visible thinking

My professional goal this year has been to make Visible Thinking (as a form of documentation and through the use of routines) an organic part of the classroom. This has meant introducing and using pre-selected routines throughout the year: I emphasized five in the first semester and have introduced two new routines (so far) in this second semester. The reason for this is so the kids learn some ways to organize and develop their thoughts with guidance, the intention being that the routines are used independently when students are ready in a way that supports deeper thinking.

The great thing is: it's working! Some students use the See Think Wonder routine as a graphic organizer for pre-writing; some used the Think Puzzle Explore routine on a walking field trip we took to see how solar energy is transformed for use in our school; some used the Colour Symbol Image to respond to a short movie we watched in class. They use them! I could think of more instances when the kids have used these routines independently, without prompting, and that's the beauty of it. So now that they're more comfortable with a few routines and I see their thinking really starting to change - from surface level to so much deeper - offering more choice is only natural.

This semester we've been focusing on Chalk Talk, which is like a silent conversation on paper. This routine makes for a great interactive bulletin board for students outside your classroom, too! The Micro Lab Protocol is another, which promotes valuing ideas and reflecting on the thoughts of others. Focusing on collaboration and communication have become really important in our classroom culture, so it's a natural fit. More to come on how we've used this routine!

jimmy fallon makes his thinking visible

Just finished a weekend workshop with Ron Ritchhart, working toward "Creating a Culture of Thinking" in the classroom.
Turns out, all the cool kids are into Visible Thinking:

Jimmy Fallon (sort of) hashtags the I Used to Think, Now I Think routine. 
(Important note: the word "But" as it's listed on the Project Zero site is actually not a useful word to include in the routine. Using the word in a sentence negates all that was said before it, which is definitely not the message we want to be sending our student thinkers!)

Tomorrow Ron and my grade 3 team will be observing some thinking in my class! My head is swimming with considerations, including the precision of language I use with my class, the modeling of thinking that's done, the opportunities for interaction and think time given... As someone who doesn't love public speaking, I'm surprisingly excited for that part of my Monday.

visible thinking: think puzzle explore

This week in Math class I introduced a new Visible Thinking routine, the Think Puzzle Explore. 
It was perfect and I felt SO energized afterward!

When we first starting talking, the kids, knowing that "Math" was on the schedule and hearing that "visible thinking" was a big part of the day's plan (like that's any different from any of the learning we show in class?), asked plainly, "How are we going to do Visible Thinking in Math?!" 
To which I could only reply, "Don't we do that everyday in Math? Isn't a big part of what we do in addressing problems and tasks to explain our thinking, put the processes our brains go through on the page for others to see and understand?"
A resounding: Ah. Yes, Mrs. Phillips.

Our big topic right now is multiplication, and we're really just starting out, with kids at very different levels. 
The routine looks like this:
Think: What do you think you know about the topic/idea?
Puzzle: What are you confused about? What are your puzzles, wonderings, or questions about [multiplication]?
Explore: How can you explore this further?

The kids got cozy around the room and spent a good 30 minutes (after the settling in that comes with the week-before-a-much-needed-holiday) just thinking on the Think and writing down their prior knowledge and understandings.

We gathered then, to discuss what the kids think they know. I typed out their responses as we went to make the thinking actually visible.

Next, the kids got cozy again to address their puzzles. 
Again, gathering to discuss with documentation. 
So now, on our "math board," we have a class set of thoughts and a class set of puzzles. 

In our room this was the perfect way to get kids interested in a personal math inquiry - particularly in a topic with which they are beginning to feel comfortable (thank you, grade 2 teachers!), but are still scared to delve totally in to (I need to know all the facts fluently up to 10?!).
We are exploring everything from the different strategies we can use to solve multiplication equations to the invention of multiplication to the various ways to practice personal facts fluency.
After our October break (off to Boracay with baby and in-laws!) we'll do some exploring and sharing of our new learning.

visible thinking: zoom in

Today we started a new Visible Thinking routine, Zoom In, that I'm hoping to keep up with in the class.
[Side note, I'm attending a weekend workshop with Ron Ritchhart in November at our school and I'm really looking forward to it!]

I've started with this image of a Story Rollercoaster, which is just another way of representing the plot structure. As you can see, only one small part is revealed:

We started discussing the piece a class, focusing on the first two parts below. As more parts are revealed, we'll move onto the other two parts.

This kids had some really interesting ideas! Everything from it looks like kids are in bathtubs to I see one person of each gender so maybe it's about being fair [one of our dispositions] to I think there are people from all over the world. Of course there were a lot of connections to personal experiences, too.

