Creative Teaching & Learning

The real power of questions

Promoting a deep-thinking classroom culture is a result of teachers posing the right type of questions, says Ron Ritchhart.

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      string(5166) "now that during some of those downtimes, our brain is actually forming the richer connections and that students actually do better when we allow them those times. Rather than seeing that as a distraction, it is really integral to the learning process. So, for me the ‘Pedagogy of Play’ project is really a very, very exciting project going on right now that I’m following very closely. Thinking RoutinesThese routines are simple structures involving a set of questions or a short sequence of steps that can be used across various grade levels and content. They promote the development of students’ thinking and help achieve deeper inquiry and engagement with content.There are many types of Thinking Routines. Some are core routines, which can be used more generally, and others are geared towards understanding, fairness, truth and creativity. Some are good for introducing concepts and introducing ideas, some are great for synthesising and organising ideas, and others are geared towards digging deeper into ideas. Here are a few of the core routines to get you started. Additional examples can be found in the book Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison and on its supporting website http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/.Think-Puzzle-Explore This routine is inquiry based, asking students to think about their prior knowledge, express curiosity and plan what they want to do to answer their questions. This is great for introducing a topic to help connect to prior knowledge, to stimulate curiosity and to lay the groundwork for more independent work. Ask the students to answer the following questions, individually and/or in groups: Think: What do you think you know about this topic? Puzzle: What questions do you have or are curious or puzzled about this topic? Explore: How can we explore these questions or puzzles?I Used to Think… Now I Think… This is a good routine for students to reflect on how and why their perceptions, opinions or knowledge has grown or changed over time. It can focus on an ideal, like ‘fairness’ or ‘truth’, or on a topic or unit such as ‘creative writing’, a book that they’ve read, a mathematical process like measuring angles, a world event in the news or in history. Students are simply asked to reflect on paper (can be in words, pictures, diagrams, etc.) in response to these prompts: I used to think … Now I think…What Makes You Say That? This teaches students to provide evidential reasoning for their observations. It helps them describe what they observe or know and then encourages them to support their interpretation with evidence.Through this exercise, students are also encouraged to recognise and understand alternative explanations and multiple perspectives. After presenting students with a particular concept or object, ask them the following questions:What’s going on? What do you see that makes you say that?  Additional Reading:1.	Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools.2.	Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.3.	Ritchhart, R. (2004). Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer.4. More resources, including Cultures of Thinking resources can be found at www.ronrichhart.comKnowledge Trails:1. The Real Power of Questions https://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/ctl24thepowerofquestions Promoting a deep-thinking classroom culture is a result of teachers posing the right type of questions, says Ron Ritchhart.2. Cultivating a Culture of Thinking http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/acultureofthinking		Cultural forces exist in all classrooms that can be leveraged to develop a culture of thinking. Jeff Watson and Roger Winn demonstrate how to harness these forces to develop students’ thinking skills in secondary Maths and Chemistry classrooms.3. Shaping Reality with the Language of Thinking http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/shapingrealitywiththinking 		The power of language extends beyond the world of syntax. Erika Lusky shows how using the Cultures of Thinking framework is transforming the learning culture and offering students the ability to truly think for themselves.4. The Thinking Skills Debate http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/thethinkingskillsdebate		Does the teaching of thinking skills help learners or is it a waste of time? Peter Gardner, Steve Higgins and Geoff Hinchliffe debate their points of view.5. Framing Learning as a Social Endeavour https://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/framinglearning Student-led collaboration can bring out the individual gifts of students as they develop within a community. Julie Rains shows how group learning and reflection can make students feel successful as active participants in their own learning."
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Growth Mindset

