Reflect after reading Chapters 8-11:
As you begin to imagine a full lesson in a thinking classroom, what practices will support student autonomy and ownership? How will you know if the practices are working?
Consider the following questions:
- What is resonating with you from the reading?
- What caused you to pause and think during this section?
Chapter(s) 8 & 10 resonated with me the most this week. I appreciated the focus on building our thinking classrooms by mobilizing the knowledge in the room & consolidating thinking. It’s easy to fall into micromanaging when teaching a new skill or concept, but I’m reminded that it’s important to build independence and support autonomy by encouraging students to interact with other groups/students, allowing them to make meaning of their work and deepen their thinking through questioning, discourse, and discussion. The author’s statement about the ineffectiveness of having students explain their own solutions to the class was powerful. I still catch myself doing this (show me your thinking, bring up your whiteboard, teach it to the class) and I typically notice other students getting antsy and losing interest. While I believe there is value in this practice in some situations, I’m realizing the acquisition of knowledge needs to happen in more authentic (inclusive) ways, and that’s when students are most engaged and learning is impactful. I appreciated the suggestions to help increase engagement by having routines in place for accountability, such as asking students to explain another group’s work. I’m eager to revisit gallery walks with my third graders, practicing the selection & sequencing, and putting this into motion in our classroom. As a side note, I’m loving the thinking tasks at the end of each chapter, especially p. 143 (pentominos), and p. 206 (25 dots). I’ll definitely use these!
ReplyDeleteI had the same thoughts about students explaining their own thinking. I love that they can learn from one another, but agree that the other students can sometimes lose interest. I enjoy using gallery walks, too!
DeleteI felt like chapters 8 and 9 were more realistically applicable than chapters 10 and 11. I read about a few parallels to what goes on in my classroom with student thinking, and I intend to move more towards being "deliberately less helpful." It will take some time, as we all have this internal desire to see students be successful. But the question begs... if we are helping them, are they then really being successful? To students, I believe they feel they are. As I read further, I'm rethinking my own standpoint on it. I especially liked reading about maintaining the balance between ability and challenge and how we need to provide clear goals every step of the way, as well as immediate feedback on action. The concept of shifting their mode of engagement in order to increase the challenge was like lightbulbs blinking in my mind. I think so often that once students "DO" the task, they believe their work is done, or that they just want another task that is nearly exactly the same, so they can prove they can do it on their own... and in their mind that's it. They've been successful. I'm intrigued, but not shocked (because really, we kind of knew this, it just wasn't laid out in so many words), by increasing the challenge by shifting from doing to justifying, from justifying to explaining, and so on. Furthermore, my team has focused on the justifying mode in our PLC, and to see it as part of a specific sequence made a ton of sense.
ReplyDeleteAlso, much like Kimberly, above, I am really enjoying the thinking tasks at the end of each chapter. I especially liked Next Door Numbers (pg116), The Answers Are (pg168), and Farmer John (184)
I connected to chapters 8 and 9 this week. I liked how chapter 8 focused on fostering student autonomy in the classroom in both active and passive ways. I can definitely see myself using some of this strategies in my own classroom! I also liked how chapter 9 discussed the 2 types of hints (hints that increase ability and hints that decrease challenge). This is something I have never thought of before and I will be more aware of the type of hints I give my students in the future! My favorite part of each chapter is the FAQ section because I often find myself having some of those same questions. While reading each chapter, these ideas and strategies to build a thinking classroom sound great on paper, but still often leaves me with logistical and application questions which often get answered in the FAQ section!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the FAQ section. I love that it has these questions and answers because I also have some of these questions in my mind. It also presents other questions that I never thought of but it makes me think a little bit more. I also find the summary at the end with the micro and macro moves helpful (to wrap it up).
