Lucy West Education Consultant

1. Lucy WestEducation Consultant email: lucy@lucywestpd.comhttp://lucywestpd.com cell: 917-494-1606 phone: 212-766-2120

2. The Thinking SymposiumMarch 2014EOSDN Lucy West lucy@lucywestpd.com www.lucywestpd.com

3. Overview • Acknowledging What You Have Been Experimenting With • Considering Some of Your Questions • Diving Deeper into Classroom Discourse • Research • Examples from the Field

4. Developing Discourse • People reported working on: • Think aloudswhether students are right or wrong • Giving students opportunity to “show” us their thinking • Explicitly teaching active listening • Talk moves and proactive circles • Substituting timely feedback for praise • Staying with students through several exchanges • Avoiding speaking for children and asking them to rephrase for each other • Getting students to explain, agree/disagree, determine reasonableness

5. More examples • People are working on: • Using Dot Talks and Number Talks in HS classes • Knowing what we want kids to know so we can highlight student work/thinking • Establishing norms for classroom talk • Naming criteria for good questions

6. Your Questions • How do you get deep thinking from reluctant learners? • How do we invite all students—introverts/extroverts—into classroom discussion? • How do we know we (teachers/students) have moved forward? • How do we evaluate the thinking? • What role might pedagogical documentation play? • How to strengthen ESL student’s ability to actively communicate in the classroom?

7. Reviewing Where We Left Off • Discourse and Development of Thinking Go Hand In Hand • Three Basic Moves • Examining episodes from actual classes

8. Discourse and Thinking Evolve Together • Dialogue requires a climate where it is safe for learners (adults and students) to: • Come up with ideas (incomplete, way out) • Think out loud (articulate partial understanding, express confusion) • Explain their reasoning (misconceptions) • Explore their understanding (dive deeper)

9. 3 Basic Essential Talk Moves • Turn and Talk—has the potential to get 100% of the students engaged and willing to take a stand • Tell me more…OR Why do you think that?—puts the emphasis on finding out what others think and how they came to the conclusion they did. (Develops awareness, capacity to think about one’s thinking, reasoning, precision) • Who can repeat/paraphrase what was just said? (Establishes clear expectation to listen; hones capacity to reflect on ideas, construct viable arguments)

10. Your Questions • How do you get deep thinking from reluctant learners? • How do we invite all students—introverts/extroverts—into classroom discussion? • How to strengthen ESL student’s ability to actively communicate in the classroom?

11. Teachers improve their teaching when they: • Look at actual instances of teaching and learning and we calibrate our lenses to identify effective instruction • Identify, name and practice specific teaching moves that make student thinking visible • Collaboratively plan lessons informed by continual inquiry into student responses • Collectively explore how to engage students in ways that are relevant and inviting in today’s world

12. The Case of Jose • Jose is an ESL student, a former Sp. Ed. student, extremely reluctant learner • One Week Summer Program for Teachers • Day 4 • Small Group Work—Groups of 4 • Growing Squares: Build consecutive square numbers and find out what you can about how they grow. Create a poster and use models, tables, graphs, and language to express your ideas. Be prepared to share your findings with the whole class.

13. Set Clear Expectations • Everyone in your group needs to understand what is on the poster and be able to explain it. • Everyone in the the group needs to contribute to what is on your chart paper. • The chart must have examples of square numbers that are labeled, and table that shows the various dimensions and growth patterns of the square. • The must include full sentences that describe the patterns of growth that you noticed.

14. Reflecting on Jose Video • Remember Kaizen (taking very small steps toward a goal). • What were the small steps Lucy was attempting to take with Jose to encourage his participation and understanding? • Please find handout on right side of folder entitled: • Cultivating Classroom Discourse to Reveal Student Thinking • Please read the document and consider the video again through this lens.

15. Connecting Moves to Video • Communicates through stance/affect: I know you can do this and I will stick with you until you do. You matter. • Take a Non-Judgmental Stance • You are seeing a different pattern. • Re-voice, Ask Questions, and Scaffold • Where is your pattern on the chart? • Where is the 25, 64?

16. I Don’t Get It • Not yet.

17. Doubt Management The major difference between less skilled and more productive learners is not their intelligence, but their willingness to endure disorientation, that feeling of being lost or confused.

19. Shifting Mindsets-From Fixed to Growth • We believe in your potential and are committed to helping everyone get smarter. • We value taking on challenges, exerting effort, and surmounting obstacles more than we value “natural” talent and easy success. • Working hard to learn new things makes you smarter—it makes your brain grow new connections. • School is not a place that judges you. It is a place where people help your brain grow new connections. • Carol Dweck, Mindset and Equitable Education

20. Cat Food Problem • 12 cans for $15 • 15 cans for $20

21. Towards Dialogic Teaching • Please read subsection only: • Seven Arguments for Talk • Communicative • Social • Culture • Neuroscientific • Psychological • Pedagogical • Political

22. What questions might people who think critically habitually ask? • How do you know that? • What is your source? What is the source of that source? • What evidence do you have? What further evidence do we need? • How might I be wrong about this? • What other perspectives might be valid here? • What are the possible pitfalls? • What haven’t we yet considered?

