Making Thinking Visible

Quiet session with Andrew McCarthy on making thinking visible – main takeaway (I would really like to have a better word for this, but for now I’ll go with the most common term) for me is the usefulness of tech in allowing students to record themselves talking out loud to demonstrate their thinking; basically screencasting as they work through something, or videoing a demo of a task or of writing on a whiteboard and adding audio commentary as they go or later in an editing program.

So what am I getting from this? Tech can assist in capturing the thinking at a specific moment in time – that can then go into a portfolio as pre-assessment or summative assessment, be their study notes, be a presentation… Then you need to determine whether that needs to be further shared by posting to a blog, wiki, Moodle site, shared on the screen in class, passed around the table, annotated by teacher or peers – which is of course dependent upon the purpose of the task.

 

Notes from session follow:

Making Thinking Visible

Strategies to develop deeper thinking in your classroom

 

Thinking first, tech is support

 

1. Why is Thinking Important?
2. From Substitution to Transformation
3. Documenting the Thinking with Technology

 

Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchart, Mark Church, Karin Morison and David Perkins

Harvard Project Zero Visible Thinking

 

Why Thinking is Important?

acquiring knowledge =/= learning

William Glasser – you learn what you teach – some googling has thrown doubt on the origin of the quote, but it is often thrown around in education that the more modes you use to access information (see, hear, touch, move, demonstrate to another) the better your own understanding and retention

learning = developing understanding

understanding is developed through thinking

 

Examples that show learning/thinking: Observation, explanation, interpretation, evidence, viewpoints, perspectives, form conclusions

 

You can’t rote learn an abstract idea *****I love this line!

>>but exams are too much about “show me what you know” – how much of that is determined by curriculum constraints and needing to prepare students for external examinations?

 

Moving through the stages of technology use in the classroom:

• substitution> augmentation> modification> transformation

Tech as tools to support and document thinking: demonstration task where students are given a geography concept (river valley erosion at different points along the river) and asked to locate pictures (viz compfight, flickr etc) that illustrate each type of erosion, create slides in Keynote or Powerpoint, then record audio narration explaining how the picture demonstrates the specific features of that type of erosion, and export as QuickTime movie (or whatever format is available). Students are demonstrating understanding of the concept, and ability to apply knowledge to images and justify their choices.

Implementation: give them the template first to scaffold the learning, let them learn to use the tool

 

Screencasting apps:

• Screenchomp (iTunes link)
• Showme (iTunes link)
• Educreations (iTunes link)
• Explain Everything (iTunes link)

 

ways to share – blog and comment, Moodle, screencast with tool of choice and share, record on iPads then pass devices around the table to share

process of coming up with a good example to demonstrate the concept is great thinking

Someone to look for: Jenny Magiera @MsMagiera http://www.appolicious.com/authors/132-jennie-magiera

 

Back to start – when do the kids get an opportunity to really think in your classes? student-centred classroom, concept based, understanding by design

how can I document the thinking process – capture tools

 

RSA animates

Great for ESL kids – time to work on and be happy with their product – less pressure than stand up and talk presentations

 

Do these documents help me support the learner?

metacognition – how do we teach it? give them the tools to be self-aware?

what types of questions should I employ? – open-ended

Metacognition – do the kids choose to think?

 

*** New thought on this topic ***

It occurs to me that one place where the entire learning/thinking process is regularly documented is in the Art and D&T areas, where students keep portfolios documenting each stage of their major projects from initial concept through research, drafts, prototypes, testing, refining, and final products – this could be a place to look for examples of what we can document in other subject areas