Ch2 Thinking at the Center V3 · NOTE: This is a pre-publication version of Ch. 2 from the book...

NOTE: This is a pre-publication version of Ch. 2 from the book Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Morrison, & Church (due out May 2011) used with permission of the authors for the PZ Classroom & FOL Institutes and is NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION. 1

MAKINGTHINKINGVISIBLE:HOWTOFOSTERENGAGEMENT,UNCOVERUNDERSTANDING,ANDPROMOTEINDEPENDENCEFORALLLEARNERS

Chapter2:PuttingThinkingattheCenteroftheEducationalEnterprise

Howdoesone learn to teach? More to thepoint, howdoes one learn to teach well? I have to say the more time Ispend ineducation, themorevexing I find thisquestion. Notbecausetherearen’treadyanswersoutthere,butbecausetheanswers often seem to be too ready, too simplistic, and self‐perpetuatinginnature.Itiseasytothinkofthejobofteachingas delivering the prescribed curriculum to students. Indeed,whenwetraintobeteachersweoftenfocusonthemethodsofdelivering content. There are even courses at the universitylevel referred to as “methods” courses. In our early years ofteachingweoftenstrugglewithgetting thecurriculumacrossandagonizeoverfailedlessonsaimedatdoingjustthat. Thisviewofteachingisubiquitous,generallysharedbyparentsandstudentsaswellasteachersthemselves.Weseeitplayingoutinour languagewhenwe talkabout teacher “training,”whichusuallymeans training in newmethods. We see it in policymakers’effortstoimproveeducation,whichgenerallyfocusonchanging the curriculum with the assumption that teacherswillthendeliverthatcurriculumandschoolswillsubsequentlyimproveasaresult.Weseeitinthecallsforenhancedcontentknowledge for teachers, an important thing to be sure, butoftentimespromotedassufficientforeffectiveteaching.


I believe this view of teaching, as littlemore than thedelivery of content, is not only an overly simplistic view ofteachingbutalsoadangerousone in that itputs the focusontheteacherandnotthelearner,castingthelearnerinapassiverole and assuming that learning ismerely taking inwhat hasbeen delivered. As a result of this view of teaching andlearning,assessmentsfocusonthedegreeofabsorptionbythestudentofwhattheteachinghasdelivered. Thus,wecreateadistorted view of teaching that is self‐reinforcing. We judgeteachingeffectivenessbasedonstudentabsorptionofmaterialand so teaching becomes defined as the delivery of thatmaterial.Consequently,theanswertothequestion,Howdoesone learn to teach? Becomes: By mastering the content anddevelopingsomedeliverystrategies. Oh,andyoumightwanttolearnsomegoodclassroommanagementtechniquestodealwithstudentsrebellionagainsttheirimposedpassivity.

Incontrast,whenweplacethelearneratthehuboftheeducational enterprise, our focus as teachers shifts in amostfundamentalwaythathasthepotentialtoprofoundlyaffectthewaywedefineteaching. Withthelearneratthecenteroftheeducational enterprise, rather than at the end, our role asteachers shifts from the delivery of information to fosteringstudents’ engagement with ideas. Instead of covering thecurriculumand judgingoursuccessbyhowmuchcontentweget through, we must learn to identify the key ideas andconceptswithwhichwewantourstudentstoengage,struggle,question, explore, and ultimately build understanding. Ourgoalmustbetomakethebigideasofthecurriculumaccessibleand engaging while honoring their complexity, beauty, andpowerintheprocess.Whenthereissomethingimportantandworthwhile to think about and a reason to think deeply, ourstudents experience the kind of learning that has a lastingimpactandpowerful influencenotonly intheshortterm,butalso in the longhaul. Theynotonly learn; they learnhow tolearn.

In the last chapter, we shared how this deeperunderstanding of the educational enterprise was pivotal in


MarkChurch’sevolutionasateacher. Heisnottheonlyonefor whom this is true of course. The literature on teacherchangesuggeststhatthisshiftfromafocusonteachingtothatof learning is a central aspect ofmany teachers’ professionalgrowthandintegraltotheprocessoflearningtobeaneffectivepractitioner (McDonald 1992; Palmer 1998; Intrator 2002;Hatch2006;Intrator2006).Ratherthanseeinglearningasthepassive taking in of information,wemusthonor the fact thatlearning occurs as a result of our thinking and active sensemaking.Consequently,asteachersinterestedinbothstudents’learning and understanding, we have two chief goals: 1)creating opportunities for thinking and 2) making students’thinkingvisible. Although these goals arenot the same, theyare synergistic and interdependent. When we createopportunities for thinking,we establish both the context andtheneedformakingstudents’thinkingvisible.

InhisbookSmartSchools,ourcolleagueDavidPerkins(1992) makes a case for the importance of developingopportunities for thinking: “Learning is a consequence ofthinking. Retention, understanding, and the active use ofknowledgecanbebroughtaboutonlybylearningexperiencesin which learners think about and think with what they arelearning…. Far from thinking coming after knowledge,knowledge comes on the coattails of thinking. As we thinkaboutandwiththecontentthatweareleaning,wetrulylearnit (p. 8).” Thus, thinking is at the center of the learningenterpriseandnotamereadd‐on,something todo if there istime.We,asteachers,mustacknowledgethatwhenwereducetheamountofthinkingweaskofourstudents,wereducetheamount of learning aswell. However, evenwhenwe createopportunities for thinking, we must realize that students’thinkingmay still be invisible to us. To make sure thinkingisn’t left tochanceandtoprovideuswiththe informationweneedinordertorespondtostudents’learningneeds,wemustalsomaketheirthinkingvisible.


