126: Taxonomy of Thinking

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  1. Knowledge
    • recall, remember
    • Trigger words: tell, recite, list, remember, memorize, define
    • Products: worksheets, quizzes, tests, skills work, vocabulary work, facts in isolation
  2. Comprehension
    • restate concepts in own words
    • Trigger words: restate in own words, give examples, explain, summarize, translate, summarize, translate
    • Products: drawings, diagrams, responses to questions, revisions, translations
  3. Application
    • transfer knowledge from one context to the next
    • Trigger words: demonstrate, use guides, maps, charts, etc., build, cook
    • Products: recipe, model, artwork, demonstration, craft
  4. Analysis
    • understand how parts relate to a whole
    • trouble shoot
    • understand structure and motive
    • Trigger words: investigate, classify, categorize, compare, contrast, solve
    • Products: survey, questionnaire, plan, solution to problem report, prospects
  5. Evaluation
    • judge value of something using criteria
    • support judgement
    • Trigger words: judge, evaluate, give opinion, give viewpoint, prioritize, recommend, critique
    • Products: decision, rating/grades, editorial, debate, critique, defense, verdict, judgement
  6. Synthesis
    • reform individual parts to make a new whole
    • Trigger words: compose, design, invent, create, hypothesize, construct, forecast, rearrange, imagine
    • Products: lesson plan, song, poem, story, advertisement, invention, other creative products

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The Bloom’s taxonomy levels can be used to create questions and activities at different levels of thinking.  The varied products can be used develop menus of products that match the same learning targets to differentiate instruction.  The top 3 levels can serve as extension activities for gifted students.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and write aligned long term and supporting learning targets
  • Determine which cognitive levels match a range of thinking that is appropriate to the learning targets
  • Use range of cognitive levels to design different options for scaffolding learning targets that can be used to differentiate instruction and offer student choice
  • Use trigger words to design good questions sequences that explore range of cognitive levels for each learning target
Early Implementation Steps
  • Initiate discussions that involve ALL students using questions sequences designed by using learning targets and thinking trigger words.  See this article for ideas on how to increase student participation.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students Thinking Levels and associated trigger words and products.  Use this as a tool for students to ask better questions and to create alternative product choices for project.
  • Incorporate thinking level activities and learning targets into scaffolding that uses differentiated curriculum charts to offer students choices on how to learn and demonstrate mastery of learning targets

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122: Characteristics of Quality Questions