The best part was the way the kids started building on the ideas they were hearing, which they quickly told me is called piggybacking. Love that they know this term! Also, going from obvious observations to more thoughtful conclusions was eye-opening for a lot of them.

Next week I'll reveal more and we'll continue, but the level of engagement involved with this was so so great! It's the perfect way to start tuning into narrative writing.

girl problems

We be havin' 'em.
Plenty of 'em, too.
Aside from enlisting the help of our guidance counselor, Information Literacy teacher, specialist teachers, and our principal, we've been working really hard in class on learning to understand one another.
Communication.
Empathy.
Problem-solving.

As frustrating as it has all been, now that we're knee-deep in our social learning, it's been pretty interesting!

We started with this essential question, a part of our year-long Learning to Learn unit:

How can I contribute to a learning community?

The kids did some personal reflection, and we shared what it should look like, sound like, and feel like in our grade 3 classroom.
Of course, they gave all the traditional answers, all the ones that we, as teachers, want to hear.
These are now our "Guidelines to Happiness" and are posted in the room.
Naturally, that wasn't enough.

We followed up with this:

The kids got themselves together in small groups and brainstormed problems that they have. (The pictures of their work beside are to make their responses visible). 

This was great, because there was a range of them!

So we discussed.

Next, groups chose one problem to dramatize (but with no solution).

As a class, we discussed potential solutions, and kept a running list:

During those discussions, the kids kept talking about how they would feel if it happened to them, or similar experiences they've had, which lead to a mini-inquiry into the word empathy.

They paired up to figure out what it means, thought up some examples, and presented their findings informally with other pairs.

It was a tangent, but a good one, and we'll revisit it next week with some scenarios.

(Isn't that what inquiry learning is about?)

Then, more personal reflection...

Kids wrote in their notebooks to complete this sentence frame: 

I can help others solve their problems because I

Now this was awesome because they were really able to dig a bit deeper, having spent so much time focused on potential problems.

We put on calm.com to set the tone in the room.

Students shared if they were feeling brave.

Then, we made a list together of the skills and qualities that problem-solvers have as they came up during sharing. 

I printed them quickly and the kids signed up as experts in those areas:

Now, if someone is having a problem in our class, they now go to the expert sign-up list and see who might be able to help them.

They actually do this, yes. It's brilliant.

So far this has been a focus in our classroom for the last month.

With the support of my so-fantastic colleagues, girl problems are definitely less!

communication: a listening exercise + visible thinking (10x2)

We're just beginning our new Unit of Inquiry, Communication Systems.
As a grade level team, we've decided to put a big emphasis on the five semiotic systems - linguistic, auditory, visual, spatial, and gestural - along with a look at cultural expression.
Rather than explicitly teaching each one, I'm going to be introducing my students to each system by immersing them in it to help them better understand what these big ideas mean.

First up, the auditory system, all about music and sound effects.
A great streaming website for this activity is The Silk Road Project:

If you click Music & Artists, then Listen to Music, you can access a variety of interesting music from around the world.

As a class we listened to one song. 

I stopped the playback to ask a few questions:

1. How does the piece make you feel?
2. What images come to mind?
3. Where in the world might this music be from? What makes you say that?

Then we listened again with the questions in mind and discussed afterward.

For the visible thinking routine, I passed out our Inquiry books and had the kids write the title 10x2.

I put on a new song and again, we just listened.

Before we listened a second time, I explained the 10x2 routine: basically the kids try to write down ten words or phrases that come to mind while listening. (This is then repeated after another listen; the x2.)

We had such rich discussion afterward.

When I asked them what they thought the communication system might be all about, they were pretty much bang on: music, singing, cultural songs to communicate, expressing something without words, listening, tune.

The kids really enjoyed this listening exercise!

technology + visible thinking

Today we got to see some of the amazing work completed by our High School Robotics classes. There were so many cool things to see - from a hover craft to a fire-throwing robot! Our school has amazing educational opportunities and nurtures some true talent.

Before we headed down, I asked the class to work on a Thinking Routine to inquire more deeply into the topic of Robots. This time we used a digital Think Puzzle Explore routine. The first part, Think, is just that - students thought about what they already know about robots and typed it into a Google Drawing I had shared. In the Puzzle section, they wrote down any puzzles or questions they had about robots. After they got a few questions typed up, I emailed them the link to visit the school's Robolucion blog (full of videos, pictures, and write-ups about the various robotic inventions we would see). From there, they formulated more puzzles - questions they could ask the inventors directly! We then went to the exhibit, Explored, and the class typed up what they found interesting about the display. The whole process led to some great discussion.

