Summary of Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church & Karin Morrison's Making Thinking Visible

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The word think is used frequently in classrooms. However, teachers have never considered what they want their students to do mentally when they hear the word think.
#2 The thinking required in teachers’ lessons is often identified using Bloom's taxonomy, which focuses on three domains: affective, psychomotor, and cognitive. However, the idea that thinking is sequential or hierarchical is problematic. In reality, there is a constant back and forth between ways of thinking that interact to produce learning.
#3 The idea of levels of thinking is meaningless when considered in isolation. It makes more sense to consider the levels or quality within a single type of thinking. For instance, one can describe a situation at a high and detailed level or a superficial level.
#4 The idea of levels of thinking is problematic when it comes to parsing thinking. Thinking does not happen in a lockstep, sequential manner. It is much messier, complex, and interconnected than that.

Sujets

• Educational psychology

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822502628
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church & Karin Morrison's Making Thinking Visible
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The word think is used frequently in classrooms. However, teachers have never considered what they want their students to do mentally when they hear the word think.

#2

The thinking required in teachers’ lessons is often identified using Bloom's taxonomy, which focuses on three domains: affective, psychomotor, and cognitive. However, the idea that thinking is sequential or hierarchical is problematic. In reality, there is a constant back and forth between ways of thinking that interact to produce learning.

#3

The idea of levels of thinking is meaningless when considered in isolation. It makes more sense to consider the levels or quality within a single type of thinking. For instance, one can describe a situation at a high and detailed level or a superficial level.

#4

The idea of levels of thinking is problematic when it comes to parsing thinking. Thinking does not happen in a lockstep, sequential manner. It is much messier, complex, and interconnected than that.

#5

The Teaching for Understanding framework and Understanding by Design are two current curricular planning tools that help teachers focus on understanding. However, in most school settings, educators have focused more on the completion of work and assignments than on a true development of understanding.

#6

When classrooms are about activity or work, teachers tend to focus on what they want their students to do in order to complete the assignments. These physical steps and actions can be identified, but the thinking component is missing.

#7

To develop understanding, students must engage in authentic intellectual activity. This means solving problems, making decisions, and developing new understanding using the methods and tools of the discipline.

#8

When we are trying to understand something new, we must observe it closely and describe what’s there, build explanations and interpretations, reason with evidence, make connections, and consider different viewpoints and perspectives.

#9

The six thinking moves listed above are just a few of the many that can help develop students’ understanding. They can be used to plan units, and teachers should pause class before or after an assignment to discuss the types of thinking that were involved.

#10

Curiosity and questioning are important in propelling learning. When our curiosity is sparked and we have a desire to know and learn something, our engagement is heightened. We can identify many thinking moves that further flesh out the key eight in ways that are useful.

#11

Thinking is not just about understanding, but also about solving problems, making decisions, and forming judgments. The eight key thinking moves help us solve problems, make decisions, and form judgments.

#12

When schools take on the mission of cultivating students' thinking and enculturing the habits of mind and dispositions that can support lifelong learning, the issue of how students construe thinking and their general metacognitive awareness becomes important.

#13

The researchers developed a method for teachers to use in their classrooms that allows students to draw a concept map on thinking. The prompts for the map were purposely general in order to support students’ responses.

#14

The students’ responses on the concept maps were often 70 percent associative and 10 percent emotional. They did not have much knowledge of the strategies they could use to facilitate and direct their thinking. Without this knowledge, they were less effective, less independent, and less engaged as learners.

#15

The goal of making thinking visible is to enhance students’ understanding. To do this, students must be able to develop a greater awareness of their thinking processes, which can then be used to guide and manage their own cognitive actions.

#16

The more time we spend in education, the more vexed we become with the question of how to teach. The answer to this question becomes: by mastering the content and developing some delivery strategies.

#17

When we place the learner at the center of the educational enterprise, our focus as teachers changes dramatically. We no longer focus on delivering information, but on fostering students' engagement with ideas. We must learn to identify the key ideas and concepts we want our students to engage with and struggle with, and make them accessible and engaging.

#18

When we make thinking visible, we get not only a window into what students understand but also how they are understanding it. Uncovering students' thinking gives us evidence of students' insights as well as their misconceptions.

#19

Making students’ thinking visible serves a broader educational goal. When we demystify the thinking and learning process, we provide models for students of what it means to engage with ideas, think, and learn.

#20

The role that models of thinking and learning play in education helps us understand that an education is more than just the delivery of content. It is also about the development of the habits of mind and thinking dispositions that will serve students as learners both in their own classrooms and in the future.

#21

In Lisa Verkerk's fifth grade classroom at the International School of Amsterdam, she frequently names and notices students’ thinking as a way of providing specific feedback on learning rather than giving generic praise.

#22

Making thinking visible is not without challenges. We must be clear in our own minds what thinking is, and then we can make it visible by naming and noticing it as it occurs.

#23

The issue of good questions is a focus in education, and teachers should be asking questions that help students to construct understanding and illuminate their own thinking.

#24

Good essential questions are those that generate or help to promote class inquiry and discovery. They are extremely powerful in creating a classroom culture that feels intellectually engaging.

#25

When students ask authentic questions, we know they are focused on the learning and not just the completion of assignments. Their questions are a good measure of their intellectual engagement.

#26

When teachers focus on making thinking valued and visible in their classrooms, their questioning shifts from asking review or knowledge-based questions to asking more constructive questions. These questions help students connect ideas, make interpretations, and focus on big ideas and central concepts.

#27

Constructive questions are used to help students understand an idea or principle. They should point students toward uncovering fundamental ideas and principles that aid understanding. This may seem like a tall order for teachers to fulfill, but this is where the thinking routines in Part Two can help.

#28

The question What makes you say that. is a perfect example of a facilitative question. It is a simple yet powerful question that helps students understand each other's thinking.

#29

The questioning sequence has a huge advantage over the traditional question, respond, evaluate pattern that we find with review-type questions. It allows students to clarify their own thinking and ideas, which leads to new understanding.

#30

The questions we ask are important, but it is also important to listen to the answers. If we don’t listen to those thoughts, we will not be able to ask good questions.

#31

Listening is not just not talking, but taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. It allows us to build community in the classroom and develop interactions that pivot around the exploration of ideas.

#32

Documentation is the process of recording the class's investigation on the whiteboard, photographs of students working, audiotapes of the class discussion, written notes of students' ideas and contributions, and so on. To be useful to both teachers and students, documentation must extend beyond this.

#33

Documentation of students' thinking serves another important purpose in that it provides a stage from which both teachers and students may observe the learning process, make note of the strategies being used, and comment on the developing understanding.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Thinking routines are a special type of classroom routine that can help teachers make thinking visible and support students' development of understanding. They are simple procedures that help focus attention on specific thinking moves that can help build understanding.

#2

Thinking routines are tools for promoting thinking. They are open-ended, and not used to elicit specific responses, but they still have a place for ongoing, formative assessment. The Purposes section of each routine highlights the kinds of thinking the routine is designed to elicit.

#3

The thinking routines are tools that students can use to support their own thinking. They are public practices that can be useful in groups at school, but they are also private practices that can be used by individuals.

#4

The steps of the Visible Thinking and Cultures of Thinking routines are natural scaffolds that can lead students' thinking to higher and more sophisticated levels. The steps follow a progression in which each one builds on and extends the thinking of the previous one.

#5

Thinking routines are structures that become structures for whole-class or small-group discussions. They can become structures for supporting students in meaningful discussions on their own, if they feel like the group's job is to fill out the worksheet.

#6