Lucy West Education Consultant

1. Lucy WestEducation Consultant email: lucy@lucywestpd.comhttp://lucywestpd.com cell: 917-494-1606 phone: 212-766-2120

2. EOSDN The Thinking Symposium Lucy West lucy@lucywestpd.com www.lucywestpd.com Power Point Available Next Week on Web Site

3. Characteristics of the 21st Century • Ever-accelerating change • Information continually multiplying and simultaneously becoming obsolete • Ideas are continually restructured, retested, rethought • One cannot survive with simply one way of thinking • One must continually adapt one’s thinking to the thinking of otheres • Respect the need for accuracy, precision, meticulousness • Job skills must continually be upgraded, perfected even transformed • Richard Paul

4. Are we ready for the 21st Century? • Education has never before had to prepare students for such dynamic flux, unpredictability, complexity and for such ferment, tumult and disarray. • Are we willing to fundamentally rethink our methods of teaching? The way we manage our organizations? • Are we willing to learn new concepts and ideas? • Are we willing to bring new rigor and discipline to our own thinking in order to help our teachers and students bring that same rigor to theirs? • Richard Paul

5. It’s what you can’t see Results Strategy Structure Content Process Culture & Behavior

6. What is thinking? • How would you describe/define thinking? • What evidence would you collect to convince others that thinking was taking place in a given lesson? • What is the relationship between thinking and learning? • To what degree is it necessary to know what students are thinking in order to facilitate their learning? • How do we develop “disciplined” thinking in ourselves and our students?

7. 3-Year-Olds Can! • Critical thinking is not a set of skills that can be deployed at any time, in any context. It is a type of thought that even 3-year-olds can engage in—and even trained scientists can fail in. • And it is very much dependent on domain knowledge and practice. • At it’s best it is a “disciplined” way of thinking that requires many kinds of questioning.

8. What do each of the 6 C’s look, feel, and sound like? Where do the 6 C’s fit into the present curriculum? What new skills, beliefs, or pedagogy is needed to incorporate the 6 C;s How committed are you to the 6 C’s?

9. What does thinking critically entail? • Seeing both sides of an issue • Being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas • Reasoning dispassionately • Demanding that claims be backed by evidence • Deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts • Solving problems

10. What questions might people who think critically habitually ask? • How do you know that? • What is your source? What is the source of that source? • What evidence do you have? What further evidence do we need? • How might I be wrong about this? • What other perspectives might be valid here? • What are the possible pitfalls? L • What haven’t we yet considered?

12. What does it mean to think reflectively? • To suspend judgment during further inquiry • Suspense is likely to be somewhat painful • An attitude of suspended conclusion • Mastering various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the belief, hypothesis, claim • Maintaining the state of doubt • To carry on systematic and protracted inquiry • John Dewey, 1909

13. Specific Domains Require Particular Kinds of Thinking • Think like a mathematician • Think like a scientist • Think like an historian • Think like an art critique • Each require a relatively deep knowledge of the domain

14. Why can we thinking critically in one situation and not another? • Thought processes are intertwined with what is being through about. • Experts see the underlying structure and patterns, novices see the superficial structure. • The deep structure of a problem is harder to recognize.

15. Solve this Problem • Treasure hunter is going to explore a cave on hill near a beach. • Many paths inside cave and might get lost.—No map. • Has only a flashlight and a bag. • What could he do to make sure he does not get lost when trying to get back out of the cave? • 75% of westerners come up with some Hansel and Gretel approach—our prior knowledge impacts our solution.

16. What kind of practice? • It takes a good deal of practice with a problem type to get know it well enough to immediately recognize its deep structure, irrespective of the surface structure. • Knowing to look for deep structure is part of critical thinking. • How often in class are we asking students to unpack the structure of a problem? To compare various situations that are related for structural cues?

17. Transforming Tendencies • At present, the work of teaching must not only transform natural tendencies into trained habits of thought, but must also fortify the mind against irrational tendencies current in the social environment (e.g. prejudice), and help displace erroneous habits already produced (e.g. through family influence, media, advertising). • Dewey

18. Reflective Thinking • Is always more or less troublesome because it involves overcoming the inertia that inclines one to accept suggestions at their face value; • It involves willingness to endure a condition of mental unrest and disturbance. • How We Think, John Dewey p.13

19. Thinking Deeply • Thinking deeply involves a willingness to persevere.

20. Talk Moves • What specific moves did the teacher make to ensure that students were listening to one another? • What evidence is there that these students are used to sharing their ideas and questioning each other’s thinking? • How close is this image to yours of effective mathematics instruction and learning? • Specifically what do you think is important in this exchange? • How might you foster the effective aspects of this exchange in the practice of the teachers at your school?