Here's just a quick look at some work they shared back with me:

As an "exit slip," they had to write one of their reflections on the board to really make this routine visible in the classroom:

This is a really simple but powerfully thought-provoking routine that can work with any "topic" you choose. The kids were totally engaged... and I was not expecting that on this Friday morning after our long week! And at that, Happy Friday, all! Well-deserved, I'm sure.

PS - True fact: Manila is the selfie capital of the world. (I should be adding a selfie here, but...)

inquiring into...cockroaches?

Yep, it’s true. After finding a cockroach in our classroom yesterday, students were having all kinds of interesting conversations (and reactions!) about our gross little friend. After some observation, the poor guy was eventually killed. I was really tuned into their conversations - comments ranged from "It's so gross!" to "Why did we have to kill such an innocent creature?" to "Ew ew ew ew ew. Ew!" (Alright, so that last one might have been me...) 

Well, thanks to Wonderopolis and their timely daily wondering (sent straight to my inbox), it turns out that if you find one in your “house,” it really is best to get rid of it! (Not that that necessarily means killing it, but no one was exactly brave enough to pick it up and carry it out…)

So today, we inquired into cockroaches. Two words: totally engaged. We started a Harvard Visible Thinking routine called“Connect-Extend-Challenge” to track our thoughts. The students first shared and then wrote about or diagrammed their connections – prior knowledge, stories, experience, feelings, and reactions to cockroaches. [For the parent blog we keep, I took videos of some kids sharing their thoughts at each stage of the Connect-Extend-Challenge, which was the perfect way to really make thinking visible!]

Afterward, we watched a video

and then used some information from Wonderopolis to learn more about the pesky little cockroach. This article was great because it also loosely connected with our inquiry into energy, as it’s titled “Could a Cockroach Survive A Nuclear War?” We read it together and students wrote some ways their thinking had been extended by the new information: What have you learned? What is really interesting to you? How has your thinking changed or been extended?

We then discussed some of the crazy info: “They’ll eat anything! Even soap…”; “They can hold their breath underwater for thirty minutes!”; “They can live for up to six weeks without a meal!” [What?! I can hardly go an hour these days!] After, students wrote down questions that were still challenging their thinking or understanding about cockroaches: What new wonderings came up? How can you learn more about cockroaches? I was quite surprised to hear students who thought cockroaches were simply disgusting in the beginning, really marveling over just how amazing these resilient little creatures are!

So there you have it – our inquiry into, that’s right, cockroaches! The class did a pretty great job making connections, extending their thinking, and then challenging their understanding of this all-too-familiar Manila staple. [They still freak me out.]

visible thinking: see-think-wonder

I've just started Harvard's Making Thinking Visible course online as part of our Professional Development program here at ISM. I'm really excited about learning some new strategies. We've actually used several visible thinking strategies in the classroom already, as I've had the book checked out from our library all year (because I'm a book hog...shhh): 

Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners

Today I thought we'd do another See-Think-Wonder with the goal of having students recognize some connections between their prior and acquired knowledge with our inquiry into energy. I added a Connect box to the activity to help students get there, so it didn't seem so superficial. I made up 7 posters with images related to energy in the center

and sections around the image labelled "I see... I think... I wonder... I connect..." (not so easy to see as I just used a class iPad to get photos this morning).

We revisited the See-Think-Wonder format on the Activ Board by discussing synonyms and sentence starters for each term so I could (hopefully) help students get to some deeper thinking when they set off and give my ELL friends some vocabulary to use:

(let me tell you, some of this was like pulling teeth...)

and then we did an example together:

Clearly, we have some work to do ("I see colours" ???). 

Then the kids roamed around for fifteen-twenty minutes to add their thoughts/comments/questions to each poster.

As I circulated to hear the students talking about the images (and various other things, like cats, recess, Pixel Gun, dance parties, "songs that are awesome".... that's a regular morning, right? So much for accountable talk!) and read some of their comments, it was amazing to recognize the different levels within my room. It was something like this:

"I saw a rainbow once." (Okaaay, I guess it is a connection...)
"This looks like coal, which is a fossil fuel and that's bad :(" (Now we're talking!)
"What if the picture is upside down?" (Um... hmm. Relevant?)
"I noticed that this is hydro energy and that's connected to our energy inquiry!" (Hurray!)
"My connection is that [the electrical wires] looks like a cat because you can sort of see ears." (I know, deep.)