DeleteI really enjoyed reading Chapter 9 about how we use hints and extensions in a thinking classroom. I found the graphical representations on pg 148 and 149 very helpful visually to see the balance between challenge and skill. It made me pause and think about what I do in class with my second graders and how I do see certain kids getting frustrated while others get bored. It also made me think about what I do when I see those kids . Sometimes you would help/ give hints, sometimes I would try to encourage, and sometimes I just did not know what to do. So now the challenge for me is to create this flow through asynchronous hints and extensions. I also really enjoyed reading the micro moves in this chapter. I am going to try to implement this somehow next year and can't wait to see how the results turn on for the kids.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few quotes that really stuck with me in Chapter 9. The first was about students sharing their thinking..."It explains why students often have a difficult time explaining their thinking--we are asking them to go straight from doing to explaining. We need to first ask them to justify their thinking." When looking at the progression through modes of engagement, this makes so much sense. I often wondered why some students really struggled with explaining their thinking, even when they had the correct answer. I could see how having to first justify their answer would help them be able to better explain their thinking.
ReplyDeleteThe second quote that resonated with me from Chapter 9 seemed to really sum up this whole book: "The bottom line with all of this is that the goal of building thinking classrooms is not to find engaging tasks for students to think about. The goal of thinking classrooms is to build engaged students that are willing to think about any task." YES! Shifting that responsibility from the teacher as the thinker to the student is key to enabling them to approach any math problem with their critical thinking skills.
Like a few others have mentioned, I have thought a lot about students sharing/explaining their work as part of a lesson. I use this often and find a lot of value in students seeing each other's work, making connections to it, and asking clarifying questions about it. I love hearing students say, "I want to try Jack's strategy!" I agree, though, that there may be some students "checked out" during this time, so I will have to think some more about structuring it differently. Maybe they will do some sharing like this inside their random groups while working on a problem?
In my fourth grade classroom, student autonomy is very much valued. I’ve been curious as to how I would sustain perceived autonomy levels when I remove the most favored source of choice – student-choice of partners/groups. Chapter 8 made it clear that autonomy still exists in a thinking classroom, students will just experience it differently. The autonomy is delivered through the task itself, in how it is solved, and through knowledge mobility.
ReplyDeleteI am also considering how I will best meet the needs of my most intensive learners in a thinking classroom, where the classroom teacher is not meeting with small groups in the traditional sense. Chapter 9 described how to use hints and extensions to differentiate learning experiences for students. When we are roving to support student groups we can support students through the use of a decreased challenge hint or an increased ability/strategy hint. The key overall is to have students in the flow, and to start small with low-challenge and/or high-interest non-curricular tasks. This is important to keep in mind as we begin the new school year.
Whole group collaboration was another aspect of a teaching classroom I looked forward to hearing described in detail. Chapter 10 laid out the key aspects of maintaining the physicality of the thinking classroom through standing and walking throughout the course of the activity. Our role is to highlight student thinking that we would like to address during the whole-class debrief, our focus is on consolidating from the bottom, moving through “the levels of understanding they had already worked through”, then moving up from there.
Chapter 11 described the role of notes in a thinking classroom. This chapter really resonated with me for personal and professional reasons. I can picture my students, whose attempts at note-taking caused anxiety or auto-shutdown due to the intense frustration it brought to the surface. Note-taking brings to the forefront issues with executive function, spelling, handwriting, reading, and makes the task about so much more than the content. Our learners with unique abilities are not able to make meaning from the experience due to the sheer cognitive demand of the task. To address this concern, I started creating personal anchor charts for each student. I also frequently model how I use my personal anchor chart to choose a strategy, or to get unstuck when solving a problem, and we use them consistently. I try to keep the charts as visual as possible with only the text that is necessary. I understand that this is a variation to what was described in the text, to create a more “by them for them approach”, students could also add model problems or pictures to personalize their anchor chart.
Out of all the chapters, chapter 8 was most thought-provoking with the idea of being “deliberately less helpful”. Like others have mentioned, this is something that can be quite challenging for the inner helper in all of us. I like the conversation examples between the teacher and students that show examples on how to appropriately respond when students are stuck or when they need more of a challenge. I think that having groups not feel so secluded when in their random groups is important. Although the students are separated, that doesn't mean we are not all able to use others' ideas to help guide and elevate our thinking. I have heard many times “They just copied us, that's not fair”. This year, I plan to get right on this and develop a classroom in which my students know that they are the teachers and it is okay to learn from others brilliant ideas!
