Communication

Session Eleven: Communicate Clearly 

Post by Joy 

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is. – Publilius Syrus

          As an educator, I give Communicating Clearly very high status as an instructional focus. In this new communication age, how we communicate is changing, and I believe we are risk of losing our ability to communicate and connect because of the gizmo-superfast, techy world we are now living in. Are we reducing our expression to 140 characters or less?  Communication helps us build relationships, work collaboratively, express our needs and desires, and (in the school setting) demonstrate our learning. In school, regardless of the medium, students are expected to communicate what they know and what they have learned. As we embrace “21^st Century Learning”, educators are providing, and experimenting with, more tools and options to communicate learning. Yes, this is great, but whatever the medium, we still need to be able to communicate with each other.

          I question whether our communication skills are improving in this age of communication. Technology gives us the ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime, but with it comes the risk of losing our ability to connect. Blythe (2010) suggested that this information age is changing us. She said: “The irony of this communication age is that we communicate less meaningfully”. Jaron Lanier, in his very provocative book you are not a gadget suggested that in this era of freedom on the World Wide Web, communication is being experienced as a superhuman phenomenon, separate from individuals. He said: “a new generation has come of age with a reduced expectation of what a person can be, and of who each person might become” (p. 4., 2010). YIKES! After reading Lanier’s book, which made me question why I am so enamored with technology (and at the same time develop a fear of what he coined the “hive mind”), I decided to double my efforts to help my students develop communication skills that will enable them to see themselves and envision who they might become!

BUT I DIGRESS…This blog is about our Think Tank project….

Here we are, learning to be adventurous!

 When we set out on this project, of developing children’s’ Habits of Mind through inquiry, I wouldn't have predicted our focus of teaching would be where it is right now….on writing!  Our focus this week, in the lab and in our writing lessons, has been on communicating clearly. We have employed the use of: modeling, setting criteria together, pulling out examples of meeting criteria, finding exemplars in our writing to enable to kids to express and communicate their understandings of their development of the Habits of Mind we focus on each week. We are expected our students to be able to notice, and articulate, their usage of these Habits of Mind, and without having given it much thought, our default method of collecting this data, has been through writing. Therefore, writing to learn and reflection writing has become our instructional focus this term, both in and out of the Think Tank lab.

 Here we have examples, that the students pulled out themselves, of meeting the criteria in three of the areas for we created for reflection-writing:

 

Interestingly (or should I say, obviously!!) “Communicate Clearly” is a Habit of Mind! When I brought my class to the Think Tank this week, we created criteria around what we believe Communicating Clearly means. I could not help but notice (and be very pleased and proud) that the students have a well-developed understanding of what it means to communicate clearly. We are used to working in partners and groups, and the students have personal “Partner Talk Goals” they are working towards, so it was not really a stretch to frame it within the concept of communication.

While they worked on their projects, I asked the kids to notice when their partner was demonstrating Communicating Clearly. Because we had criteria to work off of, each student was easily able to identify a moment or time in which their partner met that criteria. Instead of reflecting themselves, I asked the students to seek feedback from their partner about their abilities and demonstrations of Communicating Clearly. The students then used that feedback as evidence in their written reflections. They referred to our class-generated list of exemplars for each piece of criteria for reflection writing. 

I believe our students reflections show both development in their writing skills as well as a developing understanding of their Habit of Mind development. Here are a few examples:

 Where are we going from here? We will keep on moving forward with our reflection writing. I am not going to take my kids into the Think Tank lab for the next couple of weeks, because we will be engaged in our Compound Machines Development project. The kids will be noticing and reflecting on their Habits of Mind use as they work with a small group to create a Compound Machine, create a presentation to “sell” their machine and write a document that argues how their demonstration of their Habits of Mind make them suitable for membership in the “Intergalactic Youth Network” (a group of youth from around the galaxy working together to solve problems and create solutions for the 21^st Century) !! A lot of work…and what FUN we are going to have!!

Session Ten: OK. Why?

Posted by Lindsay

Part 2 of 2: OK. Why?

After spending some quality time building criteria for reflective writing, the students were ready to hit the Think Tank again. This session was guided by the statement/question: 'OK. Why' and focussed on the Habit of Mind: Supporting Ideas with Reasons Why. This lesson was the perfect tie-in to the previous lesson where the students had fittingly generated a portion of criteria called: 'Supports Ideas With Reasons Why'.