Enabling a Culture for Thinkers with Ron Ritchhart

21 Mar 2019

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      string(5435) "downtimes, our brain is actually forming the richer connections and that students actually do better when we allow them those times. Rather than seeing that as a distraction, it is really integral to the learning process. So, for me the ‘Pedagogy of Play’ project is really a very, very exciting project going on right now that I’m following very closely. 1. Steve Sydell, Mara Krechevsky and Ben Mardell wrote a book called Making Learning Visible, which is connected to the Reggio Emilia approach. Additionally, a 2011 book called Making Thinking Visible was authored by the PZ team of Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison.Additional Reading:Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking: The 8 forces we must master to truly transform our schools.Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Ritchhart, R. (2004). Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer.More resources, including Cultures of Thinking resources can be found at www.ronrichhart.comThinking RoutinesThese routines are simple structures involving a set of questions or a short sequence of steps that can be used across various grade levels and content. They promote the development of students’ thinking and help achieve deeper inquiry and engagement with content.There are many types of Thinking Routines. Some are core routines, which can be used more generally, and others are geared towards understanding, fairness, truth and creativity. Some are good for introducing concepts and introducing ideas, some are great for synthesising and organising ideas, and others are geared towards digging deeper into ideas. Here are a few of the core routines to get you started. Additional examples can be found in the book Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison and on its supporting website http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html Think-Puzzle-Explore This routine is inquiry based, asking students to think about their prior knowledge, express curiosity and plan what they want to do to answer their questions. This is great for introducing a topic to help connect to prior knowledge, to stimulate curiosity and to lay the groundwork for more independent work. Ask the students to answer the following questions, individually and/or in groups: Think: What do you think you know about this topic? Puzzle: What questions do you have or are curious or puzzled about this topic? Explore: How can we explore these questions or puzzles?I Used to Think… Now I Think… This is a good routine for students to reflect on how and why their perceptions, opinions or knowledge has grown or changed over time. It can focus on an ideal, like ‘fairness’ or ‘truth’, or on a topic or unit such as ‘creative writing’, a book that they’ve read, a mathematical process like measuring angles, a world event in the news or in history. Students are simply asked to reflect on paper (can be in words, pictures, diagrams, etc.) in response to these prompts: I used to think … Now I think…What Makes You Say That? This teaches students to provide evidential reasoning for their observations. It helps them describe what they observe or know and then encourages them to support their interpretation with evidence.Through this exercise, students are also encouraged to recognise and understand alternative explanations and multiple perspectives. After presenting students with a particular concept or object, ask them the following questions:What’s going on? What do you see that makes you say that? Knowledge Trails:1. 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The Thinking Skills Debate http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/thethinkingskillsdebateDoes the teaching of thinking skills help learners or is it a waste of time? Peter Gardner, Steve Higgins and Geoff Hinchliffe debate their points of view.5. Framing Learning as a Social Endeavour https://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/framinglearningStudent-led collaboration can bring out the individual gifts of students as they develop within a community. Julie Rains shows how group learning and reflection can make students feel successful as active participants in their own learning."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Leveraging Culture with Ron Ritchhart

8 Jan 2019

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      string(5730) "52 Vol 1.5 n www.teachingtimes.comLeadership Skills Human ResourcesSchool Leadership Today53www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 1.5Leadership SkillsHuman ResourcesS upposing someone asked you: “What would you do if you could not fail?” Where would your attention go? What answers might you come up with? Just how creative could you be and just how excitingwould that be? Have you ever been asked a question that makes youstop, think… and then think some more? Then to come up with insights or thoughts that you have never had before? In coaching it is often said that insightful questions ignite the mind. So if someone could ask you a question right now about your own skills in developing others, what would that question be?For most questions that a coach asks, there is no right or wrong answer, for that would imply the coach adopting a judgemental position. Rather, when coaching we seek to ask challenging and powerful questions which unlock issues for the supported person, and prompt new thinking.Next to listening, questioning may be the most important skill for a coach. Effective questioning requires curiosity and a genuine interest in the person you are coaching and their development. It presupposes that the person you are coaching has all the internal resources they need to resolve the issues that they have, and that if they are guided through the skilful use of questions they will unearth their own solutions. The essence of coaching is therefore to support someone’s thought process: take them forward from their current situation to a preferred future, and from their real self to an ideal self.There are two broad categories of question that coaches will employ. Closed questions often start with questioning words like ‘when’, ‘who’ and ‘where’. They elicit short responses designed to close down possibilities. These are particularly useful towards the end of a coaching session when the focus is on getting someone to commit to undertaking actions, make definite plans and take decisions. Typically the final commitment part of the session will use questions such as these:So of the many ideas you have, which one or ones are you going to do? Which one will you do first? When will you do this? Specifically, on what and day and at what time will you start? With whom will you do this? Where will you do this? On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to doing this? When will you know you have been successful? What will this give you when you have done it?Each of these questions is designed to cut down the possibility of inaction, ensuring that the coaching session is not unfocused and without consequences.Open questions Open questions fall into two main categories: those thatnnnnnnnnnelicit information, and those that challenge and stimulate creative thinking. Both will be used in a coaching setting, although possibly at different stages of the process. (Figure 1 gives more information about open and closed questions.)Initially the coach will ask questions to elicit information about the situation or issue that the supported person is facing. One of the common occurrences at the information gathering stage is the propensity for a ‘coachee’ to omit key pieces of the jigsaw – because they either don’t remember them, or do not consider them to be relevant. Through effective questioning the coach can ensure that the person is not ignoring something important. Alongside this, the coach needs to do enough questioning to ensure that they have a clear understanding of the situation in order to support further thinking. The sort of questions that are typically asked include:What is the current situation? What is that like for you? How often …? And…? Tell me more about that. What are you thinking at the moment?These types of open question encourage the speaker to divulge more detail, elaborate on the situation and how they currently view it. While this process is going on, the coach can begin to gain an understanding of how the coachee thinks, what is important for them, and their personality preferences in dealing with issues. Curiosity is a great attribute to have, although avoid being too interrogational in your questioning – the coachee is not in the witness box and you are not running a trial!At the next level, questioning moves to being more probing, trying to uncover those things that the coachee has omitted. Asking questions that get the person to consider a scenario from different perspectives often elicits new information. For example, you might ask: “What would another person say about this situation?” or “How else could that behaviour be interpreted?”If the coachee starts to use words such as ‘always’ or ‘never’ the coach can challenge these generalisations. Consider the following exchange.nnnnnnQuestions – the key to unlocking potential The power of questions cannot be overstated, explain Nick Austin and Richard Churches in the third part of their SLT series on the art of coaching54 Vol 1.5 n www.teachingtimes.comLeadership Skills Human Resources Leadership SkillsHuman ResourcesCoachee: “She’s always rude to me whenever she sees me.” Coach: “What, always?” Coachee: “Perhaps not always but nearly always.” Coach: “Can you recall a time when she wasn’t? What happened then?” Coachee: “Well, she wanted me to do something for her then.” Coach: “So there are times when she isn’t rude. How could you get her to be more amenable more of the time?” Coachee: “Well, I suppose if I offered to help more often. That might help.”"
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Leadership