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  1. Quality questions promote 1 or more carefully defined instructional purposes
    • When teachers are very deliberate and clear about the purposes of their questions, they can better assess student performance.
    • When students are aware of the purposes of questions, they can better monitor and modify their responses.
    • Two types of question styles
      1. Recitation:
        • teacher involved in each exchange
        • students tend to answer in short factual answers
        • usually low-level questions involving recall
        • Purposes:
          • review for test
          • check for completion of assignments
          • assess what students know about topics
          • cue students to important content
          • drill and practice
          • get students to talk
          • model good questioning
      2. Discussion:
        • typically more rare
        • teacher acts as facilitator who ensures full participation for all
        • students don’t wait for teacher’s permission to speak
        • students engage in dialogue with one another
        • students make own evaluations
        • teacher poses 1-2 provocative, open questions that start a discussion
        • Purposes:
          • student practice thinking aloud
          • encourage listening and sharing different perspectives
          • improve listening skills
          • students work out own understanding of a topic
  2. Quality questions focus on important content
    • Frameworks can help prioritize content:
      • Wiggins & Tighe Schema:
        • divide up content into 3 areas:
          • primary – big ideas, enduring understandings
          • secondary – important skills to know and do
          • tertiary – worth being familiar with
        • Good questions:
          • relate to a big idea worthy of discussion
          • aligned to standards
          • tie to needs and interests of students
      • Christenbury & Kelly Framework:
        • Model is a Venn diagram of 3 knowledge domains:
          • content knowledge
          • student prior knowledge
          • outside knowledge
        • Use questions that form a variety of 3 types:
          • Single domain questions deal with one domain
          • Overlap questions deal with 2 domains
          • Dense questions deal with 3 domains
  3. Quality questions facilitate thinking at a stipulated cognitive level
    • questions are tools for information seeking AND information processing
    • when formulating questions, need to communicate to students the types of thinking needed to generate appropriate responses
    • Bloom’s Taxonomy:
      • New 2-D Schema:
        • Cognitive Process Dimension
          • Remember
            • recognize, identify, recall
            • lower level, but essential – students need to be able to retrieve info from memory before they can use it
          •  Understand
            • interpret, exemplify, classify, summarize, infer, compare, explain
            • connect new knowledge to prior knowledge
            • beyond remembering – must involve information not included in initial instruction of content
          •  Apply
            • execute – apply procedure to familiar task
            • implement – apply procedure to unfamiliar task
          •  Analyze
            • differentiate, analyze, attribute
            • examples:
              • separate fact from fiction
              • back conclusions with evidence
              • separate relevant and extraneous info
              • identify unstated assumptions
              • identify primary and secondary themes
          •  Evaluate
            • check – looking for internal consistency
            • critique – comparing things to external criteria
          •  Create
            • generate, plan, produce
            • draw upon many elements and integrate them into a novel structure relative to one’s prior knowledg
        • Question Planning Tool related to 6 Cognitive Level – Q-Card
        • Knowledge Dimension
          • Factual knowledge – knowledge of discrete packets of info
          • Conceptual knowledge – knowledge of more complex bodies of info
          • Procedural knowledge – knowledge of skills
          • Metacognitive knowledge – knowledge of one’s own cognition and about cognition in general
      • Marzano’s Taxonomy
        • Recitation questions
          • retrieve previously learned info
        • Construction questions
          • construct new knowledge not previously learned
      • Gallagher & Aschner’s Taxonomy
        • Recall
          • Remember level in Bloom’s
        • Convergent
          • lead to one correct response
        • Divergent
          • allow for several correct responses
      • Reading Teacher’s Taxonomy
        • Reading the lines
          • answer is right there in the text
        • Reading in between the lines
          • think about what text is saying
        • Reading beyond the lines
          • bring own perspectives to the text
      • Walsh & Satte’s Taxonomy
        • Recall
          • Remember level of Bloom’s
          • recall what was learned
        • Use
          • Understand, Apply, Analyze levels of Bloom’s
          • use what was learned
        • Create
          • Create and Evaluate levels of Bloom’s
          • use imagination to go beyond what was learned
    • Choosing a taxonomy
      • select one that is age appropriate, aligns to content, etc
      • recommend school wide use of the same framework
    • Caveats
      • Actual cognitive level of response is dependent on context and student’s prior knowledge
      • On average – 50% of student responses do not match the cognitive level of question
        • teach students the cognitive levels to help them perform at the right level
        • follow-up incorrect responses with probing questions
      • Most textbook questions are at lowest level because textbook organizes info in such a way (compared to primary sources) that answers to questions can be found in book (recall)
      • False assumption = lower level students can’t answer high cognitive level questions
        • all levels of students can answer high cognitive level questions with the right scaffolding
  4. Good questions communicate clearly what is being asked. 
    • Be clear and concise
    • Use student friendly language
    • Sound right when spoken aloud
  5. Good questions are seldom asked by chance
    • Crafting good questions can be time consuming
    • It only takes a handful of good  pivotal questions to drive a lesson

 