Our opening circle was guided by the question; why? Anyone who has raised a toddler, has a toddler or knows a toddler knows how they are experts at asking the question 'why'.  They can be very persistent in asking this question until they are satisfied with the answer. I challenged the students to be that 'insisting toddler' and ask the question 'why' to their partner as they worked on their inquiry project.
Once students began working with the bins, I noticed a lot of questioning going on. Hopefully, this will transfer to their reflective writing.

These students conquered the 'Impossible Spiral'

3-D Tic-Tac-Toe…trickier than it looks!

Working together on 'Stop-Motion Animation'

 After each class worked separately on the inquiry bins, we met back in the 'Think Tank' for our Reflection Session and writing. We kicked things off with a little 'mindful breathing'.

Yes, meditation with 50 nine and ten year olds can happen on a Friday afternoon!

Then, it was time to write! During the writing process, many students referenced the two criteria charts that were created the previous day. All students appeared engaged and successful in the writing process.

Some students benefited from scribing from an adult to get ideas on paper. Others still required guiding and prompting however, this seems to be decreasing. We were very impressed at the content of what the reflective writing. Our next step will be to have the students evaluate their own writing and provide the 'proof' in their writing. 

Session Nine: Setting Criteria

Posted by Lindsay

Part 1 of 2
Part 1: Building Criteria

Part 1: After mulling over the students' reflections over the past months, Joy and I were beginning to think that the were not 'reflecting' the level of deep thinking we felt we were observing.
We have committed to using reflective writing as the method of capturing student learning and thought now was the time to build some solid criteria.

The Task: Previous refection writing samples were used as a template for building our criteria. We highlighted one portion of each students' sample. When the students met as a group, they used partner talk to discuss why their portion was highlighted. When students reported out, they were able to articulate why they thought their sample was 'good'. Based on what the students said we came up with two headings:  'qualities of writing' and 'form and conventions'

The students' samples were used as the proof for good reflective writing.  Now that we have the criteria set, we are ready to hit the 'Tank' again and practice some reflective writing!

The Challenge of Reflection-Writing

Session Eight: What skills does it take to be part of a team? 

Reflection Post by Joy 

January 26, 2014

** In keeping with the spirit of capturing one's thinking in writing, I am going to use the "Four Point Evidence" framework we have been using with the kids to compose this post: 

WHAT? 

          We brought our two groups together this week for a "big" Think Tank session. The purpose was twofold:   1) Work together on the focus lesson: What skills does it take to be part of a team

                2) Facilitate the kids' ability to write and capture their thinking in writing

      

     Since we are expecting students to demonstrate how their thinking dispositions have developed over the year, we realized we needed to do some explicit teaching on how to "capture your thinking in writing". Our opening circle time, lab time discussions and reflection circle discussions have revealed a lot of growth in students' understanding and awareness of their thinking dispositions, however their written reflections have not demonstrated the deep learning and understandings the students have articulated to us orally. With this in mind, we decided to put greater emphasis on reflection-writing, while still continuing with the focus lessons on the Habits of Mind. 

         In our focus lesson, we guided the students through a talk sequence to create a class list of positive team skills and attitudes. We asked the students to notice what teams skills and attitudes they had in action during their group activity of mining chocolate chips out of a cookie "mine". I won't go into the details of the activity, but suffice to say it was very engaging and fun. There was that hum of learning (you know the one - the noisy learning hum!!?) going on. 

Here are a couple of pictures of teams skills and attitudes in action! 

(Here we are discussing...)

Here we are working with our teams.
       
After the students engaged in the group activity, we gathered them for our reflection circle to discuss what team skills and attitudes they had in action during the activity. We guided them through the discussion using the frame What, So What, What's the Connection and Now What? 

The following chart guided the discussion and then provided a framework for the kids to write :

SO WHAT?

          By setting the kids up for success by using the framework in our talk session as well as the writing session, there was a noticeable difference in the focus and attention of the whole group while they were writing. We had very few "I don't know what to write" interventions and students spent more time, and were more prolific, at the task of writing. We also knew that we had to spend some time teaching the students how to write reflectively, because it is a skill into itself, and must be taught. We realize we have only just begun, but we will continue to persevere in this, because we understand that the very act of putting our thoughts to writing helps solidify and create understandings. We hope that through the (somewhat painful...yes, we know) practice of capturing our thinking processes in writing, the students will come to see how their thinking dispositions have developed.