HowDoesVisibilityServebothLearningandTeaching?

When wemake thinking visible it not only gives us awindowintowhatstudentsunderstand,butalsohowtheyareunderstanding it. Uncovering students’ thinking gives usevidenceofstudents’ insightsaswellasmisconceptions. Weneedtomakethinkingvisiblebecause itprovidesuswith theinformationweasteachersneedtoplanopportunitiesthatwilltakestudents’ learningtothenext levelandenablecontinuedengagementwiththeideasbeingexplored.Itisonlywhenweunderstand what our students’ are thinking, feeling, andattendingtothatwecanusethatknowledgetofurtherengageand support them in the process of understanding. Thus,making students’ thinking visible becomes an ongoingcomponentofeffectiveteaching.

The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics hasfamously documented how teachers’ inattention to students’thinking leads to superficial learning and ingrainedmisconceptions about science even for studentswho succeedatthehighestlevel.IntheirMindsofOurOwnvideo,anHonorsChemistry teacher admits that, “I don’t like asking ‘why’questionsontests.IspendsomuchtimecoveringtheconceptsthenIaskthequestion,‘Why?’andIgetbacksomanydifferentanswers. It’s sometimes very depressing to see some of theanswers that you get back when you ask ‘Why?’ questions.They are valuable, but as a teacher it is sometimes veryfrustratingtoseesomeofthereasonsstudentsthinkacertainscientific phenomenon takes place.” This teacher, far frombeingcavalieroruncaring,isexpressingthebindthathefindshimself inwhen teaching for the test. Heknowshisstudentsdon’t really understand what is being taught, but in thedelivery paradigm of education he focuses on covering thematerialforthetestandkeepstheirthinkinginvisiblesoastoallow for the semblance of learning, an illusion that equatesscores on a test with evidence of learning. Howeverwidespread and ubiquitous this practice is—and make nomistake, teachers all over the world have been forced into


accepting this compromise—this illusion, some might saydelusion,aboutwhatreal learning isservesnoonewell, leastof all students who wind up being ill prepared for futurelearning. It also robs the teacher of the ability to confrontstudent’smisconceptionsanddesignexperiencesthatadvancetheirunderstanding.

Incontrast,ourcolleagueTinaGrotzer,whodirectstheComplex Causality project at Harvard Project Zero, hasdesigned a series of modules on scientific concepts thatdirectlyconfrontstudents’misconceptionsandseekstorevealtheirthinkingsoastorestructuretheirthinking.Forinstance,inaunitondensity, studentswatchas the teacherdrops twocandles of equal diameter, one short and one long, into twocontainersofliquid.Theshortercandlefloatswhilethelargercandlesinks. Studentsareaskedtowritewhattheyobservedandexplainwhytheeventtheywitnessedhappened.Indoingso,studentsareencouragedtodevelopandputforththeoriesofexplanationdrawingontheirscientificknowledge.Thus,atthe outset students’ thinking is surfaced through theirwordsanddrawings.Theteacherthenremovesthecandlesfromthetwocontainersandswitchesthem.Thistimethelargercandlefloats and the smaller one sinks; an unexpected outcome formoststudents. Again,studentsareaskedtowriteaboutwhatthey observed and to develop an explanation. Students thenshare their reactions anddiscuss how the simple experimentchangedwheretheyfocusedtheirattention.Asthediscussionunfolds, students become aware that though both liquidsappear the same, they must differ in some respect and thatsinkingorfloatingisnotamatterofsimplelinearcausalityinthis instance but depends on the relationship between theliquidandtheobjectplacedintoit.

By constantly exposing students’ thinking andpushingit forward through discrepant and unexpected events, thescienceteachersworkingwiththeComplexCausalitymodulesstay constantly in touch with students’ developingunderstandingandareable toguide it throughout the lesson.Atthesametime,theteachersallowstudents’nascenttheories


to be the object of constant discussion, justification, andrefinement,thusputtingstudentsinchargeofdevelopingtheirunderstanding and not merely providing them withinformation to memorize for the test. As this lessondemonstrates,making thinkingvisiblebenefits the teacherbyprovidingan importantassessment tool. At thesame time, ithelpstoadvancestudents’understanding.

Making students’ thinking visible serves a broadereducationalgoalaswell.Whenwedemystifythethinkingandlearning process, we provide models for students of what itmeanstoengagewithideas,tothink,andtolearn.Indoingso,wedispelthemyththatlearningisjustamatterofcommittingthe information in the textbook to one’smemory. School nolongerisaboutthe“quickrightanswer”butabouttheongoingmental work of understanding new ideas and information.Vygotsky(Vygotsky1978),writingabouttheimportanceofthesociocultural context of learning in providingmodels, stated,“Childrengrowintotheintellectuallifeofthosearoundthem.”As educators, this quote provides a powerful metaphor forwhatitmeanstoeducateanother.Takingthisquoteseriously,wemustthenaskourselves: Whatkindofintellectuallifearewepresentingtoourstudentsinourindividualclassroomsandinourschoolasawhole?Whataremystudentslearningaboutlearning? What messages am I sending through theopportunities I create formystudentsaboutwhat learning isandhowlearninghappens?

