155: How Smart Readers Think

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Reading is more than “decoding”
  • Reading goes beyond phonics and beyond knowing what the component words mean
  • Reading involves comprehension and thinking
Reading is an active, constructive process
  • Actively processing unfamiliar texts can involve:
    • rereading to clarify meaning
    • making educated guesses
    • comparing to past experiences
    • learning meanings in context
    • posing questions
  • All of the processes above remind us that meanings don’t come at face value, they are constructed as we read
Good readers have a repertoire of thinking strategies to comprehend texts.
  • Thinking Strategies of Effective Readers include:
    • visualizing – making mental / sensory images of texts
    • connecting – to prior knowledge, other texts, etc
    • questioning – actively wondering, interrogating the text, etc
    • inferring – predicting, hypothesizing, interpreting, drawing conclusions
    • evaluating – making judgements, determining importance
    • analyzing – notice text structures, themes, points of views, etc
    • recalling – retellings, summarizing
    • self-monitoring – recognizing and acting on confusion
  • Good readers (like good drivers) may do the processes above automatically without being fully aware of them
Prior knowledge is a main determinant of comprehension
  • Cognitive researchers have found that humans store info in patterns called schemata
  • Appropriate schemata needs to be activated to make sense of texts
  • Students who lack the prior knowledge to make sense of texts may need pre-reading activities to scaffold their reading – without this scaffolding the texts may be too hard
Reading is a staged and recursive process
  • Before reading
    • set purpose for reading
    • activate prior knowledge
    • develop questions
    • make predictions
  • During reading
    • sample text
    • visualize
    • hypothesize
    • confirm and alter predictions
    • monitor comprehension
  • After reading
    • recall / retell
    • evaluate
    • discuss
    • reread
    • apply
    • read more
Various Kinds of Reading
  • many real world texts involve intricate combinations of reading categories – or draw from features of several genres
  • different professionals ask different questions of themselves while reading texts within their genre:
    • Questions a scientist asks while reading science literature:
      • What prior work informed this paper?
      • What methods did the author use?
      • Was the experimental data convincing?
      • Were the data analyzed and interpreted fairly?
      • What literature did the author cite?
      • What are the major conclusions of the study?
    • Questions a historian asks while reading:
      • What type of document is this?
      • Who was the author?
      • How was the author involved in the subject matter?
      • When was the document produced?
      • Who was the intended audience?
      • Can this info be corroborated?
      • Whose voices are committed from this account?
      • What might author’s biases have been?
    • Answering these questions may come from paying close attention to the text itself and also may relate to research that goes beyond the original texts being questioned
Teaching Implications
  • Instead of just assigning reading – designing subject-specific reading activities that help students make better sense of the texts
  • Pre-reading activities
    • build and activate related prior knowledge
    • making predictions about the text
    • tying new ideas in text with prior knowledge
  • During reading activities
    • teach strategies for questioning, interpreting and harvesting their responses as they read
  • After reading activities
    • clarify ideas with classmates
    • move ideas from one medium to another (reading to writing, drama, dance, etc)

 

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Knowing the processes that smart readers use to make sense of texts can help teachers design scaffolding activities that help their students make meaning of assigned readings.  This involves designing scaffolding activities for pre-reading, during reading and after reading.  Knowing the fundamental questions that experts ask of themselves while reading can help teachers design good content-specific questions that guide students’ analyses of texts.  Discussing these questions can help students learn content-specific reading and thinking strategies.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and tasks in upcoming projects
  • Decide what types of reading students will need to do effectively in order to learn targeted standards and create project projects
  • Research and analyze texts students will use to acquire knowledge
  • Research and design pre-reading, during reading and post-reading activities that are specific to assigned texts and to the content intended to be learned from those texts.  See Reading and Literacy articles for ideas.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement pre-reading, during reading and post reading scaffolding activities that will help students learn how to effectively read and also effectively learn content at the same time
  • Use formative assessments associated with these scaffolding activities to provide feedback to students and to see what students are learning by applying the strategies
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use formative assessment feedback to determine what reading strategies are most effective and incorporate these into routines
  • Use reading strategies to help students make sense of dense, high lexile texts that are a bit outside of their comfort zones

 

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154: The Core Purposes of Reading

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Reading Skills in the Common Core Standards:
  1. Key Ideas and Details
    • Recall and Infer
      • citing textual evidence to support analysis of texts
      • attending to precise details of explanations, descriptions
      • draw inferences from text
    • Summarize
      • identify central ideas and conclusions in texts
      • trace explanations of complex processes
      • summarize how ideas (especially central) develop over a text
    • Analyze
      • analyze series of events, sequences of steps, series of arguments, etc.
      • analyze cause and effect
      • attending to special cases, exceptions, defined in texts
      • sequencing and relating arguments in a text
  2. Craft and Structure
    • Acquire Academic Vocabulary
      • determine meanings of vocabulary (key & related words and phrases), symbols,
      • determining meanings of words in context, including their explicit and suggested meanings
      • analyze cumulative effects of word and phrase choices
    • Analyze Text Structure
      • analyze how structure is used to emphasize key points
      • analyze relationships among concepts
      • analyze how idea and claims are developed
    • Purpose and Point of View
      • compare/contrasts points of view of different authors
      • analyzing author’s purpose for selecting a specific research question
      • analyze how author uses rhetoric to promote a point of view
  3. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
    • Examine Text from Multiple Perspectives
      • integrate quantitative or technical analysis with qualitative analysis
      • translate technical texts into multiple representations such as equations, graphs, charts, etc
      • analyze different genres and mediums, noticing what details some mediums include and leave out
    • Evaluate Reasoning and Evidence
      • evaluate to what extent evidence supports author’s claims
      • identify false claims, false evidence, and specious lines of argument
    • Compare and Contrast Texts
      • compare various treatments of topics in primary and secondary sources
      • compare and contrast findings from different research groups
      • analyze seminal texts and how they address key themes and concepts
  4. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
    • Read Deeply and Widely
      • reading content specific texts that span grade appropriate lexile levels
 
Characteristics of More Successful Content-Area Reading Activities
  • WHAT IS READ
    • textbooks are not the sole sources of info
    • subject matter includes relevant issues that affect the world and students’ lives
    • read a variety of sources in order to make sense of what’s true and not
    • read about settled and unsettled (debatable) ideas
    • sample wide variety of genres – magazines, blogs, nonfiction books, other book genres, etc
    • bias towards current information
    • reading passages vary in length – short articles to book length
    • many texts take interdisciplinary approach
  • HOW IT IS READ
    • not just to pass a test; to gather information, make meaning and apply knowledge of ideas to important issues
    • teachers select some readings and students choose others
    • not every student reads the same texts; strategies like jigsawing used to share information
    • teachers scaffold thinking strategies that help students read more effectively
    • learning activities deepen engagement with texts
    • reading is seen as a social (not individual) activity
    • instead of focusing on “right answers”, leave room for debate
    • texts are connected by authentic themes; not isolated pieces of reading
    • reading is linked to real world tasks such as research, documentation, correspondence and advocacy
    • assessment to reading relied more on performance-based strategies, products and exhibitions

