Project Zero Classroom Day 3

Creating a Culture of Thinking right from the start

Ron Ritchhart explains that sometimes policy makers think that changing curriculum will change the outcomes in a classroom; on the contrary, he says, curriculum will 'sink' or 'swim' in a classroom based on the culture in that classroom.

The 8 cultural forces present in every classroom. Ron stated that the benefit is that you don't have to insert the forces into your classroom - they are already there; the down side is you can't dismiss them when you feel like it - they are always present.

The 10 things every teacher needs to say every class period.

Ritchhart reminded us that 'Your students are listening; language is important!' He explained that instead of saying 'Where is your pencil?' perhaps say 'Are you prepared for the learning that is going to happen in this class?'

One of the key words to say every day. If we don't say 'wow', we either missed something, or the lesson was too constrained.

Creating thinking opportunities from a mathematics perspective

Mark Church asked us to dream of a 'thinking mathematics classroom' and come up with what that class would look like. The participants came up with a classroom with students that thought critically, weren't afraid to try and to make mistakes, worked together, and didn't rely on the teacher when they got stuck.

Learning is a product of thinking; therefore to get students to learn we need to foster deep thinking. The difficulty is that thinking is hard to name and is invisible, but with the Visible Thinking movement, we can help to see what is inside a student's mind.

Mark Church explains that the understanding map (see below) is critical to designing lessons for a variety of learners and for fostering critical thinking

One of the coolest visuals of the day. Notice the math content in the upper left, and the thinking opportunities in the lower right. Mark explained that the upper left (the content) changes all year long, but the lower right (the opportunities to think critically) does not change - it exists all year long.

To design for a variety of learning and to nurture critical thinking, we can use the understanding map to help us. The eight parts on the understanding map can be linked directly to various thinking routines which can help to foster the critical thinking we desire. In using these routines, we leverage some or all of the cultural forces that exist in our classrooms.