Whenwelearnanything,werelyonmodels.Weattendtowhatandhowothersaredoingthings,andweimitatethem.Thisisastrueandimportantforlearningtolearnandlearningto think as it is in learning to dance or to play baseball.Imagineaspiringtobeagreatdancerwithouteverhavingseena great dancer. The novice imitates experts in an ever‐advancing series of approximations of excellence, learningwhat works best for him or herself along the way.Consequently,thestudentsinourchargeneedtoseeanimageofusas thinkersand learners that theycan imitateand learnfrom.Theyneedtoseeandhearother’sperspectives,insights,


and questions as they advance in their understanding.Studentsneedtoseehowothersplan,monitor,andchallengetheirownthinkinginwaysthatmovethemforward.Studentsneed tosee thatall learnersmakemistakesand that learningoftenoccursfromreflectingonthosemistakes.

Theimportantrolethatmodelsofthinkingandlearningplayhelpsus tosee thataneducation ismuchmore than thedelivery of content. A quality education is also about thedevelopment of the habits of mind and thinking dispositionsthatwillservestudentsaslearnersbothinourownclassroomsand in the future (Ritchhart 2002). For this to happen,teachersmusthelpstudentstorecognizethekeyfeaturesandcontextsfortheuseofvarioustypesofthinking. Thismeansweneedtodrawonourunderstandingofwhatthinkingisandthe types of thinkingwe seek to foster so thatwe can name,notice, and highlight thinking when it occurs in class;recognizing a student who puts forth a new point of view,offers up a nascent theory or conjecture, proposes anexplanation,makesaconnection,seesapattern,andsoon.

Thisnamingandnoticing isacentralpartofbecomingcapableinparticularactivities(Johnston2004).AsEllinKeene(KeeneandZimmermann1997)notes,untilstudentscannameaprocesstheycannotcontrol it. Asourattentionisdrawntothinking, we become more aware of it, its uses, and effects.This awareness of occasions for thinking is the foundation ofall dispositions (Tishman, Perkins et al. 1993; Perkins,Tishmanet al. 2000;Ritchhart andPerkins2005). Wemustfirstspotopportunitiesforthinking,onlythencanweactivateour abilities. Without thisnoticing, our skills andknowledgelieinertandunused.Aseducators,wewantstudentswhonotonly can think, but who do think. Thus, the visibility ofthinking, both their own and others, provides the foundationfor dispositional development. Once teachers start noticingandnamingthinking,thatis,makingitvisible,they,aswellastheirstudents,becomemoreawareofthinkinganditbecomesdifficultnot tonotice it in the future (HarreandGillet1994).When we make the thinking that happens in classrooms


visible, it becomes more concrete and real. It becomessomething we can talk about and explore, push around,challenge,andlearnfrom.

In Lisa Verkerk’s fifth grade classroom at theInternational School of Amsterdam, she names and noticesstudents’ thinking as away of providing specific feedback onlearning. Ratherthangivinggenericpraise,thatis,commentsaboutgoodworkorajobwelldonethattellstudentstheyhavepleased the teacher more than providing substantiveinformation about their learning, Lisa draws students’attentiontothethinkingtheyhavedone. Commentingtotwostudentswho haveworked to build their understanding of aseriesofphotographsthathighlighttheplightofrefugees,Lisatells them, “ I like how you have used your prior knowledgeand what you already know to really build explanations ofwhat is going on in these photographs. You’ve really lookedcloselyandusedevidencetobackupyourreasons.”Thiskindof feedback provides students with a clear picture of thethinking theyhavedoneanda referencepoint theycandrawonintheirfuturelearning.

HowCanWeMaketheInvisibleVisible?

Making thinking visible is not without challenges. Aswe have discussed we first must be clear in our ownmindswhat thinking is. This allows us tomake thinking visible bynamingandnoticingitasitoccurs.Inaddition,forthinkingtooccurstudentsmustfirsthavesomethingtothinkaboutandbeaskedtothink. Weasteachersmustcreateopportunitiesforthinking. However,evenwhenopportunities for thinkingarepresent, one must still recognize that thinking is largely aninternalprocess,somethingthathappens“underthehood”asitwere.Intheremainderofthischapter,we’lllookatwaysweas teacherscanmakestudents’ thinkingmorevisible throughourquestioning,listening,anddocumentationpractices.

Questioning


The issue of asking good questions has long been afocus in education, particularly as it relates to students’thinkingandthecreationofopportunitiesforlearning.Open‐ended questions—as opposed to closed‐ended, single‐answerquestions—are general advocated as a means of pushingbeyond knowledge and skill and toward understanding. Inaddition,Bloom’staxonomy,whichwasdiscussedinChapter1,is often suggested as a template to help teachers ask betterquestions.Theusualadvicegivenistomakesurequestionsgobeyondtheknowledgelevelandpushforapplication,analysis,synthesis, and evaluation. Moving beyond simple recall inquestioning iscertainlygoodadviceand likelytocreatemoreopportunities for thinking. However,manyteachers find thattrying to ask more “higher level” questions can feel stilted.Furthermore, teachersmay find ithard tocomeupwithsuchquestions in the moment. Even when such questions areformulated and asked, theymight not domuch to illuminatestudents’ thinking as one might hope, particularly if it isperceivedthattheteacheris lookingforaspecificanswer. Insuchcases,studentswillmerelyplaythegameof“guesswhat’sintheteacher’shead.”

