Welcome
Welcome to the Creek Street Thinking project. This is an interactive website for interested teachers to share their ideas and strategies for establishing thinking as a routine in their classrooms. This forum is one of 2 mechanisms through which teachers will be encouraged to communicate with each other. Through this blog, we will share examples of tasks and strategies that we are promoting in our classrooms, examples of student work, especially those with formative feedback, discussion about what particular strategies have worked and questions seeking advice in areas where others may help.The other mechanism will be school based with regular meetings between interested staff to develop tasks, lesson and unit plans and whole school approaches to establishing thinking routines across the curriculum.
Steve Tobias
Comments - July Seminar with Steve Tobias
Click on comments below to see teachers' responses to the seminar and their initial experiences in using the thinking routines.
22 comments:
Thanks for a productive day Steve. I was successful at logging in and will show staff.
Yes I agree, very worthwhile. I have implemented some thinking skills and was really excited about the results.
That's fantastic, Rachel. Are you able to give us some details about the tool that you used and how it was effective?
Our PD Day on 15 July (Constructing a Community of Thinkers) was a huge success. I have overheard many, many positive comments. Staff are very enthusiastic to immediately apply what they learnt. At morning tea time, I overheard several staff say that they had already used some of the tools that very morning.
There was a queue at the photocopier to copy the horse puzzle! It seems as though every secondary student at Creek Street will have the opportunity to stretch their thinking with that puzzle. It has given us all a desire to inspire our students and to stretch their thinking.
I am really enjoying teaching this way. The children are so engaged and thinking beyond the initial question.
The children used the think/puzzle/explore method to think about learning maths. Coming back together and sharing questions was the most surprising part. The children asked questions which were meaningful, deep and challenged my assumptions about what they already knew. Outstanding!
sounds a very interesting project. i'll be watching the journey with interest.
Hi everyone. I am back at JCU in the Far North. Thanks for Tuesday it was a great opportunity for the project team to try out our ideas. So far, so good. The comments have been very positive. Looking forward to hearing more about the implementation of the strategies and the students' reactions.
Thank you Steve for the inspiring PD day last week. It supported several strategies I have used with my enrichment groups. I trialled the claim/support/question routine in Yr6 with the truth game. Lots of focus on good questioning skills to provide support/evidence to my claims. Lots of fun. Next step will be to introduce this routine for a set curriculum task. Our teenage son came home sprouting excitement over the horse puzzle, to see if mum and dad could get it. More fun. I've also heard many positive comments about very practical PD. We look forward to your next visit Steve.
A fantastic day that I thoroughly enjoyed and could see the practical applications straight away. I extended my Think/Question/Puzzle lesson with the Year 8s and found I could very easily see the specific learning that had taken place.
As a result of the Questions section of this routine we now have very specific areas to investigate and because of the Puzzle question I know where their interests are.
Each lesson since I have been able to focus on a particular question and today every student was able to say very quickly that they had learnt something new about Abraham and they were able to say what is was that they had learnt.
Thank you Steve also for the 10%, 80%, 10% approach to lessons. I have used this approach every lesson since and again it has helped me to focus my teaching. I really enjoy taking the time for the reflection part of the lesson. Just as Rachel commented it is great to hear the students opinions from a critical thinking perspective on the actual thinking process that has taken place for them personally.
It is great to have a fresh approach and renewed enthusiasm for teaching and helping students learn.
I used the Think, Pair,Share model with my year 10 geography. I had a list of 40 capital cities and I wanted students to find out what country they belonged to. Instead of just looking up the countries in an Atlas students had to first list the countries that they knew. Students were then put into pairs to compare results and to see how many more countries they could obtain for the listed capital cities. It was hoped that when we compared answers as a class that we would obtain all countries. We missed out by about five. Our French exchange student was very helpful for the European countries. Students were fascinated that French students go to Spain, Germany etc for school excursions. The lesson I believe was a success and much more engaging than just looking up places in an Atlas.
MATHS – Decimals (Connect/Extend/Challenge – Think/Pair/Share)
My year 7 Maths class has been studying decimal numbers over the last few weeks. I tried the Connect/Extend/Challenge routine at the end of this unit. I typed up a chart with connect/extend/challenge across the top and think/pair/share down the left hand side. Students initially thought silently and wrote their ideas in the Think/Connect box. They then discussed ideas with their partner and jotted down any extra ideas in the Pair/Connect box. We then repeated the process with the Think/Extend box and then the Pair/Extend box.
The process really encouraged substantial discussion during the class share time, which was a stark contrast to the usual discussion involving only one or two students. This class tends to be quite passive and very reluctantly engages in discussion.
