Jeffrey Watson
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No lecturing? No spoon-feeding? No kidding!  Any questions?

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Project Zero Classroom Day 3

7/21/2017

2 Comments

 
Creating a Culture of Thinking right from the start
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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.
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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.
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The 10 things every teacher needs to say every class period.
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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?'
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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.
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Creating thinking opportunities from a mathematics perspective
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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.
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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.
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Mark Church explains that the understanding map (see below) is critical to designing lessons for a variety of learners and for fostering critical thinking
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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.
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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.
2 Comments
Patty Jordan
7/22/2017 08:31:56 pm

I love the images you chose this time. I used the understanding map image in my final product for tomorrow!

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Jeffrey Watson
7/22/2017 10:25:43 pm

AWESOME! Glad that you liked the images. Please continue to read the blog and let me know what you think!

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    Jeff Watson is a Math teacher at the International Academy East in Troy, MI. His work as a software engineer made him realize the need for problem solvers and critical thinkers in the workplace today. Jeff believes that the secondary math classroom should be a place of critical thinking, collaborative learning, and exploration which will cultivate the problem solvers and thinkers needed today.

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