A more flexible way of approaching the issue ofquestioningwouldbe to think abouthowweas teachers canask questions that: 1) model our interest in the ideas beingexplored,2)helpstudents toconstructunderstanding,and3)facilitate the illumination of students’ own thinking tothemselves. Each of these represent not so much questiontypes,thoughtheymaybeclassifiedthisway,astheyrepresentgoalswehaveas teachers: tomodel intellectualengagement,tosupportstudentsinconstructingunderstanding,andtohelpstudents clarify their own thinking. In contrast, a lot of thequestions asked in classrooms are about testing students’memory ofwhatwas taught. Such questions do not engagelearnerswithideas;theymerelyreviewcontent.


Modeling an Interest in Ideas. Asking authenticquestions, that is,questions that the teacherdoesnotalreadyknowtheanswer toor towhich therearenotpredeterminedanswers, are extremely powerful in creating a classroomculturethatfeelsintellectuallyengaging.Suchquestionsallowstudentstoseeteachersaslearnersandfosteracommunityofinquiry.JohnThrelkeld,analgebrateacheratGralandCountryDay School in Denver, is a master of this. In observing hisclassroom over the course of a year, I often noticed hegenerallybeganhisclasseswithquestionssuchas,“Youknow,Iwaswondering if thatpatternwe lookedatyesterdaymightbepresentinanyoftheothersituationswehavelookedat inthis unit, what do you think?” Or, “Yesterday Amy found aninteresting way of approaching the problem, and I waswondering if that would always work?” Martin Nystrand(Nystrand, Gamoran et al. 1997) and his colleagues haveshown that these kinds of authentic questions, thoughexceedinglyrareinmostclassrooms,haveapositiveinfluenceon student engagement, critical thinking, and achievement.Onecanalso thinkofauthenticquestionsasbeinggenerativein nature. That is, they generate or help to promote classinquiry and discovery, framing learning as a complex, multi‐faceted ,communalactivityasopposedtoaprocessofsimplyaccumulating information. True generative questions havelegs.Theypropellearningforward.

Good“essentialquestions”wouldfallintothiscategoryofgenerativeaswell. Inher9thgradehumanitiesclass,KathyHanawaltatCloverParkHighSchoolinWashingtonstateusesa set of essential questions to focus her students on thefundamentalissuesoftruth,perspective,anduniversalitythatlieattheheartofhistoryandliterature.Aboveherwhiteboardon construction paper are five questions: What’s the story?What’s the other story? How do you know the story? Whyknow/tell thestory? Where’s thepower in thestory?Thesequestionsserveasthetouchpointsforongoingexplorationofeverythingthathappens intheclass. WhenKathyfirstbeganusing the questions in her class, she found that her studentswere particularly captivated by looking at the notion of the


otherorhiddenstory tounderstandnotonly theevents theywerereadingabout,butalsothoseeventsaroundthem.Eveninsimplysharingarecentevent,shefoundthatstudentswerelikelytoasktheclass,“yeah,butwhat’stheotherstory?”Thisquestion truly became essential and generative to students’learning.Whenreadingaccountsofhistory,currentevents,orpoliticalessays,thenotionthatthereisanotherstoryandthatuncovering it is necessary to truly understand people andevents propelled learning and engaged students in Kathy’sclassroom. Using questions such as these supports studentslearning of how to learn by sending messages that learninghistoryinvolvesuncoveringthestories.

Theprovenanceofauthenticquestions,don’trestsolelywith the teacher, however. When students’ ask authenticquestions,weknow theyare focusedon the learningandnotjust the completion of assignments. Students’ authenticquestionsareagoodmeasureoftheirintellectualengagement.Middle School science teacher Paul Cripps in Wyoming saysthat students’ questions are his best assessments of theirlearning,“Ijudgemystudentsnotbytheanswerstheygive,butby thequestions they ask,” he says. Whenobserving in JohnThrelkeld’s class I often heard him exclaim, “Great question.”At one point, I asked him, “What makes something a greatquestion?” Without missing a beat he said, “Oh, a greatquestion is one that gets us all thinking, including me.”Through students questions we get a glimpse into theirthinking: What issues are engaging them? Where is thereconfusion? Where and how are they making connections?Where are they seeking clarification? Once one student hasoffered up his or her insights and confusion, we often see aripple effect in the classroom that helps to produce theexcitementandenergyneededforlearning.