 

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Teaching varied reading processes using engaging texts can help students develop better understandings of and more engagement with their courses.  There is an equity gap in students’ reading levels that is correlated to their socioeconomic status.  Using effective content-area reading strategies can help teachers support students in ways that narrow achievement gaps.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze past reading text selections and reading-specific learning activities.  How do they stack up to the characteristics of effective content-area reading lessons?
  • Research texts and strategies to fill in the gaps in your library and scaffolding activities.  See above and Reading articles for ideas.
  • Analyze skills needed to learn targeted standards and develop products in upcoming projects.  Identify which of the reading skills listed above are critical to successfully learning targets standards and developing products.
  • Write learning targets that relate to the reading skills students need to succeed in a project.
  • Develop scaffolding activities that relate to reading learning targets
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities that relate to academic and reading learning targets
  • Use informal formative assessments to see if reading scaffolding is helping students to better learn
  • Have students reflect on how reading strategies are impacting their learning
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use series of student reflections and formative assessments to determine what reading strategies students are finding the most helpful.  Incorporate most effective strategies into routines.
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153: Teaching Math for a Growth Mindset

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Setting Up Classroom Norms:
  • Positive Norms for Math Classes:
    1. Everyone can learn math to the highest levels.
    2. Mistakes are valuable.
    3. Questions are really important.
    4. Math is about creativity and sense making.
    5. Math is about connections and communicating.
    6. Depth is much more important than speed.
    7. Math class is about learning, not performing.
  • In small groups, lets students specify norms for things they’d like to see / hear / experience (or not) while team problem solving.  Create posters of student preferences.
  • Skills to teach:
    • Listening to each other
    • Respecting each other
    • Building on each other’s ideas
  • Communicate expectations for what math looks like when teams are actively processing such as:
    • Your group will be successful today if you are …
      • Recognizing and describing patterns
      • Justifying thinking and using multiple representations
      • Making connections between different approaches and representations
      • Using words, arrows, numbers and color coding to communicate ideas clearly
      • Explaining ideas clearly to team members and the teacher
      • Asking questions to understand the thinking of other team members
      • Asking questions that push the group to go deeper
      • Organizing a presentation so that people outside the group can understand your group’s thinking
    • I will be looking for:
      • Learning and working in the middle of the table
      • Equal air time
      • Sticking together
      • Listening to each other
      • Asking each other lots of questions
      • Following your team roles
    • You can use the checklists above to record what you’re observing while students work in teams and to provide them feedback on their teamwork.
Believe in All of Your Students
  • Have high expectations for all students and provide support and positive messaging that helps students believe & demonstrate that they can achieve your high expectations
  • Avoid early tracking
  • Avoid unspoken messages that communicate that you don’t believe is someone’s potential – like only assigning them easy work
Value Struggle and Failure
  • Assign challenging math problems that provide opportunities for struggle and learning mistakes
  • Assign low floor, high ceiling tasks
  • Communicate frequently that struggle and failure are good (failing forward)
  • Break the myth of “effortless achievement”; all achievers worked hard and failed, even geniuses
Give Growth Praise and Help
  • Growth praise and help focuses on strategies and effort, not on ability
  • When students do math problem wrong – start by validating the strategy they used to first tackle the problem before redirecting them to new strategies
  • Instead of breaking down problems for students – ask them to draw the problem and see what ideas come out of that activity
  • When students can handle a little more struggle – respond to their requests for help by saying – Do you want my brain to grow or your brain to grow?
  • Show students that math is a growth subject
Teach Math as an Open, Growth, Learning Subject
  • Closed math problems – just ask for calculations, promote a fixed mindset
  • Open up math problems so they invite students to think and grow.
    • Example of opening up math problems:
      • Closed form:  What is 1/2 divided by 1/4?
      • Open form: Make a conjecture about the answer to 1/2 divided by 1/4 and make sense of the answer by using a visual representation of the solution.
      • Closed form: Simplify (1/3)(2x+15)+8
      • Open form: Find as many ways as possible to represent (1/3)(2x+15)+8 that are equivalent.
      • Closed form:  Find the 100th case.
      • Open form: How is the pattern growing? Use your understanding of the pattern to generalize to the 100th case.
  • Ask students to discuss:
    • ways of seeing mathematics
    • ways of representing ideas
    • different pathways through problems and solutions
    • why use different methods
    • how do different methods work
  • Instead of just finding answers allow students to:
    • explore ideas
    • make connections
    • value growth and learning
    • learn standard procedures when they are ready to see the need for them and can make sense of them
Encourage Students to be Mathematicians
  • What mathematicians do and think:
    • math is creative, beautiful and aesthetic
    • propose and test ideas
    • develop working definitions for ideas based on consensus and reasoning
    • share thinking and ideas
  • Do not be afraid to call students, young mathematicians – why not? if they can be young artists and young musicians, why not young mathematicians?
Teach Mathematics as a Subject of Patterns and Connections
  • Encourage students to see themselves as pattern seekers
  • Teach traditional procedures as one of many sense making approaches to perform operations
  • Encourage students to see math as a classification and study of all possible patterns
  • Give students an active role in pattern seeking
  • Help and let students see the connections between methods
Teach Creative and Visual Mathematics
  • In expectations ask students not for speed, but for creative solutions to problems
  • Engage students by asking them to represent problems visually
  • Connect visual ideas with numerical or algebraic methods / solutions
  • Color code:
    • represent the same ideas (ex: the variable x) using the same color
    • illustrate division by using different colors for partitions (division quilt)
Encourage Intuition and Freedom of Thought
  • Encourage intuition by asking students what they think would work before showing them a method
    • give them opportunities to try their methods on problems before teaching new methods
  • Start with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some “intellectually honest” form to a child (Bruner)
Value Depth over Speed
  • Ask questions that are open enough to bring depth into discussions
    • Closed form:  Supplementary angles add up to what number?
    • Open forms: Can two acute angles be supplementary angles?  Can two obtuse angles be supplementary angles?
    • Closed form asks for a single answer.
    • Open form provokes conjectures and discussions.
  • Ask students who finish early to extend problems in any way they wish
  • Aim for depth, not speed – engage students by allowing them to go deeper into problems
Connect Mathematics to the World Using Mathematical Modeling
  • Textbooks oven cast math in pseudo contexts (fake real world problems)
  • Use real world variables part of the time to expose students to real uses of math
  • View math as a posing questions and form math models around those questions
  • Modeling – simplification of any real world problem into a pure math form that can help solve a problem
  • Students often use modeling all the time, but are unaware of it
  • Use visual representations to represent problems (one type of modeling)
  • Use real data from newspapers, magazines, online databases, etc.
  • Make students think about how contexts constrain possible solutions
Encourage Students to Pose Questions, Reason, Justify and Be Skeptical
  • Offer students opportunities to pose questions to situations
    • Example:  Give students priced for finished bracelets and for bracelet supplies.  Then ask them discuss the situation and pose questions.
  • Give students opportunities to try out their own conjectures and use reasoning and data to prove or disprove them.
Teach with Cool Technology and Manipulatives
  • Manipulatives: Cuisenaire rods, multilink cubes, pattern blocks
  • Apps: Geometry Pad (iPad), GeoGebra, Tap Tap Blocks, and many more.  See Rich Mathematical Tasks for ideas.