21. Video • Turkey Problem--24 lb. Turkey--15 minutes per pound to cook--How long to cook the turkey? • Grade 3—prior to any teaching of any multiplication algorithms • Sharing student work after students have solved the problem. • Teacher deliberately determines the order in which selected partners will share. • Is this an example of making student thinking visible and/or effective feedback? What’s your evidence?

22. Excerpt 1-Focus on Meaning • Amber: So um we kept doing it and then we got here. Um, 360. • D: And what is the 360? • Amber: How long it… • Vicky: 360 • D: 360, and what does that mean, Vicky? • Vicky: That means that it is … you have to… you have to let it cook for 360 minutes. • D: 360 minutes. Who thinks they can explain how Amber and Vicky figured this out? What did they do?

23. Excerpt 2-Connecting Explanation to Equation • Rafe: They counted by 15s all the way up to 360. • D: Can you tell from there (the chart) how many 15s? How many jumps of 15 they have to make? • Rafe: 24, because I can see the number sentence. • D: And what did the number sentence say? • Rafe: 15 x 24 = 360. • D: Equals 360.

24. Excerpt 3-Clues & Questions • Nellie: Yeah. I know what they did, but there’s one thing that they didn’t figure out: how many hours 360 is. • D: How many hours 360 is. Without telling Victoria and Amber how many hours um 360 minutes is, can somebody give them a clue about how they might want to figure that out? How could they figure that out? Emma F? • Emma F.: I don’t know how to explain it, but….how did they know when to stop? • D: Well, that’s a great question. • Vicky: Because… • Amber: We counted 24 jumps. We counted 15, I mean 24 jumps. • D: You counted 24 jumps. OK. Did you understand that, Emma? How they did that … they counted each jump and they counted 24 times. (nod from Emma) Let’s get back to the clue.

25. Excerpt 4-Student to Student • Mackenzie: You can count up to 60 minutes and then like circle that and keep on circling 60 minutes and then that would be how many hours there is. • Amber: How do we know it’s 60 minutes? What do you mean? • Mackenzie: ‘Cause 60 minutes is an hour. • Amber: I mean, what do we circle? Like… • Mackenzie: You would get 10, 20, 30… • Amber: We’re counting by 15s not ones. • Mackenzie: I know, but… • Vicky: How much 15s would we have to circle to make 60? • Griffin: You circle up to the 60 and then … wait. You circle up to the 60 and then you keep going like that.

26. Excerpt 5-Effort-Based Iterative Process • Vicky: I figured it out myself. I know how much you have to circle. • D: How much do you have to circle? • Vicky: You circle 4 because if you circle 2 … • Amber: She means how much circles—hours—is 4. • D: So you know what you have to do to figure it out now, right? You know what you have to do. Great.

27. Was there evidence of the following characteristics of an environment conducive to talk in Dana’s class? • Dialogue requires a climate where it is safe for learners (adults and students) to: • Come up with ideas (incomplete, way out) • Think out loud (partial, confusion) • Explain their reasoning (misconceptions) • Explore their understanding (dive deeper)

28. Instructional Rounds in EducationCity, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel • There are only three ways to improve student learning at scale: • Increase the level of knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process • Change the role of the student in the instructional process • Increase the level and complexity of the content that students are asked to learn

29. What’s so hard about increasing student discourse? • Teacher habits, beliefs, pressures • Student habits, beliefs, history • Worthiness of the task at hand

30. Instructional Rounds in EducationCity, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel • There are only three ways to improve student learning at scale: • Increase the level of knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process • Change the role of the student in the instructional process • Increase the level and complexity of the content that students are asked to learn

31. Video • 8th Grade Class--not yet engaging in discourse • 28 students present--100% African American • 15 Coaches and Teacher leaders observe (PLC) • 6% School-wide passing rate • Classroom Arrangement Altered • Partial Purpose, demonstrate how to get reluctant learners to engage in dialogue • Connected Mathematics—Bridge Problem—Linear Algebra—Reading Issues

32. Directions for Assignment • Read pages 5 and 6 (CMP Unit-Thinking with Mathematical Models, Invest. 2.1) • Problem 1.1 A and B (Paper Bridges) • Talk to a neighbor and explain what it is you need to do • Create teams of 3 people • Penny counter • Bridge aligner • Data recorder

33. Directions for Assignment • For each bridge thickness, predict the number of pennies it will take to collapse your bridge. • Find out how many pennies it took to collapse your bridge for each thickness • Make a table • Make a graph • Write statements about what you notice about the data • Put your team data on: • Class table • Class graph • You have 20 minutes to complete the work