Constructing Understanding. Our research teamrecently looked at teacher questioning in the Cultures ofThinking Project. We observed that when teachers focus onmaking thinking valued and visible in their classrooms, theirquestioning shifted away from asking review or knowledge


basedquestions toaskingmoreconstructivequestions(Note:more facilitative questions were also asked, these will bediscussed in the next section). Constructive questions can bethoughtofasthosethathelptoadvanceunderstanding.Theseare questions that ask students to connect ideas, to makeinterpretations, to focusonbig ideasandcentral concepts, toextend ideas, and so on. In studying teachers’ questions insecondarymathematicsclassrooms,JoBoalerandKarinBrodie(Boaler and Brodie 2004) note that such questions not onlyservetoactivatestudents’thinking,butalsoto“guidestudentsthrough the mathematical terrain of lessons” (p. 781).Constructive questions act, not as nice add‐ons tomake suresomeso‐calledhigher‐order thinking ishappening,butas theguideposts and goals for the lesson itself. Teachers’constructive questions navigate the important ideas andconceptualanchorsinsuchawayastoensurethattheyarenotmissed by students. Whereas teachers asking review typequestions tend to do so because they want to assess whatstudents know and remember, teachers ask constructivequestionsdo sobecause theywant to guide, direct, andpushstudents’understandingofimportantideasforward.

WithherfirstgradeclassattheInternationalSchoolofAmsterdam, StephanieMartin’s studentswere learning abouttheir senses recently. One of the goals of the unit was forstudents tobeable toconnecteachof theirsenseswithwhatkindsofinformationcanbegatheredfromit.Inoneparticularlesson, Stephanie’s students felt an object in a box and thendescribed aloudwhat kinds of things they felt: squishy, soft,round edges, corners, and so on. Based on these responses,Stephanie then asked students to begin to makeinterpretationsandassumptions, “Whatdoyoualreadyknowjustbyfeelingit?”Followedupby,“Whatdoyounotknowbyfeeling it? And , “What does your feeling of it make youwonder?”Thesequestionsmightnotseemcomplexordifficultonthesurface,buttheygototheheartofwhatitisStephaniewants her students to understand: What information doweget from each of our senses; and what can we do with thatinformation? Without suchquestions theactivityof feelinga


mysteryobjectwouldbe littlemorethanagameandunlikelytoyieldmuchlearning.

In Cathy Humphreys’ middles school algebra class inCalifornia’sSiliconValley,sheusesherquestionstomakesurethat students aren’tmerely learning rote procedures but arefocusing on the underlying mathematics (Boaler andHumphreys 2005). Two entire class periods are focused onthe constructive question: Why is two times the quantity nminus1,thatis,2(n1),equalto2n‐2?Cathyasksherstudentsto explain in their ownwords why it is true and to developargumentsthatwillconvinceaskeptic:“Ifyouweregonnatrytoprovetosomeonethatthisalwayswouldwork,howwouldyoudoit?”Cathy’sintenthereisnottoreviewthedistributiveproperty,whichstudentshaven’t formallybeentaught,but tofocusstudentsonhowtothinkabouttheideaof“quantities”asexpressed when using the parentheses in mathematics. Shewants students to be able to understand that such quantitiesare entities unto themselves that can be operated upon. Indoing so, she is also pushing her students to go beyondarithmetic explanations. That is, trying to prove somethingtruebysimplysubstitutinginanumberforntoseeifitworks.As useful as such test cases might be, they don’t reallyconstituteaproof,andsoCathyasksherstudentstothinklikea skeptic and try andprove the equality. Anthony showshisunderstanding when he responds, “Ok, it’s just like you aredoing those two (meaning the quantity n‐1)—you’re doing nminus one twice and you’re adding it together…and then it’sthesame thingasdoing twonminus twobecauseyou’restillgonnasubtracttwo.”

Asthesetwoexamplesillustrate,constructivequestionsframe the intellectual endeavor in which students are to beengagedandpointthemtowarduncoveringfundamentalideasand principles that aid understanding. Thismay seem like atall order to place on teachers’ shoulders. However, this ispreciselywhere theThinkingRoutines thatwill bepresentedinPart2of thisbookcanbeuseful. Thestepsofeachof theroutinesoutlineasetofconstructivemovesthatstudentscan


maketofacilitatetheirunderstandingandmaketheirthinkingvisible. In Stephanie Martin’s lesson mentioned above, shebegan her lesson by adapting the See‐Think‐Wonder routineinto Feel‐Think‐Wonder. Her initial question, “What did youfeelwhenyoureachedintothemysterybox?”directsstudentstomakingobservationsbasedon touch. Then, “Whatdoyouthink about what you felt?” moves students towardinterpretations and the exploration of possibilities. Finally,Stephanie asked her students, “What are you left wonderingabouttheobjectintheboxgiventhatwewereonlyabletofeelit?” When you read about other routines in Part 2, keep inmindtheirconstructivenaturethatyouasateachercandirecttoward the specific ideas and concept you want students toexploreandunderstand.

FacilitatingandClarifyingThinking. “Whatmakesyousay that?” This question is often one of the most fullyintegratedthinkingroutinesintheclassroomsofteacherswithwhom we have worked. At Lemshaga Akademi in Swedenwherewe firstbegan theVisibleThinkingwork, the teacherstook to referring to this question as the “magic question”because they found that by using it regularly in theirinteractions with students a great deal of thinking wasrevealed. At Bialik College where teachers have formedprofessional learning communities as part of the Cultures ofThinkingProject,oneteacherremarkedthat“Whatmakesyousaythat?”isn’tjustateachingtool;itisawayoflife.Shesaidshe learnssomuchmoreandhasmuchdeeperconversationswith friends and family just by asking, “Whatmakes you saythat?”insteadofrespondingrightawaytopeople’scomments.Teachers remark that the working of this question seems tostrike just the right tone with people and invites them toelaborateonandclarify their ideas inanon‐threateningway.Although, “Tell me why?” or “Give me your reasons andevidence for that statement” serve the same role, they seemnottocarrythesamelevelofopennessandinterest.

