Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

What Key Variables Comprise a Thriving Culture of Thinking? (Aly -…

- - - - Ziqi-Hi, Brittany, I totally understand your concerns. Personally, I think your question is more related how to efficiently design assignment which will better serve the purpose of improving students' cognitive growth. I remember that when I was first being introduced to the concept of the portfolio, I was in a great shot because I just cannot imagine how students learn from simple gathering their work together. But soon I figured out that gathering the learning progress focus students to look back and rethink about how and what they had learned.
      - Macklin Brittany, I agree with your point. I do think working hard is a valuable skill but just promoting working hard doesn't foster a culture of thinking. A good example of this is from Karen White classroom (Ricthhart, R., 2015, p.41). All of her students work hard and they understood if they worked hard, they would do better in the math classroom. But she didn't have a culture of thinking in her classroom. So while growth mindset is important to have, you also need to encourage students to think outside the box.
- - - - Aly - Valerie, I completing agree that we feel the pressure not to go very in depth because of all the topics that we are required to cover. I think this also completely relates to our students thinking versus memorizing. If we are so focused on quantity then I think we as teachers fall into the trap of spitting out the information to our students. If we were more focused over the quality of what our students were learning, we would probably allow more time for our students to think.
        
        Clay T - I think this relation connects directly with the concepts of deep learning versus surface learning...our time and how we prioritize it in terms of learning will also convey our expectations.
        
        Aly-You are so right. If we were more focused on the quality, we would allow our kids to think more. We tend to be shallow in order to cover everything that is necessary. Charla B.
        
        Tyler S-I believe the discussion regarding time is a key element here. Is it important to allow for students to scratch the surface in many different areas or dive deeper into content to promote true understanding? How does one balance that with expectations for high-stakes testing and societal pressures of being a "good school"? Perhaps the answer is in the flipped classroom where students create content based work at school with guidance from an expert teacher and read and learn basic "surface scratchers" at home as their "homework."
    - - Tyler S--I also believe strongly in this, Brittany. If you are to make sure your staff as a whole is both in that we should have professional development that is useful, rewarding, and proven to work IN THEIR SCHOOL. Too many times I have sat in a meeting and heard only strategies that I know for a fact are geared towards elementary age students presented as a cure-all. Teachings students how to best use their time begins with administrators making sure the strategies they put in place are useful and not time-wasteful for teachers.
    - - Being a master of time requires again huge time investment. It is just a matter of values and perspectives. Obviously, first year teacher's experience should and must be different from tenth-year teacher's. Each and new year, there comes more mastery in time management. Even in ideal world there is not enough time for everything, though if the aim is to get closer to that ideal world, then teachers need to build upon their experience and become more flexible with time. (Imeda)
- - - - Jaclyn- "Teach less, Learn more" (Ritchhart pg154. 2014)
  - - - Jaclyn- Imeda I would like to add about this cultural force how opportunities are the "actual intellectual demands" " what are students actually doing mentally" (Ritchhart pg1143-144. 2014) especially in opportunity moments given by teachers.
  - - - Bo---I am very interested in this topic too. Powerful learning opportunities could have great impact on students' learning. As an English teacher, I used to give my students opportunities to perform " Million Pound Bank Notes' movie on the school stage in English when I was in China. A lot of students were able to apply their English speaking skills in this opportunities. Some others who were not "English fans" before now have interest in English learning and later achieved higher scores in English tests. I am glad to offer this learning opportunity to my students to fulfill their potentials and students of different English levels took themselves as far as they wish. Last year, we won the first position on the school stage beating other 15 parallel classes! I believe this opportunity was life-changing and they will never forget that! Simultaneously the opportunity became high motivation for English learning!
- - - - Tyler S--Comer is great when speaking of relationships and teaching. For the life of me, I cannot understand teachers that act as if interacting with students is the worst part of their day. Why be in education if you don't like kids??? There is so much research out there that backs up this belief about successful students having positive professional relationships with their teachers. They have to believe you have their best interests at heart. I teach in an Urban district (OPS) and without trust they will not learn from you. I love that the research backs up this belief, but I don't need to read that research. I see it everyday.
- - - - Araceli. I had the same idea about routines as you, Brittany. I thought routines where just procedures and activities that we should put in practice. Hence, when I finished the chapter I looked for some videos about how to create and promote thinking routines, and I found this video about a teacher who along with her colleague had established thinking routines in her kindergarten classroom
  - - - Brittany Bard -
- - - - Aly - Brittany, I completing agree that so many students have trauma in their lives and school is one of the only stable things in their lives. I wonder how our current school system is contributing to that trauma. We do often say how education is the way to improve your situation, but do we really show students this or just say it to them? How often do they see people who come from situations like theirs and 'make it' through education?
      - Strong relationships nurture achievement. Charla B.
      - Community partnerships are key to helping our students with needs beyond what the school can do to educate and provide for all our students. Charla
        