 

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Teaching mathematics in ways that promote growth mindsets enables students to perceive math as a living, engaging, relevant, and accessible subject.   Giving them access to mathematical processes other than computation, gives students a better chance to experience mathematics more fully and to relate mathematics to processes they already do – such as make conjectures, ask questions, and notice and use patterns. Creating the math culture that promotes growth mindset involves teaching students how to collaboratively problem solve, modeling and teaching more math phases (question formulation, modeling, computation, evaluating models, etc.), designing and facilitating math problems with low floors, high ceilings and authentic contexts, and integrating real world data and technology into problem solving.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Design and implement learning activities that promote growth mindset and collaboration norms.  Create visuals to market the ideas that emerge from these activities.
  • Research and design curriculum that includes Rich Mathematical Tasks with low floors, high ceilings, open questions, and engaging (if possible real) contexts.
  • Develop assessment tools that relate to math learning and collaboration processes.
  • Research technology tools and manipulatives that can be used to create and facilitate more rich mathematical tasks.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement the curriculum and tools planned above.
  • Use student feedback to adjust learning experiences as needed.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Identify helpful strategies that can be incorporated into routines to consistently promote a culture of growth mindset.
  • Collaborate with other math teachers and teachers in related disciplines on norms and strategies that can be used in multiple contexts to cultivate growth mindset.

 

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152: From Tracking to Growth Mind Set Grouping

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Opportunities to Learn (OTL) & Tracking:
  • Students given opportunities to learn high-level content tend to achieve at higher levels
  • Early tracking denies OTL to many students.
  • Early tracking goes against research about child development and the plasticity of the brain.
  • Ability grouping promotes fixed mindsets.
  • Early tracking tends to lower achievement scores.
    • Can make higher tracked students more brittle due to fixed mindsets and due to defending their gifted identifies
    • Can demoralize lower tracked students
Growth Mindset Grouping:
  • Grouping students heterogeneously and using strategies to leverage the strengths of heterogeneous groups.  See below.
Teaching Heterogeneous Groups Effectively:
  1. Provide Open-Ended Tasks
    • Assign problems with a low floor and high ceiling
    • Challenge and support individual students at the right levels
  2. Offer a Choice of Tasks
    • Offer students choice of different tasks that address different levels and fields of mathematics
      • Examples:
        • Choose between 2 tasks: 1) investigate shapes with area of 64 or (2) investigate shapes with volume of 216
  3. Individualized Pathways
    • Example: Using SMILE cards to individualize instruction for London students
      • Assign students 10 cards that they word on at their own pace before collecting 10 more
      • To see the SMILE cards, go here.
    • Offer individualized learning pathways and opportunities for group work and collaboration.
Four Tenets of Complex Instruction (or How to Do Math Effectively in Teams):
  • pedagogical approach designed to make group work equitable designed by Liz Cohen and Rachel Lotan
  1. Multidimensionality
    • Emphasize more than one type of math processing including:
      • asking good questions
      • rephrasing problems
      • explaining
      • using logic
      • justifying methods
      • using manipulatives
      • connecting ideas
      • helping others
    • Design group worthy tasks.  These tasks:
      • illustrate important math concepts
      • allow for multiple representations
        • encourage visuals
        • encourage color-coding to represent same ideas in different visuals – for example make all visuals that represent the variable, x, blue
      • draw effectively on collective resources of the group
      • have several possible solution paths
      • Examples –
        • Given several pile patterns what would be the pile number for pile 10
        • Challenge activity intentionally designed to have missing information
        • Use linear functions (t-tables, drawings, equations, visuals, etc.) to derive the equation for the lengths of shoe laces that go with given shoe sizes
        • Problems from the CPM Connections series
        • Problems from the Interactive Mathematics Program
    • Encourage students to tackle group worthy tasks using strategies such as:
      • reading problems aloud
      • ask themselves questions such as:
        • what is the problem asking us?
        • how could we rephrase the question?
        • what are the key parts of the problem?
  2. Roles
    • Assign meaningful roles to students.  Here are some examples:
      • Organizer – keeps team focused on the task at hand
      • Resourcer – only one that can leave the table to gather resources and to call over the teacher when the team is ready
      • Understander – Asks questions that get all team members to understand and record all ideas that are presented
      • Includer – Makes sure all team members are included in discussions
  3. Assigning competence
    • Raising the status of a student perceived to have low status in a group by praising their work, their thinking or their contributions to the team
    • This can be especially helpful for students who are introverted and soft spoken
  4. Shared student responsibility
    • Invest time in teaching students how to collaborate effectively
      • develop and scaffold group norms for respect and listening
        • example lesson – Ask students to make class lists of things They Like and Don’t Like  to see / experience / hear when they are solving problems in groups.  Use these lists to make class displays that encourage (discourage) good (bad) team behaviors
      • be explicit about good math values and the purposes they serve
        • examples of things to value:
          • communicating thinking behind solutions
          • creative representations of ideas
        • examples of things to discourage:
          • speeding through the solutions without explaining reasoning
      • calling on students at random within a team to explain their team’s ideas and other concepts
        • if student doesn’t know the answer, emphasize to the team that it’s the team’s responsibility to make sure everyone understands the concept related to the question
        • give team time to teach other
        • return and ask the same student the same question
      • Group tests – students would take test individually, one test selected at random to be the score for the entire team
      • Set up problem solving norms that REQUIRE students to always justify their reasoning and answers
      • Promote relationship equity
        • less about having equal scores and more about showing respect for others
      • What about high achievers? Will they be harmed by heterogenous grouping?
        • many high achievers are fast problem solvers who need to develop the skill of slowing down and explaining the reasoning for the steps in their solutions
        • discussing problems in groups can help these speedy problem solver solve problems at deeper levels through discourse

 