34. Paper Bridges Data8th Grade Class, Baltimore, MD.

35. Classroom Video • Summary Discussion after group work Discourse so far: • Expectations to listen and be able to paraphrase or ask question • Can be called on with or without volunteering • Will do most of the talking • Expected to make statements about data • Some of the data seems to double-examples examined • One of the samples has the same data at levels 4 and 5

36. What are the teacher moves? • Call on a student whether or not student volunteers • Stay with student for several exchanges • Focus the student on the specific question at hand • Give student “heads-up” that you will check in again • Turn and Talk • Get another student to answer; paraphrase • Return to student • I believe in you; I’m here for you; you can do it.

37. Talk, Task and Feedback • Effective feedback requires discourse that makes students thinking visible • One important variable in generating student discourse is the richness of the task • If the task is not rich enough, there is little for students to think or talk about • If the teacher’s questions are focused on right answers, it is unlikely the discourse will ever get beyond short responses by individual students

38. Student to Student Discourse • To generate discourse that exposes and deepens student thinking, teachers and students need to listen to and reflect on the ideas contributed by each student • To generate discourse, listening habits need to be cultivated and modeled by the teacher • To generate robust classroom discourse student voices must be given almost as much weight as teacher voices

39. Our Class This Year—2010-2011 State Test Scores 75% Unsatisfactory 20% Partially Proficient 0% Proficient 0% Advanced

40. Observations Session 1 • Part-Time Coaches—retired teacher; teacher on staff • Coaches did not have shared values, beliefs, pedagogy, or shared practices • Culture—regular meetings without strong focus on instruction and learning; teacher preference norm • Kristen—Math Teacher, third year teaching • Michelle—Special Needs, about 12 years teaching, not comfortable with mathematics content • Students unskilled at talking and listening; engagement by a few students and expectations and evidence of student learning not clear

41. Session 2—Uh Oh • Trigonometry lesson • Consultant’s content expertise is stretched • Teacher’s lesson plan is questioned • Lessons have been procedurally focused • Emotions and stress levels are high • Consultant teaches the lesson • Students reveal several misconceptions and partial knowledge • Students are challenged to talk and listen to one another and to write down their ideas

42. Session Three • Lesson design is more conceptually based • Have been working on talk moves, clear/higher expectations • Kristen and Michelle teach the lesson (with a bit of coaching from Lucy) • Significant difference in student discourse and engagement • Coach worked with Kristen and Michelle 3-4 time between sessions with Lucy

43. Video Clip--Lesson Overview • Probability • Addition Rule: The students were having trouble with what it means to be mutually exclusive. • Example: • Mutually Exclusive: • P(roll sum of 7 or you get doubles)= • Not Mutually Exclusive: • P(roll a sum of 8 or you get doubles)=

44. The Video Lesson takes place in February 2011 Unit on Probability One Week Into the Unit 26 Students Enrolled Two Teachers—Math Teacher, Special Ed. About mid-lesson—had done some simple probabilities using area models, now into the investigation This exchange is an organic response to student statement—not in plan

45. Video • As you watch the video, listen for the things the teacher is saying and watch the things she is doing to ensure students are talking and listening to each other.

46. Analyzing the Talk Moves • Read the transcript and underline the “moves” the teacher makes to ensure that kids are talking and listening to one another.

47. Naming the Moves • Asks student to take a stand • Gives him space, but promises to come back • Restates expectations re: listening • Insists speakers speaks loudly enough • Revoices—infusing new language • Feigns confustion • Highlights a specific part for clarification • Revoices/clarifies • Gets students to rephrase/summarize

48. Balentine: Carlos, did you believe that this was mutually exclusive or that it is not mutually exclusive? • Carlos: I don’t know, I was busy doing work. • Balentine: So you were on another problem. Ok, can somebody help out Carlos and then I’m going to come back to you. • Guillermo: I didn’t say. • Balentine: You didn’t say. Do I have a volunteer to help us out before I call on someone else?

49. Balentine: Brooke. Remember we’re listening because I’m going to go back to Carlos and then I’m going to ask at least one more person to rephrase. • Brooke: Not mutually exclusive because…. • Guillermo: Can you repeat that? • Balentine Yes, because I’m going to need you to be way louder because I can barely hear you.

50. Guillermo: It’s not mutually exclusive because she can own black shoes and white shoes. • Balentine So it’s not mutually exclusive because she can own black shoes and white shoes. • Balentine Susana, can you rephrase why this is not mutually exclusive one more time because I’m not understanding the difference between mutually exclusive and not