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Knowing the characteristics and frameworks that support quality question design can help teachers plan and implement questions that create an engaging culture of inquiry that supports students actively processing new and old knowledge at deeper levels.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Create a laminated quality question framework map.  Example: could be a matrix with
    • columns being Bloom’s Cognitive levels and
    • rows could be Bloom’s Knowledge dimensions or rows for 3 standards
    • grids squares are large enough to hole small post-its and contain notes and examples
  • Analyze standards in upcoming project and determine
    • enduring understandings, skils, good-to-knows
    • academic and character (long term & supporting) learning targets
  • On placement – circle the most useful types of questions
  • Use post-its to brainstorm high quality questions that fit with circled questions
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use completed quality question map to ask students questions that get them to actively process key information.
  • Use methods for calling on students that provide opportunities for ALL students to participate
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students the types of thinking in your questioning framework – teach them the question types and responses that go with each type of thinking
  • Model for students how to classify the question type and model how to think aloud in the correct cognitive level. Then give them time to process the question with that lens of thinking before calling on them
  • Continue modeling question classifying and processing (using think aloud) until students are able to this independently

 

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108: Teaching Specific Types of Knowledge

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Research on teaching vocabulary:
  • Vocabulary is tied to intelligence, one’s ability to learn new information and one’s level of income
  1. Students need multiple exposures of words in context in order to learn them
    • Need to see word in context at least 6 times prior to remembering and understanding it
    • High density texts are less effective than low density texts at teaching students new vocabulary
    • Wide reading is insufficient to teach students a lot of new vocabulary – not enough reputations of new words to give students the exposure they need to learn words in context
  2. Instruction in new words enhances ability to learn them in context
    • priming students prior to reading with vocabulary instructions makes them more likely to understand those words in context in the reading
    • priming requires minimal effort – just providing a definition sheet with examples
  3. One of the best ways to learn new words is to associate images with them
    • imagery techniques are much more effective than simply studying definitions of words
  4. Direct vocabulary instructions works.
  5. Direction instructions on words critical to learning new content products best effects on learning.
    • focus instructions on vocabulary words that are critical to learning new content
Classroom tips for teaching vocabulary:
  • Identify key phrases and terms needed to understanding new material and focus vocabulary instruction on these
  • Multi-step process for teaching vocabulary:
    1. Present brief explanation of new term or phrase
    2. Present nonlinguistic representation of new term or phrase
    3. Ask students to generate their own explanations of new term or phrase
    4. Ask students to create their own nonlinguistic representation of word or phrase
    5. Periodically ask students to review their accuracy of their explanations of new terms / phrases
Research on teaching details:
  • Details include specific types of knowledge such as facts, time sequences, cause / effect sequences
  1. Students should have systematic exposure of details
    • Need frequent exposure to details to learn them – at least 3 or 4 times before applying them in meaningful contexts
    • Timing between exposure to details should not exceed 2 days
    • Information needs to be revisited multiple times in order for it to stick
  2. Dramatic instruction works with details.
    • Visual instruction works better than pure verbal instruction
    • Dramatic instructions works better – students watch dramatization or are involved in dramatization of events
Classroom tips on teaching details:
  • Multiple exposures:
    • Include opportunities for at least 3 exposures spaced no longer than 2 days apart between exposures
  • Dramatic representation of key details:
    • Students act out key features of systems or events
Research on teaching organizing ideas:
  1. Students often have misconceptions about organizing ideas
    • Hard to undo misconceptions about organization ideas
    • Most effective strategy – have students provide a sound argument for their position relative to organizing an idea
  2. Students should be provided with opportunities to organize ideas
    • Students need to apply generalizations and principles to understand them – not sufficient to just be exposed to generalizations
Classroom tips for organizing ideas:
  • Make sure students can explain generalizations and provide numerous related examples of them
  • Exposure to novel situations can help students test and clear up misconceptions
Research on teaching skills:
  • tactics – general rules describing how to execute processes
  • algorithms – sequential steps that describe processes
  1. Discovery approach doesn’t work well with skills
    • the more variation there is in the steps to execute a skill – the more amenable it is to discovery learning
    • simple straightforward skills don’t work well with discovery learning
  2. When using discovery learning, organize examples into categories that represent different approaches to the skill
    • Organize examples by the type of problem solving skills needed to solve them
    • Have students test out strategies on one type of problem at a time.
  3. Skills are most useful when learned to the point of automaticity
    • Skills that are learned to point of automaticity require little conscious thought
    • Practice starts out en masse (high density) and then becomes lower density (distributed)
Classroom tips for teaching skills:
  • Use organization to facilitate discovery approach to skills
    • organize problems into related categories
    • have students discover approaches to problems one category at a time
    • have students compare approaches to different types of problems
  • Plan for distributed practice of skills
    • teach students how distributed practice can lead to automaticity in skills
    • provide distributed practice opportunities
Research on teaching processes:
  • Processes have a higher tolerance for variation in steps than skills
  1. Students should practice parts of process in the context of overall process
    • Focused practice of parts of a process within context of that process is more effective than providing overview description of parts of process
  2. Teacher should emphasize metacognitive control of processes
    • Metacognitive control of processes is being able to use and control parts of processes to complete tasks
    • Developing metacognitive control tips:
      • plenty of guided practice opportunities with descriptive feedback
      • encourage students to monitor their progress while using strategies
      • generalize use of strategies by having students use them in new contexts
Classroom tips for teaching processes
  • Provide overall model for key components of processes
    • Example – Reading Process:
      • Experience
      • Select text
      • Identify purpose and what’s known
      • Construct meaning
      • Use / reflect
  • Focus on specific subcomponents of process in the overall context of the process
    • Do not teach components of process in isolation
    • Help students articulate strategy they are using
    • Have students develop criteria for evaluating success of strategy
    • Distribute practice of new strategy over several assignments over time
    • Have students provide feedback and self reflection on use of strategy
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Dividing knowledge into different types and knowing the strategies best suited for these types can make scaffolding more focused and effective.  Knowing which types of knowledge require distributed learning opportunities can help teachers create project calendars with enough learning opportunities for students to develop new knowledge and skills.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • For an upcoming project, list learning targets and classify them by type: details, vocabulary, processes, skills
  • Design scaffolding that incorporates strategies that go with each knowledge type.  See above.
  • Design project calendar that includes distributed practice opportunities and exposure opportunities for types of knowledge that required distributed exposure (skills, detailed knowledge, processes)
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement scaffolding & project calendar developed above
  • Use formative assessments to check if students are getting enough learning opportunities to develop knowledge and skills
Advanced Implementation Steps
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107: Activating Prior Knowledge

