Transferring Ownership of Learning

Finding opportunities for interactions within the classroom is crucial for empowering students to take ownership of their learning and gain deeper conceptual understanding. Continuing on from their previous article in CTL (Cultivating a Culture of Thinking), teachers Jeff Watson and Roger Winn continue to share how the ‘Cultures of Thinking’ model is changing their Maths and Science classrooms.

The Cultures of Thinking framework developed by Project Zero’s Ron Ritchhart focuses on eight cultural forces that exist in classrooms: expectations, language, time, opportunities, interactions, environment, routines, and modelling. According to Ritchhart, these forces exist in every classroom whether they are given attention or not. The idea is to properly leverage those forces so that classrooms become places where thinking, collaboration, independence, and deep-learning rule and become common-place, rather than classrooms that stress compliance and work, and which are teacher-centred.

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      string(370) "... unique talents, skills, and cultural perspectives they bring to the work of creative idea development” (Clapp, 2017, p. 7). Building off of the work of Project Zero researchers, in this article I share documented observations of stories from my classroom practice – especially in the areas of Cultures of Thinking and ..."
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      string(5754) "Cultivating ParticipationIt is the first day of media class at Delta Kelly Elementary School and 30 Year 4 students huddle around an over-sized rectangular table that is stacked with jumbo playing cards, brightly-coloured feathers, scalloped paper and an assortment of building materials. Almost everyone is talking. Some are laughing. Upon closer inspection, small groups seem to emerge. While two students look closely at a wooden block, still others dangle faux greenery and nod in agreement. “Give me a piece” one student calls, a directive met with a piece of clear tape from a neighbouring teammate. “Sanjay!” another voice rings out, “Over here!” It appears that no two students are doing exactly the same thing. Yet somehow, without strict directions, there is an industrious harmony. Students are participating together as a community of thinkers and learners.Framing learning as a social endeavour from the first day of school sends the message that students are expected to be active participants in their own learning (Ritchhart, 2018). Moreover, intentionally designing opportunities for distributed student participation can promote access and equity (Clapp, 2017). Situating learners as members of a broader social system encourages self-differentiation. It also urges students to develop and share their own voices, reimagining and hacking pre-existing constructs of creativity. It is through these experiences that students begin to truly value the “unique talents, skills, and cultural perspectives they bring to the work of creative idea development” (Clapp, 2017, p. 7). Building off of the work of Project Zero researchers, in this article I share documented observations of stories from my classroom practice – especially in the areas of Cultures of Thinking and Participatory Creativity. Definitional LanguageThere are some key definitions that are necessary to provide clarity. The first is that of interactions and relationships (Ritchhart, 2015). Our interactions and relationships with others not only impact the collaborative nature of our classrooms, but also, and perhaps more surprisingly, the depth of student thinking (Richhart, 2015). Making meaningful personal connections, questioning, attending to patterns of discourse, pressing for student thinking and supporting student independence are some of the essential moves teachers can make to promote “interactions that support thinking and learning” (Ritchhart, 2015, pp. 218–225). Another key definition is participatory creativity (Clapp, 2017). As students engage with one another to perform a creative task, they enter a complex system of participatory navigation, with ideas at the centre. Documenting both the development of an emerging idea and our participation in that process situates creativity as a concept emerging from the collective engagement of various actors rather than a characteristic assigned to any one individual (Clapp, 2017). Within this article, I also use the language of ‘collaboration’, ‘group work’ and/or ‘teamwork’ to describe the actions of students as they engage with one another throughout the lesson. However, it should be noted that none of these terms are synonymous with participation as described through the lens of participatory creativity.Contextual Landscape Participants included students ranging from Years 2–5 at Delta Kelly Elementary School, a suburban public elementary school located in Oakland Township, Michigan. These teaching and learning experiences take place in the school media centre, a hybrid space including the school library, makerspace and technology lab. Approximately 400 students participated in these variegated learning experiences over the course of the first two weeks of the 2017–2018 school year. Framing the Lesson Students entered the media centre greeted by tables of eclectic postcards ranging from vintage retro travel images to pictures of animals. Each student was randomly assigned a postcard, then asked to make connections between that postcard and some aspect of their personal identity. After five minutes of quiet think time, students shared their initial explanations in small groups ranging from 3–5 students.To frame the remainder of the learning experience, students watched a video depicting IDEO’s General Manager, Tom Kelley, sharing his musings about artist and author Gordon MacKenzie and his book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball (Kelley, 2008). The heart of this clip highlights the shifting perceptions of personal identity over time, affirming that students should embrace their identities, rather than letting others impact their individual concepts of self. Students were then asked to ponder the question, What message was Tom Kelley trying to send? In a whole-group discussion, students generated ideas, including ‘be yourself’, ‘don’t be afraid to do what you love’, and ‘it’s ok to be different’. Using both the postcard and video discussion as inspiration, students made connections to norms for thinking and asserted that foster positive interactions and relationships and create opportunities for deeper thinking (Lusky & Rains, 2014; Ritchhart, 2015). These norms included: We can always call a classmate if we are stumped to support our thinking Our reasoning is more important than our actual answer We can always change our minds based on evidence and reasoningWe can always connect or add on to someone else’s idea (Lusky & Rains, 2014, para 2)In a culminating performance of"
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Children as Researchers