ReplyDeleteI also greatly appreciated the charts in chapter 9 that explained the importance of flow and how to get students there. I look forward to working on my timing with this getting into rhythm when school starts by pushing the envelope little by little with more challenging problems! Four great chapters to really get me thinking!!
There were two things from these chapters that really resonated with me. The first was balancing challenge and ability. This balance is so important to keep the “flow” going. In my classroom, I am really just facilitating their learning. My job is to engineer activities and lessons that meet the ability of my students and keep the challenge up to keep them engaged. I am constantly shifting and adjusting to find that engagement. The other part that really resonated with me is the fact that groups share and borrow from one another as they are working. This really makes students accountable for their own learning.
ReplyDeleteThese three chapters really had me thinking and questioning. As I’m reading, I keep trying to think of ways to use these strategies with other subjects. My brain is really thinking about how to extend this rich thinking from the entry task and startup activity to the lesson. How do I bring practice from the student workbook into the group work? I really paused and thought of ways to use the questions from our workbooks to give to groups to work on together. These questions grow in challenge and I could see using these and actually changing how I teach and provide learning opportunities. Instead of just working through the questions and modeling how to solve, I like the idea of having kids engaged and collaborating to learn.
Of these four chapters, like many others, chapters 8 and 9 resonated the most with me and felt more applicable to the students and age levels we are teaching. Chapter 11 didn't really feel applicable to elementary aged students, but I've really been thinking about how to incorporated more gallery walks as Liljedahl has described them into a more frequent focus in my classroom. I think we have the opportunity to really push student thinking and during problem solving tasks and other rich tasks, by really focusing on how groups are working through problems. With a more focused approach and getting kids up and moving through the classroom might be that next step that we are hoping to see with students' abilities to solve more challenging problems, or at least the methods in which they are able to think about them with small groups and even independently. The one element that continues to roll around in my mind is being extremely deliberate in the questioning that I ask students to share not only their thinking but having them identify how/what another group was thinking when they were solving the problem on their vertical board.
ReplyDeleteI have already been using the phrases of "borrowing ideas from a peer/group" so hope that by utilizing more vertical whiteboard solving/thinking this will continue to help students foster the feeling of a community of learners and that we're not just here to figure it out on our own.
These chapters continue to make me think! In chapter 8 I loved how the students are encouraged to look to the work of other groups for ideas to nudge their thinking forward. We get some of our best ideas from others as adults, so why wouldn't we teach our students to do the same thing! Encouraging the groups to talk with each other is a powerful way to encourage collaboration.
ReplyDeleteChapter 9 was full of great ideas to keep students in the "flow" right between frustration and boredom. I appreciated how the author acknowledged that some students will get into frustration or boredom, that is when students learn about perseverance and patience!
Consolidation was an interesting concept for me and I found myself rereading a few times to really understand. I really liked the suggestion of stopping the class and having the groups look at the other groups work and then someone not in the group explain what a group was thinking. What a great way to really solidify thinking!
As I first started reading the chapter on note taking, I was skimming, as taking notes isn't as common in the elementary grades. But then when I read about the four different types of graphic organizers for the students to write down what they learned I was intrigued! What a great way to show understanding of a concept and to share with their people at home what was learned. I also found myself really wanting to teach my high school daughter some of those note taking strategies!