        Aly, So true, how many just make it through. Creating these better environments and interactions can help our students find success and thrive without just trying to survive. Charla B.
  - - - Clay T - I was not too keen on the terms independence and dependence by Ritchart. I thought using the concepts of locus of control might be a better definition as the topic seemed to be more about students' responsibility towards learning rather than the performance surrounding learning.
      - Adam- Absolutely. Students need the positive roles at school. Many do not have that at home or in their community so school needs to build that role for many.
- - - - Ziqi-teachers move from this initial modeling of the cognitive strategies to coaching and scaffolding students as they try out these strategies
      - Ziqi- teachers strategically fade away and reduce their supports as students gain independence
      - Ziqi-teachers must identify the specific cognitive processes related to the task at hand and make those visible to students
      - Ziqi-encouraging reflection at the end of the process
      - Jiayi- Ziqi, GRR, as you state the process of the modeling, I might want to suggest you to see backward design. For me, the modeling is really similar to the plan model, starting with objectives, then instruction, guided practice and lastly independent worl.
    - - ZIQI- As a student from Confucius culture, I was influenced by the notion that teachers not only should be the teaching model but also as the moral model. It took me a long time to realize that teachers are humans too and they also make mistakes.
      - ZIQI-I think it is so crucial that teacher not only modeling success or the "correct way" to solve a problem, but teachers should also modeling how to face "dead end" and embrace failure. So that the students can see the power and the value of "not knowing" yet "still seeking"
      - students as the thinkers
    - - ZIQI- Modeling the creative process and not the product; don't show students a "perfect" product
        
        Initial ideas can be tentative; students do not need to have very clear image of what they are trying to accomplish. It is okay to start from a big idea, things get more clear on the go. This way, there is going to be room for experimenting, improvising, and using more creativity in work. (Imeda)
      - ZIQI-Rather than all being exemplars, sometimes these models will have different strengths
      - Ziqi- Seven steps of interactive modeling: stating the purpose; modeling the behavior; explicit discussion of what students noticed as the teacher modeled; a student(or small group)modeling of what the teacher modeled; discussion of what was noticed in that model; practicing by all students; feedback to the group
- - - - ALD- As a FL teacher, I always keep in mind, why is this worthy for my students? Are they going to use it in a real conversation?
    - - ALD-In my content area, an example of how teachers and students can recognize our progress is throughout the use of ACTFL proficiency levels. It provides a guide that tell the students in which level they are in relation to their knowledge and the use of the language
    - - ALDWho is doing the work? what is teacher's role?
        
        Those are excellent questions to keep in mind with any activity. I always talk to my students about they person doing all the work is the person learning. Charla
        
        Ziqi- Ha! sounds so familiar! When I develop my lesson, this is one of the question I always keep in mind!
- - - - " However, those students who have close, positive and supportive relationships with their teachers will attain higher levels of achievement than those students with more conflict in their relationships."
        Sara Rimm-Kaufman, PhD, and Lia Sandilos, PhD, University of Virginia
    - - "To come up with a creative solution to a problem involves not just having new ideas. It must also be the case that the new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones and modifying them if necessary."
        S.M. Rayhanul Independent Researcher
    - - "When looked at correctly, failure can teach us where we went wrong in the first place, and how we can learn to pick ourselves up again in a pursuit to succeed. There are valuable lessons in failing. Too often people keep trying the same solution and keep getting the same result. Failure can teach us that it is not that we are bad at something, just that we have to try a different method to find success."
        Peter Dewitt, Education Week