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Homogeneous ability grouping can lead to fixed mindsets about one’s abilities in math.  These fixed mindsets can harm students who are led to believe that they have high or low abilities in math.  Students grouped as “high ability” may develop a fragile sense of self that leads to investing more energy to protect the gifted image of themselves rather than investing that energy in growth  Students who are labeled as low ability may lose the sense of self-efficacy needed to persevere through challenging problems.
This article describes strategies for growth mindset grouping – i.e. grouping students heterogeneously and designing tasks and implementing strategies that encourage students to effectively collaborate while solving math problems together.  See above for descriptions for these strategies.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research or design rich mathematical tasks that are group worthy.  These tasks have low floors and high ceilings.  They are multidimensional, have multiple solution pathways, can be represented in multiple ways and encourage discussion and group work.
  • Develop and scaffold norms, values, and strategies that promote effective collaboration.
  • Decide on what group roles you would like students to practice throughout the year.
  • Decide on what strategies you will use to reward group accountability.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Teach students HOW to collaborate effectively and HOW to live out effective mathematical values and strategies.  See above for ideas.
  • Use assigning competence strategy to redirect and model for groups how to value the opinions of students who aren’t getting a lot of air time.
  • Use strategies that emphasized shared accountability – for example:
    • assigning random people to speak on behalf of the team to the entire class,
    • group tests (random person’s test is scored and that score is assigned to the whole team)
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Sequence collaboration strategies in phases in a order that is logical and emphasizes collaboration skills that tie well with content activities
  • Gather feedback from students on norms and strategies in order to fine-tune them

 

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151: Assessing Analytical & Critical Thinking Skills (Part 2 of 2)

 

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  1. Content, Form, and Functions Outline
    • Purpose:
      • Assess students’ ability to determine the informational content, form, and communicative function of a piece of writing
      • All of these skills are important because we are buried in messages of all kinds
    • What It Is: 
      • Students read a message and analyze the what (content), the how (form), and the why (function) of the message.
      • Students can analyze a piece of reading creating a what, how, and why outline
    • Suggestions for Use:
      • Good for writing and communication courses
      • Good for courses that require students to digest dense texts
    • Step-by-Step Procedure:
      1. Choose a sample text that represents a focus genre of a unit.
      2. Divide sample text into sub-sections.
      3. Find a model text that can be used to write a model Content, Form and Functions Outline.
      4. Model process of creating Content, Form and Functions Outline using model text and model outline.  Give clear examples that differentiate form and function.
      5. Provide students with a blank Content, Form and Functions Outline graphic organizer.
      6. Assign text for students to outline and provide sufficient time for students to complete the graphic organizer.
    • Analysis Tips:
      • .Analyze outlines through 3 lenses
        • How well did they paraphrase content?
        • How well did they identify and describe the forms of the text passages?
        • How well did they analyze the functions of the text passages?
      • Keep a running tally of problem spots that students have trouble analyzing
    • Extension Tips:
      • Use this outline to compare different types of writing or media and evaluate their effectiveness
      • Cut a completed outline into pieces for a given text and have students use the text to reorder the pieces
    • Pros:
      • Prompt students to analyze messages carefully
      • Stimulates thinking about patterns and common structures in texts.  Can help students see why and how different genres encode the same information.
      • Allows teachers to focus in on specific sticky points in the text.
    • Cons:
      • Time intensive technique for teachers and students
      • Many texts and messages can’t be easily categorized in neat ways.
      • Many texts and messages perform several functions for each component, making analysis more tricky.
    • Caveats:
      • Start small.  Introduce technique with a short, simple text passage.
      • Don’t feel constrained to model and practice technique over one day – ok and maybe more effective to spread over several days.
      • Recognize that students may come to different valid conclusions about the function of a message.
  2. Analytic Memos
    • Purpose:
      • Assesses ability to analyze assigned problems by using discipline-specific problem solving and communication methods.
      • Assesses ability to communicate concisely and clearly.
      • Provide students with feedback on analytical and writing skills.
    • What It Is: 
      • Students write a 1-2 page analysis of an issue / topic for a specific audience (employer, client, stakeholder)
    • Suggestions for Use:
      • Good for courses that teach specific problem solving / argumentation skills
      • Good as practice for larger writing assignments
      • Best suited for small classes because they take long to prepare and assess
    • Step-by-Step Procedure:
      1. Determine which analytical / critical thinking / problem solving methods you want to assess.
      2. Invent a well-focused issue or problem for the students to analyze.  Gather background information on the issue.
      3. Specify the role of the writer, the audience, the subject and purpose of the memo.
      4. Write your own Analytic Method on the issue.  Note any difficulties.  Assess whether it emphasizes the right types of problem solving and analytical methods.
      5. Decide whether students will work alone, in pairs or in small groups.
      6. Provide written expectations for assignment that includes: students’ role, their audience, specific subject, analytical approach to be taken, length limit (usually 1-2 pages) and deadline.
      7. Explain to students how this assessment will prepare them for subsequent tasks in the course and in their careers.
    • Analysis Tips:
      • Read memo quickly, only once before assessing it.
      • Use short checklist as an aid with 3-5 major points to look for in each memo and limit yourself to these points.
      • Make a simple grid for checklist for places to check off: well done, acceptable, needs work.
      • Limit comments to 2-3 specific comments.
      • Can tally number of well done, acceptable, etc. and identify what are you students’ strengths and areas in need of improvement.
    • Extension Tips:
      • Facilitate peer feedback and revision sessions.
      • Use Analytic Memo as first draft to a graded memo-writing assignment.
      • Divide class into policy analysts and policy makers; have makers respond in memo format to the analysts.
    • Pros:
      • Authentic tasks that sharpen and assess job-related skills
      • Provides rich data related to students’ skills
    • Cons:
      • Preparing memo is time consuming.
      • Providing feedback on memos is time consuming.
    • Caveats:
      • Choose problems that are real enough to warrant thoughtful analysis.
      • Choose problems that are familiar to students.
      • Find ways to give grading credit to these drafts without penalizing students because this is an early draft.

 

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Content, Form & Function Outlines can develop students’ awareness of the methods used to promote specific messages in texts.  Repeating this strategy may help students identify patterns that help them compare / contrast different texts and help them learn how to communicate messages in different writing genres.
The Analytic Memo can help students develop and gather feedback on their use of discipline specific problem solving and writing strategies.  It can serve as a first draft for a larger analytical writing assignment.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards related to upcoming products – analyze the verb (thinking levels) and noun (concepts, topics) in the standards
  • Analyze the reading, writing and thinking skills needed to successfully complete products aligned to the standards
  • If the reading is dense, consider breaking the key texts using the Content, Form and Function outline – this is especially true if the key texts are serving as sources of information and as models for written products
  • If the project requires high levels of analytical thinking, consider using the analytical memo as a pre-assessment of students’ writing and problem solving skills and as a first draft for a written product
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use a version of the procedures above (see WHAT?) to implement the assessment of your choice.
  • Analyze the assessment and provide timely individual and class-wide feedback on the assessments.
  • Describe how the assessment feedback will affect future teaching and learning.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Implement assessment strategy multiple times so students can use the feedback and practice to develop related skills over time
  • After students have experienced the assessment several times, try implementing one of the assessment extensions ideas (see WHAT? above).