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Research on using Cues/Questions to Activate Prior Knowledge:

  1. Cues / questions should focus on what’s important, not what’s interesting.
    • Building bridges between key information and prior knowledge will increase engagement
  2. Higher level questions products deeper learning than lower level questions.
    • Analysis questions are more impactful than recall questions.
    • Higher order questions ask students to restructure or apply new information.
  3. Wait time increases depth of student responses.
    • Giving students time prior to answering questions to process their responses before sharing them.
  4. Questions are effective to use BEFORE learning experience.
    • Asking questions before learning experience can help students approach a learning experience with a helpful mind set.
Classroom tips for using cues and questions to activity prior knowledge:
  • Use explicit cues
    • Have students recall related experiences from prior knowledge and connect them to upcoming learning.
  • Use questions that elicit inferences
    • Ask questions that ask students to predict functions, sensations, and related information associated with objects of study
  • Use analytic questions – types of questions include questions that ask for:
    • Analysis of errors and misconceptions
    • Limitations of argument
    • Evidence that supports argument
    • Alternative perspectives and related reasoning
    • Value judgements and related reasoning
Researching on using advance organizers to activate prior knowledge:
  1. Advance organizers should focus on what’s important, not what’s unusual.
  2. Higher level organizers lead to deeper learning than lower level organizers
  3. Advance organizers are most helpful with handling info that is typically unorganized
    • better for preparing students for projects than for reading textbooks that are already organizer
  4. Different types of organizers lead to different results
    • expository type had greatest positive effect – see below
Classroom tips for using advance organizers:
  • Expository Advance Organizers
    • provide brief organized overview of topics about to be discussed
  • Narrative Advance Organizers
    • present upcoming information in the format of a story
  • Skimming as a form of advance organizer
    • skimming key subtitles and figures prior to reading can help students process info
  • Graphic Advanced Organizers
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Activating prior knowledge can help build student confidence and help build more lasting connections between old and new knowledge.  Activating prior knowledge can prepare students’ minds to recognize new connections and features in upcoming content.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research and brainstorm related knowledge & skills that students may have that relates to upcoming materials.
  • Design prompts and advance organizers for eliciting students’ prior knowledge.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use knows and need-to-knows chart throughout the project as a means to elicit prior knowledge and link it to new material.
  • Use other tools (cues, questions and advance organizers) to help students connect prior knowledge to new content.
  • Have students reflect on the connections between new material and old knowledge.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use advance organizers that highlight most powerful connections between old and new knowledge – start to complete these prior to scaffolding lessons and refer to them during scaffolding lessons.
  • Teach students about how prior knowledge shapes the learning of new knowledge and have them deliberately use that knowledge to invent strategies that can hep them connect old and new knowledge.
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106: Setting & Testing Hypotheses

