With what time?!
I SEE
This is my second reflection assignment on this course. For this assigment we were asked to read: Habits of Mind by Arthur Costa & Bena Kallick; Teaching for Understanding by Blyte and Associates; and Making Thinking Visible by Ron Richart. The purpose of this course as far as I have been able to figure out from the book and article titles is metacognition, thinking about our own thinking. Although I am not fully aware where this course is going to take me, I am excited to be learning more about how to become a better teacher. For this course, the instructor has asked us to use an adapted See(Say)-Think-Wonder. She incorporates a 3-2-1 Bridge in which we find 3 sentences, 2 (in this case 3) phrases, and one word that we found interesting. All of these are routines developed by Ron Richart to help Make Thinking Visible (MTV).
I THINK
" I can take the whole- take all the information and put it together-then! I understand. But if I don’t say anything new about what I’m learning, then I don’t understand. "Pat, Seventh-Grade Student,Cambridge, Mass.2. 1 (Blytes and Associates, Teaching for Understanding)
After reading this I had to consider my own thoughts on understanding. Did understanding mean that they said what I wanted them to say? What the test expected them to say? or, did it mean that they had the power to challenge it? (brain exploded)
Just like them, I had to consider ho
w to to evaluate the goals we will set for them and the performance assessments that would evaluate their own understanding, but as stated in our book, "the process of defining goals and standards produces no “right answers”; however, drawing on the expertise that others have to offer makes it more likely that the goals and standards we define will equip our students with the understanding they will need in the world beyond our classrooms." A big portion of this chapter addresses the importance of sharing and reflecting as part of an ongoing learning community. Teachers are encouraged to seek“support and encouragement of colleagues who are engaged in similar efforts.” I think this is utterly important. By engaging in a community, we are forced to reflect objectively and openly. This activity helps us grow as educators and further our own learning about learning.
"Many student performances are too routine to be understanding performances: answering true-false quizzes, performing standard arithmetic exercises, and so on”(Ron Richart, MTV).
This part of my learning made me mad. Not because I didn't want to do it, but because I thought about the importance of doing it and how little amount of uninterrupted planning time we are truly given. As I bring my own learning to work and discuss it with my coworkers, we all agree on the importance, but find these important discussions almost impossible to include. So now I am left with this in my head... "how can I find time to include these discussions in order to be a more effective teacher?" Also, "if there is no support, how can push my own teaching independently or who can I reach out to (in my own school, community, online)?"
REFLECTION:
H.O.M:
Thinking Flexibly
As I was working on this assignment, I had to put myself in the student’s point of view. The chapters and examples helped me look at learning from the perspective of the student. As I reviewed the thinking routines in the book Making Thinking Visible, I thought about how my own kids would have reacted to similar situations. For each step of the thinking routine, I considered how my students thinking and understanding would benefit. Going back and forth between the teacher perspective and the student perspective helped me understand learning more thoroughly.
Questioning and Posing Problems
As I was reading the articles, I also was thinking about how I could integrate the thinking routine. While reading the chapter, I wondered how my students would respond and I imaging possible scenarios so that I could be prepared for any problems that could arise. I thought about the limited time and considered what the priorities were in my classroom in terms of learning goals. I asked myself if my students would be able to handle exploration and how to phrase the questions appropriately so that I could avoid wasting our class time. As I read these chapters I considered the age of my own class (5-6) and wondered, in what ways will their lack of experience and/or cognitive development affect the manner in which the routines where designed to work?
Questions
Predict the manner in which using the thinking routine will affect student’s response as adults.
Imagine some of the obstacles that you would encounter as a student and develop, as a teacher, ways in which they could be solved.
Create a lesson plan using the Thinking Routines, and evaluate the effectiveness of the thinking routine in promoting understanding of the concept and/or learning.
How am I doing?
As I reflect on my own learning I see that I have improved on some of the H.O.M just by changing my own thinking. I have began to make them an intentional part of my own thinking routines. Now I feel that I have to mostly still work on :
Striving for Accuracy
Taking Responsible Risks
Creating, Imagining, and Innovating
In my feedback my professor also noted that my Costa's level 3 questions had improved but that I was still phrasing some as statements more than questions. This is pushing me to understand how I can better present my thoughts. I am going to go over my "questions" and look for better ways to word things (HOM: Striving for Accuracy).