 

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150: Assessment of Analytical & Critical Thinking Skills (1 of 2)

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  1. Categorizing Grid
    • Purpose:
      • Assess students’ sorting rules – makes explicit the implicit rules that students are using to sort objects
      • Give opportunities for students to revise their sorting rules
    • What It Is: 
      • Students sort concepts in a work bank into categories
    • Suggestions for Use:
      • Use in introductory classes that have lots of detailed info that is structured
    • Step-by-Step Procedure:
      1. Select 2-3 sorting categories.  Make a list of examples that go with each category.  Review list to make sure examples clearly go in one category and all are recognizable from students due to recent learning activities.
      2. Make a handout with sorting grid and word bank.
      3. Alternately can use objects to be sorted in slides or list them on the board.
    • Analysis Tips:
      • Check accuracy of grids
      • Note patterns of common errors
      • Identify which sorting categories and/or objects are giving students the most problems
    • Extension Tips:
      • Ask students to explain why they categorized items together.
      • Provide categories and have students come up with examples themselves
      • Assign grids with a few examples sorted but no category labels.
      • Use Defining Features Matrix (see below) to follow-up to assess student understanding of features that go with each category.
      • Use dotted lines or buffers between categories to accommodate items that straddle multiple categories.
    • Pros:
      • Quick assessment of categorization and recall
      • Can be used as a study tool in multiple subjects
    • Cons:
      • Unless items are challenges, assesses rote memory.
    • Caveats:
      • Doesn’t assess students’ memory organization schemes that are different from the organization scheme in the grid
  2. Defining Features Matrix
    • Purpose:
      • Assesses student ability to assess objects according to the presence or absence of criteria
      • Helps students separate similar ideas
    • What It Is: 
      • Students categorize concepts according the presence (+) or absence (-) of key features
    • Suggestions for Use:
      • Good for courses that teach similar concepts
    • Step-by-Step Procedure:
      1. Focus matrix on 2-3 similar concepts.
      2. Determine which important features can be used to evaluate / characterize concepts.
      3. Create a matrix with concepts across the top and features listed down the side.
      4. Check to see that each cell can be filled with a clear + or -.  Eliminate features that produce ties.
      5. Draw up finished matrix (with +/- cells blank).  Ask students to complete the +/-.
      6. Explain how to fill out matrix, time limit and how data will be used.
    • Analysis Tips:
      • Compare students’ matrices to key
      • Look for patterns in common errors.
    • Extension Tips:
      • Give students a model completed matrix and ask them to create one for several key different concepts.
      • Replace + / – with Always Present, Sometimes Present, Rarely Present, Never Present.
      • Ask students to explain what pattern of responses in matrix mean.
    • Pros:
      • Can help clear up differences between similar concepts.
      • Break down complex comparisons into manageable parts.
      • Students practice highly transferable approach to categorizing data.
    • Cons:
      • Time consuming prep to prepare matrix
      • Not all material can be easily categorized using +/-
      • Unless students understand the comparison emphases, becomes a simple recall assessment.
    • Caveats:
      • Keep features in matrix parallel in kind or level of importance.
      • Don’t analyze more than 2-3 concepts at one time.
  3. Pros and Cons Grid
    • Purpose:
      • Assess student analysis of issues of mutual concern
      • Forces students to go beyond first reactions to investigate two sides of an issue
    • What It Is: 
      • List pros and cons listed with an idea
    • Suggestions for Use:
      • Good for courses that deal with value questions
      • Assess costs and benefits of possible solutions to projects / problems
    • Step-by-Step Procedure:
      1. Focus on a key decision, dilemma, or issue that relate to key content ideas
      2. Write out a prompt that will elicit pros/cons for target issue.
      3. Communicate expectations for lists – format (phrases or sentences), time limits, numbers of items in lists
    • Analysis Tips:
      • Do a frequency count of students’ listed pros and cons to determine what students found most important
      • Compare students’ grid to yours – have they excluded key points? have they included key unexpected points?  How balanced are both sides of grid?
      • Facilitate discussions related to questions above.
    • Extension Tips:
      • Have students complete pro / con list from different viewpoints
      • Have students back up pro / con list with evidence.
      • Use this assignment as a springboard for a debate.
    • Pros:
      • Quick and easy way to see if students can imagine more on one side or other
      • Can indicate what ideas students find most compelling – these can be touchpoints for future lessons
    • Cons:
      • Oversimplifies issues that have more than 2 sides
      • Students who don’t see value in this task may provide flippant answers
      • Some students may reject 2 side framework
    • Caveats:
      • Assignment may create controversy.  Be prepared to explain education rationale for the assignment.
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The Categorizing Grid can be used to assess how students classify ideas.  The Defining Features matrix can be used to assess how students use features to separate similar concepts.  The Pro/Con Grid can help assess how students see multiple viewpoints for an issue.  All of these assessments can be used to help teach the analytical skills they assess.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and write aligned student friendly learning targets.
  • Determine if any of concepts in the learning targets are organized in ways that relate well to these assessment strategies
    • ideas that can be categorized by major key topics go well with the Categorized Grid
    • similar ideas can be compared using the Defining Features Matrix
    • multifaceted issues can be unpacked using the Pro/Con Grid
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement assessments for concepts that fit them.  See above.
  • Analyze assessments to understand patterns in what students got right, got wrong, included, and omitted.
  • Share results with students and describe how results will impact future teaching and learning.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use extension ideas for the assessments if they help students dig deeper in key concepts.
  • Incorporate most effective assessment strategies into class routines.

 

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149: Supporting Positive Behaviors in 9th Grade