Thissimpleyetpowerfulquestionisaperfectexampleof the kind of question that can facilitate and clarify the


learner’s own thinking. In using facilitative questions, theteacher’sgoal is to tryandunderstandthestudent’s thinking,togetinsidetheirheadandmaketheirthinkingvisible.Again,itisswitchingtheparadigmofteachingfromtryingtotransmitwhatisinourheadstoourstudentsandtowardstryingtogetwhatisinstudents’headsintoourownsothatwecanprovideresponsiveinstructionthatwilladvancelearning.

JimMinstrell, a former secondary science teacherwhonow directs research efforts in science education aimed atuncovering students’ thinking, studied his own teaching andcarefullyexaminedthewayheinteractedwithhisstudentsatMercer Island High School in Washington state through hisquestioning. Hecoinedtheterm,“reflectivetoss,” todescribethe questioning sequence he uses to facilitate and clarifystudents’thinking(ZeeandMinstrell1997).Traditionally,wehave often characterized the discourse of the classroom asoriginating from the questions teachers ask. However, Jimtakes students comments and ideas as the starting point fordialog. In the reflective toss, the teacher’s first goal is to tryand “catch” students’ meaning and try and understand theircomments. If meaning can’t be grasped immediately, then afollowupquestion,suchas,“Canyousaymoreaboutthat?”or“I’m not quite following you, can you say what you werethinking in a different way?” is asked. Once the meaning isgrasped by the teacher, then the teacher “tosses” back aquestion that will push the student to further elaborate andjustify their thinking, both to the teacher and to themselves.For instance, Jimmightaskstudents,“Whatdoesthattellyouthen?,”“Whatdoyouthinkyouwerebasingthaton?”orevenouroldstandby,“Whatmakesyousaythat?”

Thissequenceofquestioninghasahugeadvantageoverthe traditional question, respond, evaluate pattern (Cazden1988) that we find with review type questions in that itfacilitatesstudentsclarifyingtheirownthinkingandideasinasuch a way that new understanding is developed that thestudentactuallyowns.Ratherthanbeingapassiveagentwhomerelytakesinwhattheteacherhassaid,thestudentbecomes


an active agent in constructing his or her understanding.BritishresearcherDouglasBarnes,whohasstudiedtheroleoflanguageinshapinglearningthroughouthislongcareer,statesthatthemorealearner“isenabledtothinkaloud,themorehecantakeresponsibilityforformulatingexplanatoryhypothesesandevaluatingthem”(Barnes1976).

Listening

I recall a pivotal episode from when I was amathematics coach. Rather than being a one off, it was anepisodethatseemedtorepeatitselfoverandoveragainatthevarious schools where I was working. I would teach amathematics lesson in one teacher’s classroom with otherteachers from the samegrade levelobserving. Afterwehaddebriefedthelesson,theobservingteacherswereencouragedtoteachthe lessonandsharetheirexperiencewiththegroupin our next session together. Invariably, at these follow‐upsessions a teacher would remark, “I wrote down all thequestions you asked, and Iwas very careful to ask the samequestions but my students didn’t respond the same way aswhen you did it.” This happened enough times among theteachers with whom I was working that I decided toinvestigatewhatwashappening.

What I observed was that indeed the teachers weredoing theirbest toask thesamekeyquestions Ihadaskedatpivotal points in the lesson, questions that were generallyconstructive in nature. However, students often gave shortanswers or seemed to be guessing rather than thinkingmathematically. This wasn’t a problem with the studentshoweverasIrotatedmydemonstrationteachingamongalltheclasses. I alsonoticed thatwhenstudentsdidn’t respond theway the teachers had expected, the teachers were oftenstumped about how to respond and tended to justmove thelesson forward. What I concludedwas that it is one thing toaskgoodquestions,butonealsohas to listen for theanswers.Theteachers,inpartbecausetheyweretakingrisksandtrying


new ways of teaching mathematics with which they wereunfamiliar,weresofocusedonwhattheyweregoingtodoorsaynext that theyoften failed to listen to students. Thishadtwo effects on the class: First, it inadvertently sent a signalthattheteacherwasnotasinterestedinhearingthestudents’thoughts as in hearing a specific answer. As a result, thestudents played “guess what is in the teacher’s head” ratherthanstatingtheirtrueideasandunderstanding.Second,bynotlistening, the teachers had trouble being responsive tostudents through appropriate follow‐up (facilitative)questions. Good questions, that is questions the drivelearning, don’t come from some prescribed list or set ofguidelines,theyariseinresponsetostudents’contributions.Ifwe don’t listen to those thoughts, we rob ourselves of theinformationweneed tobe able to ask goodquestions. Ifwedon’t first “catch”students’meaning,wewillbehardpressedto “toss” back a question that pushes them to elaborate orclarifytheirthinking.