Here are a few of the students' reflections: 

Overall, there is a slight improvement in the level of writing (when looking at the group as a whole). We have a lot more work to do here...

 WHAT'S THE CONNECTION?     

          The students are expected to note some development, over time, in their thinking dispositions. The only way we know for them to do this, is to engage in what is known as "reflective practice". Donald Schon (1983) introduced the concept of reflective practice in his book The Reflective Practitioner.  What, So What, What's the Connection and Now What? is borrowed from Rolf's (2001) reflective model used to reflect "in action", by describing, scrutinizing and then making plans for future action (What, So What, Now What?). Adding the What's the connection to our framework provides the opportunity to connect to past learning or also make a connection to literature. For the reflective practitioner, it is a way of integrating practice with theory. If it works for us, as teacher-learners, why can't the kids use the same cycle of experience and reflection?  

NOW WHAT?  

          Our next session will also be as a whole group. We are going to use student writing to create a criteria for future written reflections. We are also going to continue using our Four Point Evidence framework for capturing student thinking about thinking. I believe the ability to self-reflect is intrinsically connected to the awareness of one's thinking dispositions. By making reflection writing part of our daily and weekly routines, we will build and develop the students' capacity for self reflection.  If we expect them to notice any growth or change in their thinking. we will need to develop their fitness in self-reflection, as Johnson (2003) suggested: "building fitness in self-reflection is the foundation of all emotional capacities and competencies". Awareness of the development of their thinking dispositions will only come if we develop their ability to self-reflect. And so we begin....

 Stay tuned next week to hear how our criteria-building session went! 

Session Six: What Habits of Mind are Working For You

Posted by Lindsay

Both classes were in the 'Think Tank' this past Wednesday for the final 'tank' of the year!

Last week we explored the word 'Inquire' in depth. This week,  session six took the students back to looking at the Habits of Mind they were using during Think Tank. Our 'Opening Circle' discussion had two main goals: having the students engage in structured A/B partner talk and discussions about 'Habits of Mind'. It was during this discussion that it became clear to me just how 'transferable' these 'Habits of Mind' are. In both classrooms the 'Habits of Mind' are clearly posted and Joy and I are making a strong effort to reference them in our lessons. In some of my lessons, the students have begun to set a 'Habit of Mind' goal.  So I was very pleased during our opening discussion when a student mentioned that he had set the goal of 'strive to be accurate and precise' for our numeracy lesson on four digit subtraction.

After our discussion I had the students write in their reflection journal about which bin they would be exploring and which Habit of Mind they thought they would be using. At think point, I was struck by (and this is not new!) how writing thoughts, ideas and questions on paper can reveal such a range of abilities within one class. This makes me go back to the idea of students having multiple ways to record their learning.

Next, as in previous lessons, the students were asked to record a question that they were wondering about their bin. I was really concerned with the number of students who wrote down 'surface level' questions such as 'how long will this take? will it be hard? will it be fun?' In reality, I shouldn't be surprised as this seems to be a common theme; unless explicitly taught, how can I expect students to create deep thinking questions without having any prior knowledge or learning in this area before? So, back to the classroom we went to 'unpack' what deep thinking questions are. Thursday and Friday were spent with Adrianne Gears' 'Reading Power' to get a better understanding of what a 'deep thinking' question is.

Onto the fun stuff! Once students had the chance to get into their bins it was amazing, again, to see the level of engagement all the students had with their inquiry bin. I was pondering the fact that 'engagement' does not always mean 'on task'. I was struggling with this as I watched one student create a structure with the wooden kappa blocks which was not even close to the task he was assigned. Was the student engaged? Yes. Was the student exploring? Yes. Was the student working on their task? No. Was the student learning? I'm not sure. I went to Joy to debrief this and we discussed the fact that when do students have the chance to play? In Kindergarten for sure, but beyond that, when do students have the opportunity to engage in play and exploration?