Questions - the key to unlocking potential

9 Nov 2009

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      string(5635) "The digital age has brought with it a rapidly changing and often unpredictable media landscape. Heightened accessibility to media sources means that everyone is increasingly aware of the world around them—adults and children alike. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that our students are trained to identify reliable news sources, understand a range of perspectives and be receptive to current affairs outside the classroom walls. Teaching current affairs often lies within the remit of Humanities lessons, but there is no reason that it cannot be incorporated into other lessons such as science and maths. The challenge is ensuring that current affairs teaching remains neutral and engaging. While the media landscape can be challenging to navigate, nevertheless, training students on how to effectively dissect the news will help them develop key critical thinking skills which will strengthen their social and cognitive development, and translate into the world outside the classroom.Teaching current affairs neutrallyThe Socratic method of teaching is considered the world’s oldest and most powerful way of fostering effective critical thinking skills. Socrates’ method places emphasis on the power of asking questions to encourage a student to self-evaluate and arrive at an answer independently, rather than simply conveying information in a hierarchical teacher–student manner. The method stimulates key critical thinking skills, such as self-evaluation, risk evaluation, accountability for one’s own reasoning and seeing the bigger picture of a problem or situation. As an English teacher, the importance of the Socratic method resonates with me since pupils often look to me for a ‘right answer’ on texts we are studying. By facilitating discussion through well-focused questioning I am able to steer students away from the concept of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers in literature, instead nudging them to consider a plurality of equally viable interpretations.The Socratic method gains particular significance for teachers looking to teach current affairs in an appropriate and accessible manner. As I’m sure many teachers will agree, broaching current affairs with a class of young people can be a challenge. Time constraints, on top of the fact that it can be overwhelming to address contentious topics while remaining as neutral as possible, means that the subject area is often overlooked. However, encouraging students to think through their own reasoning on a topic helps teachers to navigate the line of neutrality, and will enable pupils to digest real world issues by considering how it impacts them and those around them.By stimulating critical thinking skills with the Socratic method, we encourage students to take a sustained interest in current affairs. As educators, part of our job is to nurture this interest by drawing students’ attention to real and relevant news in an age-appropriate and exciting way. Teaching current affairs should be creative and inclusive of many perspectives—indeed, reflecting the world itself. Bringing variety to the classroomA resounding lesson that I have learned as a teacher is the significance of a varied and dynamic school day, in terms of both content and format of lessons. In the same way that the Socratic method encourages a student to think through different outcomes independently, lesson formats should facilitate independent exploration, reasoning and discovery.To demonstrate this, at Ormiston Shelfield Community Academy, we recently participated in a current affairs enrichment programme, held in partnership with The Week Junior magazine. The programme was designed to be enjoyed by our Year 7 and 8 students and aimed to help them make sense of the world’s most important and exciting news and events.  Our goal was to empower students to form and share their own opinions on news and current affairs topics, boosting their literacy, debating and critical thinking skills.During the programme, I found that teaching current affairs in an interactive way unlocked students’ critical thinking skills. My students got stuck in to a range of activities, from gaining first-hand journalism career experience with The Week Junior’s editor Anna Bassi, to diving into lively debates about current affairs using the news resources available. These debates were integral to the students’ development and proved key to exercising their critical thinking skills, for several reasons. Taking part in active discussions means a student must identify their opponent’s argument and quickly gain a nuanced understanding in order to respond effectively. Engaging orally rather than in written format, the student must consider how to convey a convincing argument in a way that can be understood by their peers. Finally, learning how to ‘disagree’ in this way is vital to developing essential social skills, as students understand that they are accountable for their own reasoning, and they learn to exchange ideas in a way which is mutually respectful—something which translates fundamentally from the classroom to the wider world.During the enrichment programme, students also took part in a Roving Reporter Competition, which turned them into mini-journalists. I found here that debating and reporting go hand-in-hand. Whereas debate sessions encouraged students to rapidly respond to new perspectives in a group environment, the Roving Reporter Competition enabled them to experience researching a topic independently, before channelling their ideas into a concise piece of writing."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Teaching Independence with Current Affairs

26 Mar 2019