In the Reggio Emilia preschools of Italy, they espousetheideaofapedagogyoflistening.CarlaRinaldi,theDirectorofthepreschoolsandexecutiveconsultantforReggioChildren,holds that listening must be the basis of the learningrelationshipthatteachersseektoformwithstudents. Withinsuch a learning context, “individuals feel legitimated torepresenttheirtheoriesandoffertheirowninterpretationsofaparticularquestion” (Giudici,Rinaldietal.2001). Listeningconveysasenseofrespect forandaninterest inthe learner’scontributions.Whenthisispresent,studentsaremorewillingtosharetheirthinkingandputforththeir ideas, justasweasadultsrespondmorewhenweknowthepersonwearetalkingwithisinterestedinusandourideas.Thesesamesentimentsare eloquently expressed by poet Alice Duer Miller in herobservation that, “Listening is notmerely not talking, thougheven that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking avigorous, human interest in what is being told us.” Thisvigorous,humaninterestallowsustobuildcommunity intheclassroom and develop interactions that pivot around theexploration of ideas. Our listening provides the opening for


studentstomaketheirthinkingvisibletousbecausethereisareasontodoso.

As teachersour listening tostudentsprovidesamodelfor our students of what it means to listen. In classroomswhereteachersroutinelyask,“Whatmakesyousaythat?”theyinvariably notice that students soon pick up this as anappropriate and useful way to respond to one other’scontributions.Developingactivelistenersisn’tjustanicesidebenefit, however. Brigid Barron (2003) studied groupinteractions among sixth graders solving mathematicsproblems collaboratively to try and identifywhatmade somegroupssuccessfulwhileothergroupsfloundered.Inherpaper,WhenSmartGroupsFail,shefoundthatgroupsuccesswasfarlessdependentontheacademicskillsofthegroupthanitwasin the group’s ability to listen and respond to one another’sideas. Successfulgroupsengagedwith the ideasof thegroupmembers, echoing back the ideas that were presented andasking clarifying and probing questions of one another. Inthese groups, individualmembers did not just talk; they alsolistenedandsoughtgreaterequalityamongallgroupmembers.Thisallowedthemtobuildononeanother’sideasandadvancefarbeyondgroupswithacademicallymoreproficientstudents.

Documenting

Anothertoolformakingstudents’thinkingvisibleistheuseofdocumentation,recordingoftheclass’sinvestigationonthewhiteboard,photographsofstudents’working,audiotapesof the class discussion, written notes of students’ ideas andcontributions, students’ papers and drawings, and so on. Tothosenewtodocumentingstudent’sthinking,itmightbeeasyto confuse documentation with merely recording what theclass has done, a sort of archive of activity through thecollection of various forms of documents. However, to beuseful to both teachers and students, documentation mustextend beyond this. At its heart the documentation process,which has its origin in the Reggio Emilia preschools but has


sincemovedtoincludeallgradelevelsthroughtheworkoftheMakingLearningVisibleprojectatHarvard, is focusedon thelearning process itself by trying to capture the events,questions, conversations, and acts that provoke and advancelearningovertime.

Our Project Zero colleagues, Mara Kerchevsky, TerriTurner,BenMardell,andSteveSeidel,havebeeninvestigatinghow documentation supports students’ learning from earlychildhood through secondary school. They definedocumentation “as the practice of observing, recording,interpreting, and sharing, through a variety of media, theprocesses and products of teaching and learning in order todeepen learning” (Given,Kuh et al. 2010). Embedded in thisdefinition is the idea that documentation must serve toadvance learning, not merely capture it. As such,documentationincludesnotonlywhatiscollected,butalsothediscussions and reflections on those artifacts. In this way,documentation both connects to the act of listening andextendsit. Tocaptureandrecordstudents’thinking,teachersmust be vigilant observers and listeners. When teacherscapturestudents’ideas,theyaresignalingthatthoseideasandthoughtshavevalueandareworthyof continuedexplorationandexamination.

In Stephanie Martin’s first grade class, as students’sharewhattheyfelt insidethemysterybox,sherecordstheirindividual contributions on post‐it notes and places them onchartpaper. Thisallowsstudentstoseethattheir ideashavevalueandexistascontributionstotheclass’sdiscussion. Thedocumentationoftheclass’sobservationsaboutwhatwasfeltthenbecomeabasisthatStephanieandclasscanconnecttoasthey move on to discuss what they think and wonder aboutthose observations. The documentation demonstratesStephanie’s listening and provides the basis for the ongoingclass conversation about the object in the mystery box. InBrigid Barron’s study of successful groups, she found similarexamples of documentation happening among studentsthemselves. Documentation of the ongoing problem solving


process allowed all groupmembers to access the thinking ofthe group and feel a sense of ownership of it. Thedocumentationalsoallowedthegrouptomonitorprogressandmakecontributionsandaskquestionsatappropriatepointsinthe process that would advance the understanding of thegroup.Incontrast,unsuccessfulgroupswereoftenthosewherethe written work of the group was often done by a singlememberandnoteasilyaccessedbyothers.Thispracticeledtodisenfranchisementofsomegroupmembers.