For our reflection, we utilized the 'Four Point Evidence' structure for students to respond to 'what Habits of Mind do you have working for you?' Again, I was struck by the need for explicit instruction and the gradual release of responsibility that is necessary for many of our students. We have some work to do, but the great thing is, we our excited to bring some of the learning/instruction components of 'Think Tank' into the classroom and we know it is relevant and we know it is meaningful!

Stay tuned for more Think Tank posts next year!!

What does it mean "to inquire"?

Session Five: Posted by Joy

This week's session was, once again, fun and engaging for the kids. As we approached our Think Tank day, I heard comments such as: "I can't wait for Think Tank!"; "What bin are you going to do?", "Do you want to work with me?" We have the kids where we want them to be: keen to engage and play in the Think Tank while being open to exploring the idea that we have Habits of Mind, or thinking dispositions, we can access and develop. I am thrilled we have the opportunity to guide our students towards being more open-minded and adventurous with their thinking, as Knodt (2008) suggested: "just like other patterns of human behaviour, thinking dispositions can be encouraged and guided, can be employed by individuals more consciously, and can also become nearly automatic. They can be taught".

As we cycle through our own phases of inquiry, our focus has expanded. Personally, I am now seeing
the Think Tank as just one more place I can facilitate learning about the thinking dispositions. For example, last week's opening circle revealed to use there were many misconceptions about what inquiry actually meant. What came out of our realization is that we need more time than the opening circle allows to engage in thinking lessons.  We have therefore added another session during the week, called the "Thinking Lesson" (cool, huh?) We are looking at our Thinking Lesson as an extension of our Think Tank... And there it is....Think Tank has moved out of the Tank! We knew it would, but we weren't sure what that would look like!

 In the Thinking Lesson in my class, we explored the concept of inquiry once again. We viewed a few YouTube movies, discussed the inquiry we do in class and talked about inquiries that we have done in "the real world". We then compared those inquires to the stages around this inquiry star (see left).

On sticky notes, we captured key words.

We brainstormed occasions in which we conducted inquiry. 

Notes....

After building up our background knowledge, we went to the Think Tank for our fifth session. The goal was to notice how we cycled through the stages of inquiry (while having fun in the bins of course....discovering new things, uncovering new interests, making new connections). I was hoping the kids could see and understand they were indeed engaged in inquiry (at the very least that they started with being curious and wondering about something and that they engaged in some kind of investigation).


Result: They did! Our reflection circle discussion indicated the kids were starting to grasp the idea. We have an emerging understanding of the process of inquiry!
Here are a few writing samples:

 

We are also using this writing framework for our reflections: What? So What? What's the Connection? and Now What? More on that later, but has already raised the level of expression for the kids!













Here are a few pictures of the kids in action:

Stop Motion Animation

Suspend a bridge. They did it!!

 

Reflection writing time! 

Measuring their dream home.

The 2D instructions 

The 3D structure being built from the 2D instructions.

(Sorry - a bit blurry). Coaching tips left by one partnership for the next group.






As we delve further into the process, I am becoming more and more confident that teaching thinking skills through inquiry is the way to go! The kids are highly motivated and their natural curiosity is guiding them. Interestingly, they are also highly motivated to learn about the Habits of Mind themselves. A recent conversation we had about Nelson Mandela focused around the idea that he had to "understand others" (in addition to other Habits of Mind we identified) in order to work with the South African president De Klerk for a fair and peaceful South Africa. What I have realized is everything we do can be framed within these thinking dispositions! Upon looking at the draft BC curriculum, I cannot help but notice how the Habits of Mind fit quite nicely into the "Core Competencies". I believe these thinking dispositions are qualities that are essential in the 21st century, especially if we want to enable our kids' innovative and creative thinking.  Wagner (2012) listed curiosity, collaboration, integrative thinking and a bias toward action and experimentation as essential qualities of a successful innovator. He also maintained this list: "...represent(s) a set of skills and habits of mind that can be nurtured, taught, and mentored!" (p. 16).

I look forward to investigating these thinking dispositions with the students in explicit lessons on each one. In addition to nurturing, teaching and mentoring students' Habits of Mind, I also look forward to observing students discover and uncover new interests within the Think Tank.

Stay tuned for Lindsay's reflection on our next session: "What Habit of Mind have you got working for you?" (Special thanks to Petra for her support and looking forward to further her further involvement in our project!)