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Research on Generating & Testing Hypotheses:
  1. Hypothesis creating & testing can be approach inductively and deductively.
    • deductive thinking – using a general rule to make predictions
      • to facilitate this type of thinking, first front load general principles and then ask students to make predictions based on these
    • inductive thinking – drawing new conclusions from current evidence
      • to facilitate this type of thinking, first get students to generalize evidence and then use those generalizations to make predictions
      • this is tricker to pull off than leading deductive thinking because it requires selecting the right experiences and using the right prompts to guide students to effective and accurate generalizations
    • real thinking is often a combination of deductive and inductive thinking
  2. Students need to clearly explain hypotheses and conclusions
    • explain inductive line of reasoning (connecting observations to predictions and conclusions) in written form
Classroom Tips for Generating & Testing Hypotheses:
 
6 Types of Making / Testing Hypotheses:
  1. Systems analysis – guide students to think through how a system would change if one aspect of it changed
    • students explain parts and purpose of system
    • students describe how parts affect each other
    • students identify part of systems and describe how changing that part might affect the rest of the system
    • students test the hypothesis through experiments or simulations
  2. Problem solving – selecting solutions that meet specific constraints
    • students define the problem or goal
    • students describe the problem constraints and challenges
    • students identify solutions
    • students test solutions – test prototypes or use simulations
    • students explain whether hypothesis was correct and whether or not to test new solutions
  3. Historical investigation – constructing plausible scenarios of past events
    • students analyze and describe historical event to be investigated
    • students identify what is known about event and what is not known or up to controversy
    • students propose a historical scenario
    • students research information to test accuracy of historical scenario
  4. Invention – using knowledge to create new products and solutions
    • students identify a need to situation to improve
    • students identify standards related to need or improvement
    • student brainstorm possible solutions
    • student models solutions
    • student test models of solutions
    • students modify solutions to better meet standards
  5. Experimental inquiry – using experiments to test hypotheses can be used in science and other subjects
    • students make observations
    • student apply related theories to explain what was observed
    • students used related theories to develop hypotheses that explain observations
    • students engage in activity or experiment to test hypothesis
    • students explain results of activity or experiment – compare to hypothesis and decide whether to conduct more experiments
  6. Decision making – hypothesis testing can help with decisions that select things with the most or lest of somethings
    • students select a choice and identify its alternatives
    • students identify criteria that will be used to make decision
    • students use criteria to rate alternatives
    • students calculate a weighted sum of each score generated from ratings in previous step
    • students use scores to compare alternatives
    • students analyze selected alternative and decide whether or not to adjust criteria or weighting factors
Making sure students can explain hypotheses:
  • provide templates that guide students to provide acceptable evidence for hypotheses
  • use sentence stems
  • audio record student explanations of hypotheses
  • co-develop and implement rubrics that assess quality of hypotheses and related explanations
  • provide public presentation opportunities

 