Connections:
Students generally made connections to examples of decimals rather than deep connections of concepts (which I was expecting, being forewarned by the case study in the Visible Thinking paper that it can take weeks of modelling this tool to the class before substantial and deep connections are made). For example, students connected decimals to:
• Sports results
• Measurement
• Fractions
• 1.25 litre coke bottle
• digital time
An interesting connection was made by one student who made a memory link by connecting decimals to the alphabet. The letter D is closer to A therefore, when dividing decimals, the decimal point jumps to the left and the letter M is closer to Z, therefore when multiplying, the decimal point jumps to the right.
Extend (How has your thinking been extended or pushed into new areas)
As expected, students mostly suggested skills which they had learnt, such as: dividing decimals, multiplying decimals with lots of zeroes, jumps (moving decimal point to the left or right). Whilst affirming their suggestions, I kept prompting for students to think more deeply about how their thinking had been extended by developing an understanding of big ideas and deeper concepts. I explained that when they develop an understanding of the big ideas, it is often accompanied by an ‘aha’ moment. It can feel like a light has suddenly switched on in our brain as we suddenly develop a deeper understanding. I suggested some examples from my own learning of mathematics.
This prompted one student to contribute that his understanding of decimal points was extended when he realised the number gets larger when jumping the decimal point to the right.
It was an exciting moment when thinking was made visible by one student who said she now understands the connection between decimals and place value. She now realises that decimal places are based on ten (tenths, hundredths, thousandths and so on).
Challenge (what is still a challenge or remains a puzzle for you?)
We ran out of time to complete this section but will follow up with this during the week.
The use of this thinking routine was an introductory session to the use of the tool. I can see exciting prospects ahead as students extend their thinking in a visible way.
What a wonderful reflection Lois. The Connect/Extend/Challenge routine is a simple way to find out what the students' know. What's more it is an effective means of sharing ideas, thoughts, conceptions and misconceptions in the classroom. I liked the way you managed the connection phase - many students fail to make the connections between real life maths and text book maths. The moving of the decimal point is a great example of this. That student not only understands what is happening when you move the point to the right/left - they can see the connection multiplication, division and powers of ten. Essentially this is the basis of the Base Ten system - very powerful learning. The challenge for the teacher is to take this 'aha' moment and see how wide you can spread this with other students.
tried mind mapping and it has worked wonderfully
I am hoping to use some of the Thinking Routines in Music to create a School Anthem. I hope to get the kids to create mind-maps about the important aspects of the school. They will then compare their results and chose the most salient aspects. They will use these to write a School Anthem. I'll let you know how it goes.
I used Circle of Thinking with Year 7 literacy support students (the girls). We used it in relation to the novel we are reading together ("Burned" a Bethany Hamilton fiction novel). The students were quite reluctant to act their viewpoint at first, but with encouragement they did a reasonable job. The best time was when each viewpoint was questioned. We ran out of time, unfortunately for an extended discussion. The students were enthusiastic and have requested more! I will definately do it again. It is a great thinking method for character studies in literature.
Students in grade 4 are enjoying the challenge of thinking!
Haven't had much chance to put it into practise as yet
have used 'think, pair, share'quite a few times - chn now know the drill and quickly turn to the person next to them etc etc - very effective strategy . . the Y chart has been a bit more challenging but we're getting there!!
Year 8 maths
students where becoming very dependent upon me in class and not able to complete homework because they felt that they wheren't able to do the work (IT WAS TO HARD, OR DON'T UNDERSTAND QUESTION). i intorduced 'the hand' thinking tool, where students are introduced to the steps involved in problem solving.. the steps are to re-read question, look at similar examples, review their workingout, ask a friend, and then ask a teacher..
less than two weeks later after the introductiojn of the hand, all students are more productive in class. which has given me more time to teach and organise the room.
i see hands going up to ask a question and then the students sitting next to them say "you haven't asked me yet".. they ar all taking 'the hand' quite seriously and are seeing the benefits themselves..
I have already used several of the thinking methods. Most of them were 'experiments' to start with as I wasn't sure if they would apply to LOTE.
But I was very pleased to see that they worked wonderfully with French through the different levels (Prep-6).
I have used think/pair/share, see/think/wonder,
think/puzzle/wonder and mind maps.
Still working on a thinking strategy for year 9 French class, how to make word drills more fun and effective. Will keep you posted.
Year 8 science
used the 'placemat' thinking tool in science after watching a video on diet and health, students where asked to write down ideas they could remember or found interesting/learnt. after which the common ideas are written in the middle of the sheet.. this made all students reflect on the video, not just a couple answer the questions i would normally ask.. good method to use..
Have used a couple of the strategies given with the grade 6 students and they seemed to enjoy the approach and produced useful information. Will continue to use them periodically and further develop strategies.
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