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TRANSITION TO HIGH SCHOOL= CRITICAL POINT OF INTERVENTION
  • 9th grade course failure is a strong predictor of high school dropout
  • Why is 9th grade so critical?
    • DRAMATIC INCREASES IN COMPLEXITY in ..
      • number of classes and teachers to interact with
      • academic demands of coursework
      • size of school and peer groups
    • CHALLENGES:
      • high schools are not equipped to support freshman in the development of new academic behaviors that can handle new loads
      • students experience increased demands and striking reductions in support
    • EFFECTS:
      • Widespread grade failures – in Chicago, 53% of freshman fail at least 1 course
      • Absences increase between 8th to 9th grade – in Chicago, they tripled
    • INTERVENTIONS:
      • make sure students have high attendance to classes
      • intervene early when students start to fail courses
9TH GRADE: A PLACE WHERE STUDENTS “GET STUCK”
  • After a school move, students grades, attendance and attitudes towards school decline – this decline is marked in urban school environments
  • Decrease in grades is most noticeable in urban schools because of high rates of absenteeism and course failure
  • Academic failure undermines academic mindsets: sense of confidence, engagements and belonging
  • Academic failures can start a downward spiral leading to sustained poor performance
  • Students who fail courses run the risk of not promoting past then 9th grade in credits
9TH GRADER WITH STRONG ATTENDANCE AND GOOD GRADES ARE MORE LIKELY TO GRADUATE:
  • On track to graduate (credit wise) by the end of 9th grade was a strong predictor of high school graduation (4 times more likely to graduate than off track students)
  • Dip in academic performance is not limited to students who have low performance in middle school
  • On/off track to graduate after 9th grade was a stronger predictor of high school graduation than middle school achievement measures
ACADEMIC BEHAVIORS, MORE THAN TESTED ACHIEVEMENT, PREDICT COURSE FAILURE IN 9TH GRADE:
  • Reasons for failing courses (failure in academic behaviors):
    • students not attending classes
    • students are not doing homework
    • students are not studying
  • Above factors were measured through questionnaires and school records – these factors could explain dip in GPAs from 8th to 9th grade
A 9TH GRADE PROBLEM, NOT A HIGH SCHOOL READINESS PROBLEM
  • Common assumptions – students who fail are NOT READY to attend high school
  • Abrupt changes in student behavior make it hard to predict which students need more interventions – students who did fine in middle school are included among students failing 9th grade
  • Change in high school environment may change student academic behaviors;
    • stage environment mismatch – example – decline in adult control of behavior and decreases in academic support from 8th to 9th grade
    • measured decreased levels in teacher attention, student-teacher trust, teacher personal support
    • less monitoring of student behaviors leads to more skipped classes
    • less adult involvement in student choices -> responsibility transferred to students
  • Reasons for decline in support
    • high school teachers teach more students
    • high school teachers strategically withhold support to teach independence
  • Students reactions to decline in support
    • students who lack academic skills and display poor academic behaviors start getting low grades
    • students lack direction
    • students overwhelmed by new demands
    • withdrawal of support leads to lack of development of skills that could make students more independent
    • trying to fix student behaviors through punitive grade policies doesn’t seem to work
  • What really works to build independent learners
    • have clear and high expectations for success
    • teach and practice strategies that make students successful learners
    • provide high levels of support to help students meet high expectations
    • provide multiple opportunities for students to succeed
    • safe environments that lack fear of failure
THE AVOIDABLE FAILURE
  • Strategies that have worked
    • strategies that increase sense of belonging in a community
      • small 9th grade academies that foster strong relationships among students and teachers
    • problems that have high levels of expectations & relevance
      • standards-aligned, college-tracked PBL programs
    • lengthening time of classes where students need extra support (Math and ELA)
    • teaching learning strategies such as goal setting, study skills, etc
    • ensuring freshmen have high attendance rates

 

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Understanding the real factors behind poor 9th grade academic performance can help teachers setup classroom environments, policies, supports and activities that help freshman successfully transition from middle to high school.  Contrary to popular belief, the withdrawal of support intended to let freshman develop independence often has the opposite effect; it tends to decrease the development of skills freshman need to learn to become effective independent learners.  Schools that successfully transition 9th grades have high expectations and provide high levels of support to meet these expectations.  They create safe learning communities where students feel like they belong and feel that it is safe to fail and succeed.  They teach students the learning strategies they need to be successful.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Recruit a team of teachers who share the same students to collaborate with on developing and testing strategies and on setting common clear policies
  • Research strategies that can promote the 4 critical academic mindsets
  • Research strategies for teaching learning skills that can help students succeed
  • Decide how teacher team can use message abundancy (same message, many methods) to teach critical attitudes and skills
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities that have students and teachers collaborate on norms to create and maintain a positive safe classroom culture
  • Implement fair and supportive grading policies
  • Give students time to learn and practice learning skills
  • Use student reflection to assess whether or not interventions are working and to refine them 
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Share observations and data with grade level team to determine what interventions are working and which need to improve.  Use this sharing to determine what practices to incorporate into routines and which to refine or scrap.
  • Collaborate with grade level team to refine policies (especially grading policies)

 

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148: Social Skills

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EVIDENCE ON SOCIAL SKILLS:
  • Social skills improve academic performance in elementary, middle & high schools (most research focused on elementary school students)
  • Exact effects of social skills on academic performance is unclear
  • Social skills:
    • socially accepted learned behaviors that enable a learner to interact effectively with others and to avoid socially unacceptable responses (Gresham & Elliot)
    • cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, self control (Malecki & Elliot)
    • self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, relationships skills, responsible decision-making (CASEL)
  • Hard to isolate social skills from other non-cognitive factors that support academic achievement in the research
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL SKILLS & ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE:
  • Research shows that social skills (+ other non-cognitive factors) improve academic performance
  • One theory – effects of social skills are indirect, act through academic behaviors
    • developing social skills helps students have less behavior problems resulting in more learning engagement and better performance
    • social skills helps students actively participate in learning activities
    • social skills act as academic enablers of good academic behaviors
  • Another theory – teachers value good behavior and reward it with good grades
ARE SOCIAL SKILLS MALLEABLE?
  • Behavior skill-building approaches lead to more enduring positive changes that programs that do not emphasize skills
  • Skills such as stress management, empathy, problem-solving, and good decision making can be intentionally developed in school-based programs
ROLE OF CLASSROOMS IN DEVELOPING SOCIAL SKILLS
  • Classrooms play an important role in shaping students’ social skills
  • Interpersonal, instructional & environmental factors affect students’ social behavior including
    • norms for high expectations and high support to meet expectations
    • caring teacher-student relationships
    • proactive classroom management
    • cooperative learning
    • safe classroom environments that reinforce good behaviors
    • students feel valued
CLASSROOM STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING SOCIAL SKILLS
  • Teaching students to process, integrate, select and apply social-emotional skills in appropriate ways
  • Effective approaches involve
    • step-by-step approaches  that actively involve students in skills development
    • extended periods of time
    • clear and explicit goals
CAN CHANGING SOCIAL SKILLS NARROW ACHIEVEMENT GAPS
  • Research doesn’t indicate either way whether or not social skills will narrow achievement gaps in women and minority groups
  • Some troubling related research findings:
    • 57% of African American males are suspended – much more than any other race or gender (NCES)
    • Minority students may experience undue disciplinary action in school (Gregory et al.)
    • Race is strong predictor of the discipline gap
 
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ON SOCIAL SKILLS
  • Social skills overlap extensively with other noncognitive factors
  • Without better delineation of social skills with other noncognitive factors it is hard to isolate the effects of social skills on academic performance
  • Social skills may be less (more) valued / practiced in schools that primarily focus on individual (cooperative) learning tasks
  • More research is needed that considers how classroom context affect how social skills contribute to student learning

 