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Generating and testing hypotheses is a powerful way of developing understanding that is not limited to science classes.  The six hypothesis types above demonstrate how hypotheses can be used in disciplines inside and outside of science.  Using various processes to make and test different types of hypothesis can teach students how to take intellectual risks and learn from them.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Investigate the types of problem solving involved in applying upcoming content
  • Decide which hypothesis model (see above) fits with the problem solving models in upcoming content
  • Research, gather, and design strategies and tools that can facilitate student thinking through a specific type of hypothesis making & testing
Early Implementation Steps
  • Guide students through making and testing specific types of hypotheses
  • Have students reflect on how making and testing hypotheses is affecting their products and understandings
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Have students reflect on how hypothesis testing relates to their own personal lives – especially as it related to goal setting and problem solving
  • Guide students through different types of hypothesis testing over various projects – have students compare/contrast their learning experiences while making and testing different types of hypotheses

 

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103: Nonlinguistic Representations

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Research on Nonlinguistic Representations:
  • Using both linguistic and nonlinguistic (mental pictures, physical sensations, etc) modes of representation helps with better recall of knowledge
  • A variety of activities produce nonlinguistic representations:
    • creating graphic representations
    • making physical models
    • generating mental pictures
    • drawing pictures
    • engaging in kinesthetic activity
  • Nonlinguistic reps should elaborate on knowledge
    • power of elaboration can be enhanced by asking for explanations and justification
 
Classroom Practices:

 

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One way to create high challenge / high support (challenge zone) classrooms is to scaffold high expectations (not lower expectations) using message abundancy, i.e. amplifying content by using multiple representations for the same content.   Using both linguistic and nonlinguistic representations of content is a way to amplify content so that students have multiple opportunities to learn it.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze how upcoming content is organized
  • Select the nonlinguistic representations that best connect to how content is organizer
  • Gather resources / write prompts that help students organize content in graphic organizers (or other nonlinguistic representations) that explicitly illustrate how content is organized
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use nonlinguistic organizers selected above as one of a variety of scaffolding methods for key content in projects
  • Have students discuss / write about the key connections that are illustrated inside nonlinguistic representations of content
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Include an appendix in the back of students notebooks that contains commonly used graphic organizers and simple instructions that students can use to create their own graphic organizers
  • Using the graphic organizer notebook resources, have students supplement notes by selecting the graphic organizers that best illustrate the connections among information.

 

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88: Summarizing & Note Taking

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Summary of Research on Summarization:
  • Summarizing involves deleting, substituting, and keeping information
  • The skills above require deep analysis of material
  • Being aware of explicit structure of information helps with summarization (another reason to scaffold academic literacy)
Classroom Strategies:
  • Rules-Based Strategies:
    • MODEL how to apply rules such as:
      • delete trivial info
      • delete redundant info
      • replace lists with grouping words that summarize lists
      • select or create topic sentences
    • Use Think Aloud strategy while modeling rules
  • Summary Frames:
    • Series of questions that highlight critical elements for specific types of info
    • 6 Summary Frames – click here to see related questions
      • Narrative
      • Topic-Restriction-Illustration
      • Definition
      • Argumentation
      • Problem/Solution
      • Conversation
  • Reciprocal teaching
    • Student arranged in teacher groups
    • Leader of group facilitates discussion in which students take a lesson or reading and
      • summarize the lesson/reading
      • question – ask questions about the lesson/reading
      • clarify – try to answer questions
      • predict – predict what they will learn or do next
Research and Theory on Note Taking
  • Verbatim note taking is the least effective method – recording everything makes it too hard to synthesize info
  • Notes should be viewed as living documents
  • Notes should be used as study guides for tests
  • The more notes, the better
Classroom Strategies for Note Taking
  • Provide models – notes taken by teacher
  • Present students with a variety of note-taking formats such as
    • Informal outline
      • subordinate ideas are more indented than big ideas
    • Webbing
      • sizes of circles represent relative importance of ideas
      • lines show relationships between ideas
    • Combinations
      • Combines webbing and informal outline (like a double entry journal)
        • left column = informal outline
        • right column = webbing
      • Also includes a horizontal strip at the bottom for summary statements
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Summarizing and note taking are powerful learning strategies.  Often these skills are un-scaffolded student activities and expectations.  Teaching students how to summarize and take notes can help them become more independent learners.