Afterward we shared as a whole group, which is when the discussion started to get so much better and the beauty of See-Think-Wonder began to come alive. It's pretty great when a comment like, "I see a white car" can turn into discussion about the type of fuel the car uses and whether the owner could use a biomass source, like corn, if it's available. True story - that conversation happened!

biomass energy experiment + lesson

We're getting into the thick of our latest Inquiry focus, all about types of energy. All of the teachers on my team have chosen one type of energy to teach and we're setting up rotation lessons for the classes. With seven of us, this could take awhile...! But I love the idea of sharing the teaching and getting to know some of the other kids in the hallway. 

For my energy type, I'm teaching about biomass as a renewable source. Because some classes can only come in for a 45-minute block, I've started each lesson off with a really cool experiment involving biomass energy at work. Basically, I put this slide on the ActivBoard and let the kids get to work:

Note: I handled the warm water part as it had to come from a kettle.

We let that work away as we discussed the energy sources in these pictures:

This led to some great discussion. But then I asked if they knew that things like cow poo, bananas, sewer water, and corn could produce electricity. A lot of them looked at me like I'm crazy. We talked about what these things have in common and were able to come up with a definition for biomass. 

Biomass is any material made by plants or animals that we can convert into energy.

Next, their attention was quickly drawn to the experiments they had left sitting on the windowsill, and what we saw was this:

So cool! We talked about our observations, reviewed our predictions/hypotheses, and came to the conclusion that the materials inside reacted together to create a gas. Pretty smart, these third graders!

Once we decided that the living creature in the bottle was indeed the yeast, I set it up for them as if the yeast was going through a morning routine, not unlike the routines we all might go through. When we're just looking at a  little yeast granule, he does not look alive - in fact he's asleep. To wake him up, we put him in a soothing warm water shower. And how do we all feel after first waking up in the morning? Hungry! Just like our yeast. So we give him a little breakfast of sugar, and as he starts munching away, he begins to burp, letting out little bits of C02 gas, just as we do when we exhale. The kids quickly concluded that it's this carbon dioxide that rose up in the bottle to inflate the balloon. (PS - These little C02 burps are the same reason we have little air pockets in our bread!)

To show the kids some ways that biomass is actually being used throughout the world, I put an iPad at each table team with instructions to find a certain video and they rotated to watch some different examples:

This one was a hit with all that poop...

There are tons of videos out there with great examples.

As they watched, I asked the groups to be thinking about the pros and cons of biomass energy. When they thought of one, they added it to a whole-class T-chart:

By the end of the rotations, this board was Filled!

This was a good way to continue discussion about biomass energy and for eventually comparing various forms of energy. When my class had learned about geothermal energy with another teacher, we asked them to "lay it on the line" by choosing whether they thought geothermal or biomass was the most sustainable choice for energy use. (This is a great Visible Thinking routine called Tug of War.) They moved to the designated side of the room and voila, we had a great tool for debate!

whole-group reflections

This year, one of the key concepts I've tried to implement in the classroom is giving students an opportunity to make their thinking visible. I'm about halfway through this book:

Making Thinking Visible: 

How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, 

and Independence for All Learners

(This is the third PD book I've stacked on my nightstand...!)

We use sticky notes, reflection pages, "what we learned about (any topic)" and gallery walks. Sometimes, though, the kids get tired of always writing a reflection, no matter how simple it can be. So in the past couple weeks I've focused more on oral strategies to keep their thoughts pouring out and their energy directed appropriately. 

(These ideas are not exactly visible, but they are reflective, and if you can get the kids using that all-important question "What makes you say that?" then it will be a great exercise in deepening understandings.)

Assembly Line:
Give half the class a number and ask them to line up side by side facing the same direction. The rest of the class then stands in front of this line, facing someone; tell this line they are the "assembly line". Give them a prompt and have each person in the line share with their partner (i.e. In this lesson I learned... Something that stands out for me is... I'm wondering about... I'm confused about/have questions about...). I always try to listen in as they share! Then, tell the assembly line to take one step to the right to a new partner, with the last person joining in at the opposite end. Give the next prompt and share away.

Concentric Circles:
Similar to the Assembly Line, give half the class a number and ask them to make a tight circle in the room facing out. (This is not easy if you have a tight space, but could easily be done in the field, gym, hallway if it's big enough, etc.) The rest of the class will find a partner and sit facing that person in an outer circle. Again, give a directed prompt based on what type of reflection you're looking for and have each share with the other. Have the outer circle scoot to the left or right and share another reflection.

Simple, but it gets the kids talking and keeps them focused on learning. If we do exercises like these often enough, eventually I'll be able to say, "Please share a reflection with your partner" and they'll just hand out their thoughts without questions!

ps - Happy Saturday!