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 Implementing social skills training can help students be more successful in a PBL environment that relies heavily on group work.   Social skills act as social enablers that help students better leverage learning opportunities.  Effective social skills programs tend to be administered by teachers, involve step-by-step demonstrations of skills, extend over time, and have clear and explicit goals.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Identify what social skills will help students succeed in the conditionals of your classrooms.
  • Write character learning targets that describe desirable social skills in student friend language.
  • Research scaffolding strategies that relate to targeted social that help students with social skills.  See Agency and Collaboration articles for ideas.
  • Design a program that will teach students how to develop social skills related to character learning targets over an extended period of time
  • Build a positive safe culture that values the social skills that will be promoted and taught over the course of time
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement a program that will teach students how to develop social skills related to character learning targets over an extended period of time
  • Use student reflections and observations to see if program is working and to refine activities
  • Use student reflections to help students become more aware of whether or not social skills are improving their learning experiences
  • Be mindful of how discipline interventions may or may not be contributing to a discipline gap due to gender or race
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use student data to identify what social skills scaffolding strategies are the most effective and incorporate these into classroom systems and routines

 

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147: Learning Strategies

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LEARNING STRATEGIES
  • Involve several processes:
    • metacognition:
      • knowing how to monitor one’s misunderstanding
    • self-regulated learning:
      • intentional use of metacognition to learn
      • selecting strategies and environments most conducive to learning
        • selecting effective strategies can become automatic as students become more expert in specific disciplines
      • monitoring learning processes to adjust effort to meet demands of those processes
      • fighting urge to give up on learning processes
      • multiple phases of self regulation:
        1. judging one’s cognitive abilities (judgment of learning or JOL)
          • seeing connections between current tasks and prior knowledge
          • assessing difficulty of tasks
          • using knowledge of what one knows and needs-to-know to apply more or less effort as needed
            • common pitfall – stopping effort too soon before knowledge is obtained
        2. assessing factors related to academic tasks and how they impact one’s learning
          • setting goals and planning to meet these
          • deciding on standards that will determine success of efforts
        3. selecting cognitive strategies that improve performance
          • changing strategies (if needed) to learn better
        4. major reconfiguration of student’s approach to future tasks based on experience
          • happens rarely
      • multiple phases are iterative in nature
      • types of self regulation processes:
        • Cognitive strategies:
          • practicing, rehearsal
          • organization and elaboration
            • organizing and elaborating on information is more effective than just remembering information
          • deep processing: applying study tactics such as
            • finding relationships between old and new material,
            • rearranging knowledge into meaningful structures (schematic)
        • Metacognitive strategies:
          • self-evaluations
          • goal setting and monitoring
        • Resource-oriented strategies:
          • information seeking
          • record keeping
          • seeking social assistance
          • creating favorable learning environments
    • goal setting
      • setting and regulating monitoring progress towards goals
      • changing approaches to better reach goals
  • Possible effects of learning strategies:
    • increase productivity of academic behaviors -> better academic performance
    • better academic performance -> better sense of self efficacy
    • better self efficacy -> more academic perseverance
    • better academic performance -> enhanced academic mindsets
  • Possible causes of learning strategies:
    • students with academic mindsets are more likely to use learning strategies
  • Possible effects of LACK OF of learning strategies:
    • poor academic behaviors -> poor academic performance
    • students are less likely to complete homework or study for tests when they lack strategies to do these tasks effectively
    • poor grades -> poor academic mindsets -> lessen academic perseverance
  • Possible causes of POOR learning strategies:
    • poor academic mindsets -> less likely to use learning strategies
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING STRATEGIES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE:
  • Students who use self regulation strategies tend to perform better in learning activities / tasks.
  • Students with high self efficacy tend to use metacognition and self regulation strategies more.
  • Self regulation is a strong predictor of academic achievement.
  • Students who perceive learning as understanding (not memorizing) tend to use more strategies to learn.
ARE LEARNING STRATEGIES MALLEABLE?
  • Metacognitive strategies can be learned.
  • Effective metacognitive strategies that can be taught:
    • awareness of textual inconsistency
    • self questioning to monitor and develop comprehension and to make one aware of problem solving steps
  • Use of several metacognitive strategies improved reading comprehension
  • Metacognitive strategies assist with learning at higher thinking levels
  • Teaching learnings strategies in context of a course makes better than teaching them in isolation
  • Transfer of learning strategies to new subjects requires:
    • basis of how strategy works
    • when / where strategy works
    • what it requires of learner
    • the farther the transfer, the more conditional knowledge is needed
  • Math cues that increased metacognition:
    • what is the problem about?
    • what steps would you use to solve this problem
    • these cues helped students draw on prior knowledge, identify problem structures, and evaluate effectiveness of problem solving processes
  • Bootstrapping approach to developing learning strategies:
    • students learn strategies through trial and error or by observing others
    • bootstrapping occurs more in students with academic mindsets
  • Limitation of research = based on self reporting of use of strategies
ROLE OF CLASSROOMS & DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING STRATEGIES
  • Ways to improve learning
    • paying attention to their thinking as they read, write and problem solve
  • Learning strategies tend to be subject-specific -> content-area classrooms are key places to learn strategies
  • Classroom environments that foster academic mindsets make it more likely for students to apply learning strategies (not enough to simply teach strategies – need mindsets too)
CLASSROOM STRATEGIES THAT PROMOTE LEARNING STRATEGIES:
  • Timely ongoing feedback helps students monitor the effectiveness of their approaches to learning.
  • Self assessments of performance helps students practice metacognitive strategies of self-reflection and critique of learning.
  • Teach subject-specific metacognitive strategies.  See math cues above as examples.
  • Transfer of subject-specific strategies is more likely to occur when strategies are taught in context of a specific subject.
  • Reading specific metacognitive strategies that can be taught
    • recognizing when one doesn’t understand reading
    • using strategies to redirect and refocus comprehension such as
      • rereading,
      • back and forth search strategies,
      • self questioning – comparing text to prior knowledge
      • comparing main ideas of text with details of text
  • Strategies that can be taught:
    • students talk about their thinking as they plan their approach to an academic task
      • paired problem solving – one students explains how they will solve problem while another listens and asks clarifying questions
      • reciprocal teaching – dialog between teacher and students that involves text summaries, question generation, clarifications, and predictions of what till happen next
    • Thinker Tools Inquiry Curriculum
      • Physics curriculum that has students compare virtual experiments to experiments performed on actual objects
      • Encourages metacognition by having students reflect on their own processes of investigation
    • students can learn to identify challenges to academic behaviors and apply appropriate strategies to move forward
    • self regulation strategies that can be taught:
      • mental contrasting – comparing one’s vision for desired future with existing constraints / obstacles that can impede goals
      • implementation intentions – identifying steps to reach one’s goals  written in the form of if statements – if this happens, then I will do this …
      • Applying two strategies above can increase academic perseverance
    • literacy techniques:
      • previewing reading passages
      • restating main ideas in one’s own words
    • test taking strategies:
      • using note cards to quiz themselves
      • making up test questions
      • playing review games
    • goal setting strategies
      • setting aside regular time to set and monitor progress towards goals
CAN LEARNING STRATEGIES CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS?
  • Very few research studies were designed to investigate gender and race related effects
  • Lack of research is not a proof that this can work
RESEARCH SUMMARY
  • Learning strategies make academic behaviors more effective and more likely -> deeper learning and higher achievement
  • Students with academic mindsets are more likely to apply learning strategies.
  • Classrooms serve 2 key purposes – teach learning strategies and promote academic mindsets
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Teaching learning strategies can encourage students to pursue more effective academic behaviors long enough that they can help students learn.  Teaching subject-specific learning strategies helps students learn content.  Teaching students the underlying hows / whys / whens of specific learning strategies makes them more able to transfer those skills to other disciplines

