a skill that can be taught and learned." She states that "thinking can be shaped by language, by thinking about thinking and by interaction with others."
I am compelled to look into two primary sources based on Chen's reiteration of their work:
Perkins, D. (2003, Dec.) Making thinking visible. New Horizons for Learning. Available: http:/www.newhorizons.org/strategies/thinking/perkins.htm
"Thinking is mostly invisible, in order to transform an invisible thinking process into a visible process, Perkins (2003) suggests two simple methods: using the language of thinking and using thinking routines."
Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible. American Educator, 15(3), 6-12, 38-47.
"Collins's version of cognitive apprenticeship makes the cognitive process visible and discussable to learners as well as teachers through modeling, coaching and scaffolding. The idea of Cognitive PBL is drawing students into a culture of expert practice in cognitive domains that involves teaching learners how to 'think' like experts. The two approaches [Knowledge Forum and Cognitive PBL] share the same aspects: highlight thinking strategies that making expert's thinking visible for learners to observe as well as making learners' thinking visible for teacher to evaluate and provide supports if needed."
Unfortunately, I did not find Chen's work particularly illuminating for my research, but am interested in retrieving more information about the works she mentioned from both Perkins and Collins.
Chen, E. (2005). A brief review of strategies and tools that make thinking visible. Journal of Educational Computing, Design and Online Learning, 6. Retrieved from http://coe.ksu.edu/jecdol/Vol_6/pdf/abriefreviewofstrategies.pdf
This article is mostly helpful in its mention of other authors' discussion on visible thinking. Chen mentions that researchers suggest "thinking is a skill that can be taught and learned." She states that "thinking can be shaped by language, by thinking about thinking and by interaction with others."
I am compelled to look into two primary sources based on Chen's reiteration of their work:
Perkins, D. (2003, Dec.) Making thinking visible. New Horizons for Learning. Available: http:/www.newhorizons.org/strategies/thinking/perkins.htm
"Thinking is mostly invisible, in order to transform an invisible thinking process into a visible process, Perkins (2003) suggests two simple methods: using the language of thinking and using thinking routines."
Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible. American Educator, 15(3), 6-12, 38-47.
"Collins's version of cognitive apprenticeship makes the cognitive process visible and discussable to learners as well as teachers through modeling, coaching and scaffolding. The idea of Cognitive PBL is drawing students into a culture of expert practice in cognitive domains that involves teaching learners how to 'think' like experts. The two approaches [Knowledge Forum and Cognitive PBL] share the same aspects: highlight thinking strategies that making expert's thinking visible for learners to observe as well as making learners' thinking visible for teacher to evaluate and provide supports if needed."
Unfortunately, I did not find Chen's work particularly illuminating for my research, but am interested in retrieving more information about the works she mentioned from both Perkins and Collins.
Visible Thinking
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Tishman, S. & Palmer, P. (2005). Visible Thinking. Leadership Compass, 2(4), 1-3.
Tishman, S. & Palmer, P. (2005). Visible Thinking. Leadership Compass, 2(4), 1-3.
Many longer and more detailed works have been developed on the concept of "visible thinking", largely by researchers of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. But this article, also written by research associates at Project Zero, provides a simple and concise definition of visible thinking and a description of three important ways it actively supports good thinking.
"Visible thinking refers to any kind of observable representation that documents and supports the development of an individual's or group's ongoing thoughts, questions, reasons, and reflections. Mind maps, charts and lists, diagrams, worksheets all count as visible thinking if - and this is an important if - they reveal learners' unfolding ideas as they think through an issue, problem or topic."
Tishman & Palmer make it clear that visible thinking includes activities that expose thinking as it's happening. They then suggest purposes for taking action to make thinking visible in the classroom. Beyond the diagnostic value for teachers (allowing them to understand "what students are learning and where they need help"), it also...
- "expresses a powerful view of knowledge. Knowledge is a living thing, continually shaped and reshaped by human thought; it can't be represented by neat and orderly lists of facts... Making these messy, changing, and interlocking relationships visible helps students build authentic knowledge instead of just memorizing facts"
- "demonstrates the value of intellectual collaboration"; the visible representations illustrate "a collaborative conceptual "take" on a topic that is broader and more complex than any individual student's conception" and visible thinking practices "draw many students into discussion" since they "emphasize students' own ideas and questions."
- "changes the classroom culture...thinking is highly valued...students have ample opportunities to express and explain their ideas. This in turn encourages students to become more alert to opportunities to think things through for themselves, and helps them become active, curious, engaged learners."
I appreciate this neatly delineated set of benefits to visible thinking. While I do not think it's comprehensive, I think the argument for using thinking routines in the classroom is sufficiently made with the benefits being that 1) students come to see that knowledge is not just a list of facts but more like a constantly changing web of connections and understandings, 2) students become cognizant of the value of collaboration, and 3) a culture of thinking is created in the classroom that helps students become more alert to opportunities to use thinking strategies themselves.
Tishman & Palmer do not go into too much detail regarding individual thinking routines that help make student thinking visible (aside from two examples they provide from classrooms in the introduction to their article), but they do explain that...
"A distinctive feature of thinking routines is that they encourage what cognitive psychologists call active processing. They don't ask that students simply list facts. Rather, they encourage students to actively engage with a topic by asking them to think with and beyond the facts they know---asking questions, taking stock of prior knowledge, probing the certainty of their ideas, and visibly connecting new knowledge to old."
A helpful addition to this piece that I haven't seen exposed elsewhere in my reading about visible thinking is the idea that parents can be engaged in the visible thinking process. At a parent night in which visible thinking was on display at one school, parents were given the opportunity to respond to what surprised them and what interested them as they walked through the hallways and classrooms. I think about our Exhibitions at High Tech and how we display the process of our projects. I think that working to depict the evolving thought processes of our students would be even more impactful than simply the development of the work. Having visible thinking on display is a way to show this. And then, inviting parents to take part is even more powerful! This article now has me thinking of ways to involve parents during projects too - maybe asking students to engage in visible thinking routines with their families at home around a topic we're exploring at school - to extend the culture of visible thinking beyond the classroom.
As the authors state, "it's hard to argue against classroom practices that teach students to think." The practice of making thinking visible in the classroom hardly seems controversial. It makes sense and almost seems obvious (even though it's not what happens in most classrooms). In a way, it may come across as 'just another thing' that teachers need to incorporate into their teaching. But, I would argue that this practice should come first. Creating a culture of thinking in the classroom - one that values thinking and highlights how we think as we're doing it - should be a priority for teachers as one of our primary aims is to develop actively thinking students.
Other areas to research, as mentioned in this article:
Artful Thinking project - one of several school-based initiatives at Harvard's Project Zero that are loosely linked by the visible thinking theme