Framing Learning as a Social Endeavour

10 Oct 2018

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      string(4403) "achieve the challenge? What space have I provided in the lessons for high achieving students to push their thinking? Effective CommunicationIn order to be mathematicians and chemists, students must be able to “use the language of the discipline to express, represent, justify, and communicate one’s thinking and ideas” (p. 164). In the maths lesson, students had to use thinking routines to document what they already knew about vectors and then share, communicate and justify these ideas to each other. The MicroLab protocol is a great communication tool because it requires students to express their ideas to each other, and since each person has time to talk, those students who normally may not share an idea have an opportunity to express their ideas. Also, when exploring the new concepts, groups had to communicate their ideas to each other in order to answer the guiding question. In chemistry, groups presented their voltaic cells and explained how they work. By explaining their cells, especially the ones that do not look like those in the textbook, both the listeners and presenters are able to deepen their understanding of voltaic cells. When designing lessons that contain effective communication, we find the following questions useful: How much is the teacher talking? How much are the students talking? How are the students given time to share and communicate their ideas? Perceived WorthIn these lessons, students were asked to create a product, whether it is the solution to problems, the construction of a battery or a method to finding a vector. Ron Ritchhart notes, “Production is common in classrooms, but what is not so common is that what is produced is perceived by students to be of value and worth their time and investment” (p. 164). The revised chemistry and maths lessons worked to increase the perceived worth of the products required. In the old chemistry lesson, the required product was solutions to practice problems. These problems have little perceived worth – students understand that their ability to accurately solve these problems will impact their grade, but these problems are largely disconnected from the ‘real world’. In the new lesson, perceived worth was increased by relating the challenge to batteries in cell phones. Rather than just being able to solve problems related to voltaic cells, students are now using chemistry to understand an object they use every day. All the information and understanding that students discovered about voltaic cells related to this challenge, which is what is shown to create perceived worth the most, “….it [is] the ability of the teacher to place the activity within the context of a larger goal or enterprise that mattered” (p. 165). In the maths lesson, the larger goal was the use of unit vectors in particle motion. In the past, unit vectors were treated as a stand alone topic that students learned about because it was in the syllabus. Now, the use of vector notation and finding magnitude paved the way to find unit vectors which paved the way for the application to velocity and motion. Furthermore, by adapting the home thinking to each group’s progress, it placed worth on the thinking and understanding they were doing during the class period. When thinking about increasing perceived worth, I ask myself the following questions: To what extent is this lesson connected to a larger goal or context? How have I made connections to this larger context or goal clear to the students? As we continue to challenge the “..widely held misconception: that teaching is primarily the delivery of information and that learning is memorizing that information” (p. 151), creating powerful learning opportunities is crucial to ensure deep learning. Designing these opportunities is an art and is an iterative, exciting process that can only be improved with careful consideration, time and trial-and-error. Although the new lessons above are richer examples than their predecessors, these lessons will undergo continuous changes as our experiences grow. Jeffrey Watson is a Maths teacher and Roger Winn is a Chemistry teacher at the International Academy East high school in Troy, Michigan, USA. They can be contacted with questions or ideas at jwatson@bloomfield.org or rwinn@bloomfield.org. "
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Cognition and Intelligence