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze course and determine subject-specific learning strategies that are key to the success of students in the course
  • Research learning strategies.  See related articles below.
  • Select scaffolding activities that support key learning strategies for course.
  • Create classroom culture that promotes Academic mindsets
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding of learning strategies in the contexts where they are most useful.
  • Ask students to reflect on how learning strategies are affecting their learning.
  • Use student reflections to fine tune scaffolding of learning strategies.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use observations and student feedback on learning strategies to learn which strategies to incorporate into classroom routines.
  • Collect student stories of using learning strategies to overcome challenges in order to inspire future students
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146: Academic Mindsets

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Academic Mindsets:
  • Beliefs and attitudes towards learning that support academic performance
  • Simple short term interventions on mindsets have been shown to have lasting effects on student performance – may be just as important as changing the learning environment
  • Mindsets that contribute to academic performance:
    1. I belong in this academic community. (Relationships)
      • Feeling a part of part of learning community:
        • builds confidence and independence
        • feel greater sense of identify and also flexibility to support the community
        • more engagement
      • Feeling rejected by community leads to
        • feelings of incompetence and insecurity
        • lack of engagement
    2. My ability and competence grow with effort. (Growth mindset)
      • Students with growth mindsets are more likely to:
        • Use effort to build competence
        • Display academic behaviors that lead to high achievement
        • Attributing low performance to lack of effort tends toward greater efforts in the future
      • Students with fixed mindsets are more likely to:
        • Use opinions of others to discern ability
        • Less likely to be self-motivated and persistent
        • Ascribing failure to ability or conditions outside their control tends to less effort in the future
    3. I can succeed at this. (Confidence)
      • Students tend to be attracted to (repelled by) activities that make them feel competent (incompetentI
      • Feelings of self efficacy are positively related to perseverance
      • Belief in self efficacy is a prerequisite for sustained effort through challenges
    4. This work has value for me. (Relevance)
      • Being interested in topic creates intrinsic motivation for learning
      • Seeing ties to future work will make students more likely to engage in academic behaviors that lead to achievement
      • Feeling lack of relevance leads to poor academic behaviors
  • Mindsets can increase improve performance by improving perseverance.
  • Relationship between mindset and academic performance:
    • Brief treatments focused on student mindsets had lasting effects on student performance
    • Examples of treatments in experiments:
      • Watching videos to college students discussing their struggles and how their effort related to GPA growth over time (did better than students who watched video that made no mention of struggles and effort)
      • Writing letters to younger students about the malleability of ability in response to sustained effort (did better than group that wrote letters about multiple intelligences)
      • Advisory group (weekly, 25 min) that taught the malleability of intelligence
      • Writing about connection between science topics and their own lives (did better than group that just wrote summaries)
    • Caveats –
      • experiments had small sample groups
  • Are Academic Mindsets Malleable?
    • Research suggests that mindsets are malleable.  See above.
    • Racial group stigmatization creates a big challenges to feelings of belonging in specific subjects. To read why/how this effect math, read this article.
  • Role of Classroom Context in Changing Academic Mindsets:
    • Classroom conditions have major influences on all 4 mindsets that contribute to academic performance
    • Conditions that improve these attitudes include:
      • high expectations for success
      • academic challenges
      • student choice and autonomy in student work
      • clarity and relevance of learning goals
      • available of supports for learning
      • grading structure & policies
      • nature of academic tasks
      • type, usefulness and frequency of feedback on student work
      • classroom norms that create positive safe cultures
      • learning feels fun and relevant
      • reasonable expectations for learning material
    • Effects of social contexts:
      • frame what students think is possible (and not)
      • shapes sense of students’ capabilities
      • more likely to adopt the values of their social groups – can interfere with academic performance
  • School transitions:
    • Transitioning to new schools creates new challenges that can negatively impact attitudes – students are trying to:
      • reorient themselves to new academic and social demands
      • renegotiate sense of self and self efficacy
      • rebuild sense of belonging in a new community
    • Effects of growth mindset are most noticeable in transition periods because of the challenges student face in these phases
    • Effective interventions aim to:
      • normalize academic difficulty
      • bolster student sense of belonging
      • reinforce growth mindset
  • Recursive effects:
    • Good (poor) attitudes can contribute to positive (negative) feedback loops that lead to sustained success (failure)
    • Feedback loops can lead to self-validation of positive (negative) beliefs
    • Successful interventions aim to break up negative feedback loops
  • Clear Classroom Strategies for Developing Academic Mindsets:
    • Limited scope of experiments make them difficult to scale of classroom routines
    • Two approaches:
      • Change school structures to promote experiences that promote academic mindsets
      • Train students to have academic mindsets
      • 2nd approach is easier
    • Caveats:
      • Different social groups may need different interventions
      • Poor school climates may tarnish individuals’ academic mindsets
    • School Conditions that Promote Academic Mindsets:
  • Can Changing Academic Mindsets Close Achievement Gaps?
    • Mindset interventions have been shown to narrow gender and minority achievement gaps.
    • Mindset interventions can be used to combat negative effects of stereotype threat.

 

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Helpful academic mindsets have been found to improve student perseverance and achievement.  Small scale research projects have shown that modest interventions aimed at improving academic mindsets have had long term positive impacts on students.  The small scale and out-of-standard classroom contexts of these studies make it tricky to transfer their implications to classroom practices.  A lot of research has been conducted to identify classroom conditions that promote academic mindsets.  Improving classroom conditions and explicitly scaffolding student academic mindsets can have positive, long lasting affects on their performance.  Students who can benefit most from these interventions are women, minorities, and students who have just transitioned between school.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Design a pre-assessment that measures presence (or absence) of 4 academic beliefs in students.
  • Analyze pre-assessment and research strategies that promote attitudes / beliefs that are student gaps.
  • Evaluate classroom practices against the list of factors that promote academic mindsets.
  • Use analysis of classroom practices to recognize what needs to be reinforced and what needs to be improved
  • Research strategies for improving classroom practices that are gaps
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding activities that promote mindset that are their gaps after pre-assessment analysis)
  • Gather student reflection and academic data and analyze it to determine whether or not academic beliefs and performance are improving
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Ask students for feedback on what can be done to promote academic mindsets
  • Use list of classroom practices that promote academic mindsets to create a Likert scale questionnaire that students can use to give feedback on the presence (or absence) of key classroom conditions
  • Use feedback gathered from questionnaires to improve classroom conditions / strategies

 

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