As I closed out this next set of chapters, I was struck by the impact of our historical tendency to "manage" student thinking across all subjects through our efforts to maintain a structured learning environment. A singular line exists to transfer knowledge from teacher to student whether it be a reading comprehension strategy, a novel scientific principle, or the derivation of a formula in math. Such a practice denies students the opportunity to think for themselves and to think deeply with others. Free-flowing lines of interaction, in which teachers draw on the discoveries and difficulties encountered by each group to progress the lesson, rather than their own pacing is what leads to real learning. I would like to replicate the diagram on p. 136 for my students to aid them in understanding the sort of communication and collaboration I expect in class as well as defining both passive and active interactions to support their recognition of the role they play in learning. The line, "an increased sense that they all had something to offer" (p. 138) evoked an emotional response as I spent much of middle and high school years believing I had nothing to offer. I want each of my students to believe for themselves that their voice and ideas do matter and make a tangible, positive impact on our classroom community.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of "flow", a concept I first encountered in a university course on the aesthetic experience, is one my students would likely respond to but the actual task of guiding each student into a sustained feeling of "flow" is a little daunting to imagine without being immersed in the moment with my students. Another noteworthy line was drawn from p. 152, "...when students are not thinking, however, almost everything we teach them is difficult". Defining what thinking is brings to light the truth of this statement. Are we "managing" or singularly transferring knowledge or are students collaborating, maintaining movement of knowledge, and deep in the "flow"?
Chapters 10 and 11 offered a number of opportunities to maximize the learning experience for our students and to avoid the threat of disengagement, either from a lack of stimulation or closing cognitive gaps too rapidly. The three reasons student choose not to take notes was interesting and could function as a framework as to what to actually take notes on. I smiled at the idea of mindful note taking as, "...notes to their future forgetful selves" (p. 193). I know that personally, unless I have a visual, I have to write down everything I need to remember. I appreciate that the authors felt notes should be personal because each student's journey towards understanding is personal. Learning is personal! Providing students the choice to select which worked examples they wish to note down and connecting note taking to future tasks are two ways I hope to implement mindful note taking this school year.
I enjoyed reading these chapters because it helped me visualize teacher moves and how a lesson might look in my classroom. I liked the autonomy described in chapter 8; having students/groups support one another by mobilizing knowledge. I made a note to myself that we may need to have a class meeting about this concept to ensure my 3rd graders understand this is not 'cheating.' Chapter 9 had so much to consider and reflect on, I know I'll be rereading that one, there's so much information! I kept thinking about number strings and the idea of incrementally increasing the challenge. The two types of hints was a lightbulb for me. I instantly started replaying some of my interactions with students reflecting on whether they were hints that decrease challenge or increase ability. I thought that was such a powerful statement. In chapter 10 I made note on page 178 that students don't listen when others share their solutions, I liked the suggestion of having non group members explain the work of another group, another powerful idea. I found chapter 11 fascinating, as an eager notetaker it was interesting to see it through this lens, but it makes perfect sense. My students have journals where we record important information, I can't wait to truly hand this over to the individual students and see what they do with this new approach. I'm excited for my students' ownership of learning this year.
ReplyDeleteLiljedahl mentions a few times in this book that thinking and engagement are closely related. When I was working with new teachers yesterday I was paying close attention to the engagement in the room throughout the various activities that I had planned. During the portions where it felt like teachers were most engaged, I could practically FEEL the thinking that was happening among the teachers around the room. Not surprising, the most engagement and thinking was occuring while the teachers were working in random groups on VNPSs together on a rich task. ;)
ReplyDeleteI was asked one time, "Would you like to be a student in your classroom? If so, why? What it is about your classroom or teaching that would make you want to be a learner in it?" This caused a lot of reflection out of me. We can all probably relate to being a learner in a situation where we had a negative experience. Was it because the presenter was doing all of the talking and thinking? Was it because we weren't allowed to stand up and move?Although I'm not in the classroom anymore, I often ask myself, "Would I like to be an elementary math teacher in Tahoma? What is it about the way that I lead and/or support that would make me excited/empowered/grateful/ to be an elementary math teacher in Tahoma?" Reflection is important. When we learn how to be better...we should do what it takes to be better. 💙
These chapters were all about providing teaching moments that aren't teaching in the more traditional sense. In fact, Liljedahl challenges us to be deliberately less helpful! My favorite of these methods was having students learn from each other. We can allow students, and direct them, to discover knowledge from others in the room. These chapters were a great precursor to the training I attended this week for Illustrative Mathematics. As I considered what changes I would need to make to my practice to implement this curricula with fidelity, I thought about the need to hold back some of the "teaching" to allow students to discover. Students will have more autonomy if I provide them with time to engage in activities that allow for discovery of concepts through rich math tasks, learning from their peers, having increasingly challenging applications of their new knowledge. Giving students the "optimal experience" means nudging students forward by giving hints that increase ability and keep them working in a state of flow.