Cultivating a Culture of Thinking

10 Oct 2018

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      string(4542) "CultureUnit 3: Lore Building1: Mythological Influences on Esports2: Narrative Writing: Creating a Backstory3: Marketing as a Means for Building LoreUnit 4: What IS the Quest?1: Analysis: Live Tournament Breakdown2: Developing a Business Plan3: Formal Presentation: Tournament ProposalUnit 5: There Be Dragons Here!1: Reorganisation into Divisions2: Choice Writing: Exploring Grit through the Hero’s Journey3: Contingency PlanningUnit 6: Transformers1: Writing for an Audience: Gladwell’s Recipe for Success2: Discussion: Defining & Working within a Budget3: Persuasive Speaking: The Elevator PitchUnit 7: “Do, or do not.  There is no try.”1: Stakeholder Communication: Finalising Event Website2: Script Writing: Final Event Preparation3: Mock Tournament Run Through and ReflectionUnit 8: The Dragon’s Lair1: Event Post-Mortem and ReflectionThis new curriculum builds on the same pedagogical models and activities as the esports clubs, but it more systematically introduces students to core reading, writing, and communication skills across the levels that represent the various esports roles within the ecosystem (Figure 2). Each grade level ties ELA to one of four fundamental Career Technical Education pathways: Game Design (grade 9), Entrepreneurship (grade 10), Marketing (grade 11), and Hospitality (grade 12). Students can take one year or multiple years, opting in and out of the course sequence as they choose, in order to provide maximum flexibility for learners and teachers. Ideally, by year three of the NASEF league, students will be running the team websites, promotions, fundraising, and league championship event themselves, with adults taking a side seat as guides and mentors for their work. Final CommentsRejecting and denigrating the passions and interests of young people is, in our view, to land on the wrong side of history, Instead, we choose to meet students where they are and use those contexts as sites for their intellectual, social, and civic development. NASEF connects students’ passion for esports to thinking and reasoning, which have been long valued in classrooms, and caring mentors and near peers who can shape participants’ online and gaming lives in positive was. In so doing, we hope to raise not only more connected, resilient and engaged students but also better citizens of the increasing networked and cosmopolitan world.Constance Steinkuehler is a Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she researches the cognitive and social aspects of esports and multiplayer online videogames. She formerly served as Senior Policy Analyst under the Obama administration in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, advising on games and digital media.References“About the Federation.” (2018, August 20). Retrieved from http://esportsfed.org/about/about-the-federationAnderson, Tsaasan, Reitman, Lee, Wu, Steele, Turner & Steinkuehler (2018). Understanding Esports as a STEM Career Ready Curriculum in the Wild. In the Proceedings of the VS Games Conference, 5-7 September, Weiberg Germany.Career Technical Education (CTE) Model Curriculum Standards. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.careertech.org/cctc.Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2018). Core SEL Competencies. Retrieved from https://casel.org/core-competencies/Cheuk, T. (2013). Relationships and convergences among the mathematics, science, and ELA practices. Refined version of diagram created by the Understanding Language Initiative for ELP Standards. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University.Gee, J.P. (2005). Semiotic socials spaces and affinity spaces: From The Age of Mythology to today’s schools. In D. Barton & K. Tusting (Eds.), Beyond communities of practice: Language, power and social context (pp. 214–232). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Ito, M., Horst, H. A., Antin, J., Finn, M., Law, A., Manion, A., … Yardi, S. (2013). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.NASEF Curriculum (2018). Retrieved from http://www.esportsfed.org/resources/curriculum/english-12-and-hospitality/Perez, M. (2018, February 21). Esports to grow substantially and near billion-dollar revenues in 2018. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved 16 August 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2018/02/21/report-esports-to-grow-substantially-and-near-a-billion-dollar-revenues-in-2018/"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Thriving Through Competitive Gaming

10 Oct 2018

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      string(5606) "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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Creative Teaching & Learning

Leveraging Culture with Ron Ritchhart

8 Jan 2019