Documentation of students’ thinking serves anotherimportant purpose as well in that it provides a stage fromwhich both teachers and students may observe the learningprocess,makenoteofthestrategiesbeingused,andcommenton the developing understanding. The visibility afforded bydocumentation provides the basis for reflecting on one’slearning and for considering that learning as an object fordiscussion. In this way, documentation demystifies thelearningprocessboth for the individual aswell as the group,buildinggreatermetacognitiveawarenessintheprocess.Forteachers, this reflection on students’ learning functions asassessment in the truest senseof theword. Documentation,while not used for grading, often provides a rich andpotentially illuminating glimpse into students’ learning andunderstanding. Touncoverthisrichness,weoftenneedmoresets of eyes than ours alone. Sharing documentation withcolleaguescanleadtorichdiscussionsoflearningandallowustoseeandnoticeaspectsofstudents’thinkingandimplicationsfor instructions that we, as teachers working on our own,might easily miss. We’ll explore how this collegiality canfacilitaterichprofessionallearninginChapter8.

When we as teachers frame our core activity, not asdeliveringthecurriculumtoapassivegroupofstudents,butasengagingstudentsactivelywithideasandthenuncoveringandguiding their thinking about those ideas, then the ideas andstrategies presented in this chapter take on a new sense of


urgency and importance. Wemake students’ thinking visiblethrough our questioning, listening, and documenting so thatwecanbuildonandextendthatthinkingonthewaytodeeperand richer understanding. These core practices provide thebackdrop for our discussion of thinking routines in Part 2 ofthis book. Rather than seeing the routines as a separatepractices,itisimportanttoviewthemasstructuresthatgrowout of and extend our ongoing practice of questioning,listening,anddocumenting.Asyouwillsee,thinkingroutinesareeffectiveandreallycomealiveintheclassroomswhentheyemerge from and are linked to enduring efforts to makethinking visible. Look for these connections as you readthrough the pictures of practice accompanying each of thethinkingroutinesinthenextsectionofthisbook.

References

Barnes,D.R.(1976).Fromcommunicationtocurriculum.NewYork,Penguin. Barron,B.(2003)."Whensmartgroupsfail."TheJournaloftheLearningSciences12(3):307‐359. Boaler, J. and K. Brodie (2004). The importance, nature andimpact of teacher questions. Proceedings of the twenty‐sixthannual meeting of the North American Chapter of the


InternationalGroupforPyschologyofMathematicsEducation.D.M.J.Ross.Toronto,Ontario.2:773‐782. Boaler, J.andC.Humphreys(2005).Connectingmathematicalideas: Standards‐based cases for teaching and learning,greades6‐8.Portsmouth,NH,Heinemann. Cazden, C. B. (1988). Classroom Discourse. Portsmouth, NH,Heinemann. Giudici, C., C. Rinaldi, et al., Eds. (2001). Making learningvisible: Children as individual and group learners. ReggioEmilia,Italy,ReggioChildren. Given,H.,L.Kuh,etal.(2010)."Changingschoolculture:Usingdocumentation to support collaborative inquiry." Theory intoPractice49:36‐46. Harre,R.andG.Gillet (1994).Thediscursivemind.ThousandOaks,CA,Sage. Hatch, T. (2006). Into the classroom: Developoing thescholarship of teaching and leanring. San Francisco, Jossey‐Bass. Intrator, S. (2002). Stories of the courage to teach: Honoringtheteacher'sheart.SanFrancisco,Jossey‐Bass. Intrator, S. (2006). "Beginning teachers and the emotionaldramaof theclassroom." JournalofTeacherEducation57(3):232‐239. Johnston, P. (2004). Choice words: How our langauge affectschildren'slearning.Portland,ME,Stenhouse. Keene, E. and S. Zimmermann (1997). Mosaic of thought.Portsmouth,NH,Heinemann.


McDonald,J.P.(1992).Teaching:Makingsenseofanuncertaincraft.NewYork,TeachersCollegePress. Nystrand,M.,A.Gamoran,etal. (1997).Opeingdialogue.NewYork,TeachersCollegePress. Palmer,P. (1998).The courage to teach: Exploring the innerlandscapeofateacher'slife.SanFrancisco,Jossey‐Bass. Perkins, D. N., S. Tishman, et al. (2000). "Intelligence in thewild: A dispositional view of intellectual traits." EducationalPsychologyReview12(3):269‐293. Ritchhart, R. (2002). Intellectual Character:What it is,why itmatters,andhowtogetit.SanFrancisco,Jossey‐Bass. Ritchhart,R.andD.N.Perkins (2005).Learning to think:Thechallenges of teaching thinking. Cambridge handbook ofthinking and reasoning. K. Holyoak and R. G. Morrison.Cambridge,CambridgeUniversityPress. Tishman, S., D. N. Perkins, et al. (1993). "Teaching thinkingdispositions:Fromtransmissiontoenculturation."TheoryintoPractice3:147‐153. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA,HarvardUniversityPress. Zee, E. v. and J.Minstrell (1997). "Usingquestioning to guidestudent thinking." The Journal of the Learning Sciences6(2):227‐269.

Ch2 Thinking at the Center V3 · NOTE: This is a pre-publication version of Ch. 2 from the book...

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Transcript of Ch2 Thinking at the Center V3 · NOTE: This is a pre-publication version of Ch. 2 from the book...