ReplyDeleteThese chapters were great. I love the framework that Liljedahl has created in every chapter. In the fall, I hope to set up the routine of consolidating from the bottom as we discuss student work. I have used a strategy where students "read minds" to try to explain another person's thinking, but I enjoy the idea of doing this in groups even more. Liljedahl reminds us to bring the class to the center away from all VNPs before doing so and I think this will help to lower the affect and increase risk taking. I also liked his suggestion to add notations, but never erase student work. I like that this protocol will encourage more voices in the room to have a say as we are standing and walking the gallery together.
ReplyDeleteThese chapters were so helpful in visualizing what my role would look like as small groups tackle tasks on the NPVS's. My favorite part of chapter 8 was the "knowledge mobilization" - encouraging students to compare with other groups when they are done or stuck. I am anticipating that this will really promote rich student discussions about different approaches to the same task. I also really appreciated the hints and suggestions in chapter 9 to balance the degree of challenge with ability in order to keep kids engaged and "in the flow". I love that phrase "in the flow," such a perfect description of engagement. I will have tabbed these chapters to refer to as we jump into our math tasks this year. Finally - Chapter 10 was a "Phew!" I really needed this, as my "traditional teacher brain" was like... but when does the "lesson" happen? I know it is happening throughout the task as I flow through, but this really created some relief, haha. I am still a little stressed about how this is all going to come together with the IL curriculum, and keeping all this in play as I use the new lessons and format.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the hints and thoughts in 9 about the flow and how to teach the lesson and when that happens. I am looking at our new materials and wondering the same thing about how it all comes together.
DeleteI enjoyed reading chapter 9 and focusing on how to get students into the flow and keeping them there. It is always an important balance to challenge students, eliminate boredom but also minimize frustration. This idea can be applied to math but also other subject areas. One idea I really want to try from the chapter is to have my students work on vertical non-permanent surfaces. I agree with the book that it is one “simple” way to observe where students are at in their thinking. Another idea that stood out to me was the different types of hints that can be given, hints to decrease challenge and hints that increase ability. It made me reflect on the type of hints I typically give my students. As we start the year I think it is important to really assess student ability so that I can provide differentiation and maintain a good flow for all students.
ReplyDeleteThere is such a fine balance between engagement, thinking, and keeping the entire classwide thinking going. The aspect and idea of "flow" was so true when I was reading about it in chapter 9. This chapter and 8 really connected with the balancing act I have been trying to achieve in my classroom the last few years. I find it an interesting balance I have yet to achieve at the beginning of the year with introducing the materials, creating a classroom of engaged thinkers, moving thru the pacing guide, while getting to know my students. There is such a delicate line between providing feedback and stopping thinking. I am curious where Illustrative Math will take us with these concepts.
ReplyDeleteOnce again these chapters were rich with insight and concepts to consider. The definition of an optimal experience drawn from Chapter 9 summed up what an ideal day in the classroom looks like, you can picture the moments when students are “so involved in an activity nothing else seems to matter.” These moments are gold, but Liljedahl reminded me they don't happen by chance. Creating an optimal experience involves clear goals, immediate feedback, and balance of the doer and the challenger.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated the discussion of flow as a dynamic space, individual to each student. It caused me to reflect on how to keep increasing the challenge in a way that considers the optimal timing for each student.
I took away a few tips for consolidation as well. Strategically planning what student work to show students and having students walk to it, simply carrying around another color pen and drawing a box to help myself remember, and asking students outside of a given group to explain by “telling me what this group was doing here.” So many good tidbits to help navigate the use of vertical surfaces!