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Preparation Steps
  • Pre-assess students’ note-taking and summarizing skills – identify their strengths and gaps
  • Identify which strategies (see above) could enhance students’ summarizing and note taking skills
  • Gather / prepare graphic organizers and visuals that go with selected strategies
Early Implementation Steps
  • Model (use think aloud and graphic organizers) summarizing and/or note-taking strategies
  • Give students opportunities to practice strategies
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Have students reflect on the impact different note-taking strategies are having on their learning
  • Let students use their reflections to choose the most effective note-taking strategy that fits their learning style and preferences
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87: Identifying Similarities & Differences

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Summary of What Research Says:  Things that improve student’s ability to understand and use knowledge:

  • explicitly identifying similarities and differences
  • asking students to identify similarities & differences
  • representing similarities & differences in graphic or symbolic form (see below for ideas)
Classroom Practice in Classifying Similarities & Differences:
  • Comparing
  • Classifying
  • Metaphors
    • Teacher centered
      • Need to help students realize that 2 items in metaphor are connected by abstract relationship
      • Teacher provides 1st element of metaphor and helps students identify abstract relationships
    • Student centered
      • Should follow teacher centered scaffolding.  See above.
      • Students are given first element and asked to come up with 2nd element and abstract relationship.
    • Graphic organizers
  • Analogies
    • Helps students acquire new knowledge by comparing them to more familiar things
    • Takes form A is to B as C is to D
    • Most complex form of identifying similarities and differences
    • Teacher centered
      • Teachers provide a lot of supporting structures such as
        • providing examples and asking students to explain why they make sense
        • present analogy with one missing item
    • Student centered
      • Students provide more elements than in teacher centered tasks such as
        • provided with 1st pair and they provide 2nd pair
    • Graphic organizers

 

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Identifying similarities and differences can help students build bridges between new and familiar knowledge.  Research has shown that identifying similarities and differences helps students deepen their knowledge and transfer their knowledge to new contexts.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Identify which concepts could be good to pair with identifying similarities & differences strategies
  • Gather and refine related graphic organizers and related examples of identifying similarities & differences strategies
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate teacher centered activities at first to build specific skills related to identifying similarities and differences
  • Use timely descriptive feedback to help students reflect upon, explain, and refine the connections they are making with these strategies
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate more student centered versions of identifying similarities & differences strategies activities after other activities have modeled and given practice opportunities to students on prerequisite skills
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53: Coaching Lenses

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Coaching Lenses
Inquiry Lens:
  • Values questions, multiple sources of data
  • Problem solving
  • Admits to not knowing everything
  • Aware of assumptions and limitations
  • Concerned with the quality of the question
Change Management Lens:
  • How will change be made?
  • What conditions are needed to create change?
  • Is change possible?
  • Analysis of change conditions
  • Strengths and gaps of current climate
  • Identify and leverage change opportunities
  • What incentives, resources, and skills are needed to promote change?
Systems Thinking Lens:
  • Schools (and classrooms) are interconnected complex systems
  • Systems have logical outcomes
  • Conflict is natural
  • Complexity and diversity are healthy
  • What are the stuck points and energy sources in the system?
Learner Lens:
  • More experienced learners have more starting and sticking points
  • Considers prior knowledge and experiences of learners
  • Sets realistic important objectives that involve direct concrete applications
  • Provides individualized feedback
Systematic Oppression Lens:
  • Prejudice is a notion based on limited information
  • Racism is a product of beliefs and systems that are situated in history, economy, politics and society
  • Who has power (and not)?
  • How does power affect the truth?
  • How does power affect safety?
  • Who’s missing from the leadership?
Emotional Intelligence Lens:
  • Self awareness and self management
  • Social awareness and relationship management
  • Can ask for help and receive feedback
  • Adaptable and flexible
  • Can manage stress
  • Can identify beliefs
  • Welcomes change
  • Reacts well to setbacks
  • Can empathize
  • Can identify social networks and power relationships
  • Can create safe environments
  • Can appear to various learners
  • Good at conflict management
  • Can collaborate well
Recommended read:

 

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This list of lenses was initially intended for instructional coaches, but also applies well to PBL facilitators.  To successfully manage a PBL environment, PBL educators need to play many roles besides teacher.  They need to model and teach 21st century skills.  They need to be effective leaders and good project managers.  They need to learn how to groom student leaders.  The lenses make the many roles of PBL educators more explicit.  Knowing these lenses and the different approaches that go with each can help PBL educators apply the right skills and tools to the right problems.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Reflect to identify which lenses one applies often and why
  • Reflect to identify lenses that one applies well (and not) and the impacts of those strengths and gaps
  • If gaps might have negative consequences on teaching, research strategies to mitigate those gaps
  • Identify how one uses strengths in lenses to solve problems.  Brainstorm and research ways to extend those strengths
  • Identify a worthwhile problem that one can solve or learn more about by applying 1 (or more) of the lenses
  • Use different perspectives to develop hypotheses and potential solutions to focus problem
Early Implementation Steps
  • Trial solutions or gather data related to hypotheses in the classroom
  • Reflect on how solutions work (or not) or how gathered information supports (or does not support) conjectures based on looking at the problem from different lenses
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Recruit thought partners who are strong in lenses that are your gaps
  • Ask how thought partners see your focus problem and what insights they have – develop conjectures and possible solutions related to these
  • Teach lenses to students when the perspectives build into these lenses can help them think in ways that develop their understandings and their products

 

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46: Six Facets of Understanding Question Stems

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  1. Explanation:
  • What is the concept in ….?
  • What are examples of …. ?
  • What are the characteristics/parts of …. ? Why is this so?
  • How might we prove/confirm/justify …?
  • How is … connected to … ?
  • What are common misconception about …?
  1. Interpretation:
  • What is the meaning of …?
  • What does … reveal about … ?
  • How is … like …  (analogy/metaphor)
  • How does …. relate to me/us?
  • So what?
  1. Application: 
  • How and when can we use this (knowledge/process) … ?
  • How is … applied in the larger world?
  • How could we use … to overcome … (obstacle, constraint, challenge)?
  1. Perspective:  
  • What are different points of view about … ?
  • How might this look from …. ‘s perspective?
  • How is … similar to / different from … ?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of … ?
  • What are the limits of … ?
  • What is the evidence for … ?
  • Is the evidence reliable? Sufficient?
  1. Empathy:  
  • What would it be like to walk in …. ‘s shoes?
  • How might … feel about … ?
  • How might we reach an understanding about … ?
  • What was ….  trying to make us feel/see?
  1. Self Knowledge: 
  • How do I know …?
  • What are the limits of my knowledge about … ?
  • What are my blind sports about … ?
  • How can I best show … ?
  • How are my views about …. shared by … (experiences, assumptions, prejudices, values, style)?
  • What are my strengths and weaknesses in … ?
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The six facets of understanding can be used to scaffold and assess deeper levels of understanding targeted learning goals.  The question stems above can be used to design question prompts for scaffolding and assessments activities that use the six facets of understanding.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards and determine which facets of understanding work best with standards expectations
  • Use question prompts above to help design assessments and reflection prompts related to focus facets
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use facet questions to give students formative feedback on their products and understandings so that students can refine these
  • Use facet questions as diagnostic questions to check if activities are supporting students and to finetune activities
  • Use facet questions to guide reflections and discussions about understanding learning goals
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use 6 facets sentence stems as a tool to help students generate better knows and need-to-knows during project launch and throughout the project
  • Convert question stems to sentence stems so that they can support student reflections on what they have already learned

 

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