23. Basic Repertoire of Kinds of Teaching Talk • Rote • Recitation • Instruction/exposition • Discussion • Dialogue • Please read this section. Ask yourself, “What is the frequency of each of these kinds of talk in my classroom or the classrooms of teachers I supervise/coach?

24. Unpack and Take A Step • What is the difference between discussion and dialogue? • If you agree that more discussion and/or dialogue would be beneficial to students, what would you need to learn and believe to increase the amount of discussion and dialogue in your class(es)? • Consider the Essential Features of A Dialogic Classroom as you ponder the question.

25. Basic, Beginning, Turn and Talk • The Teaching Channel • HS History Class

26. Getting Students to Listen • Video-Paint the Porch

27. Class Video • It took 2/3 can of paint to paint 1/2 of the porch. How much paint will I need to paint the whole porch? • Fifth grade class • Heterogeneous group in Fl. • Lucy is the “visiting teacher” • Observing: teachers, coaches, administrators • Focus on increasing student understanding through talk

28. Paint Porch-Segment 1 • Teacher: We’re thinking about the problem in similar ways. I’m going to have someone share their way of thinking about it. First I want you to think, “Do I understand what this person is saying? Do I get their thinking?” And if you don’t get her thinking you are going to ask her a question. And if you do get her thinking, I’m going to ask you to explain it or I might ask you to explain the other person’s thinking. So your job right now is to understand the picture that is on the board and the explanation that is going to come with it. Okay?

29. Paint the Porch—Segment 2 • Chelsea: Well, I was thinking half of the porch is two thirds and… • Teacher: What’s two thirds? How could half be two thirds? [focus on meaning] • Chelsea: Because…..I forgot. • Teacher: What does this two thirds represent. What was the two thirds meaning? What is the meaning of the two thirds? • Chelsea: two thirds…

30. Combing Through The Transcript • Please use the transcript. • Compare it to the handout: Cultivating Classroom Discourse to Reveal Student Thinking • Work with a partner and identify the moves.

31. How do you get started? • Clear, explicit, expectations • Naming the moves and practicing them • Slowing down the conversation • Valuing ideas--staying focused on one idea at a time • Unpacking confusion, mistakes, conjectures as a community--everyone helps • Staying with a student long enough to understand the student’s thinking • Coming back to students who are not fully engaging with an idea

32. Know Your Purpose • If your purpose is to increase student discourse, invent ways to do that. • Partner Talk • Face your Partner • Fishbowl/Video Examples • Analyze and make anchor charts • Small Group • Roles to play • Whole class: • Socratic circles • Inner and outer circles

33. Cultivating Classroom Discourse To Make Student Thinking Visible: Operating Principles • Please read over this document. • Notice the questions offered in the example column and characterize the kinds of questions listed there.

34. Effective Questions Depend on Purpose • Why is it that we continue to talk about open and closed questions, higher order thinking questions, and so forth and the research shows very few teachers are using these kinds of questions often or well?

35. Research Findings: Alexander • Open questions made up 10% of the questioning exchanges (in 500 classes across 5 countries) • 15% of the sample did NOT ask ANY open questions • Probing the the teacher to encourage sustained and extended dialogue occurred in 11% of classes • Uptake questions occurred in only 4% • 43% of teachers did not use any such moves • Pupils’ exchanges were very short—5 seconds on average • Pupil answers were limited to 3 words or less 70% of the time

36. Learning from Research • Questions are designed to encourage reasoning and speculation, not just elicit right answers • Oracy is regarded as no less important than literacy • Relationships between talking, reading and writing is clearly articulated • Sustained oral work in most lessons • Purpose of classroom talk is mainly cognitive—focused on developing thinking • Teachers model talk at its best • Talk between individual student and teacher is often sustained over a sequence of several exchanges

37. Regina’s Logo: Assume the pattern continues to grow in the same manner. Find a rule or formula to determine the number of tiles in any size figure. Size 1 Size 2 Size 3 Size 4

38. Randall Charles

39. Randall Charles BIG IDEA-- EQUIVALENCE: This word or phrase is a name for the Big Idea; it is not the idea itself. Rather the Big Ideas are statements like the following: “Any number, measure, numerical expression, algebraic expression, or equation can be represented in an infinite number of ways that have the same value.”

40. Homework from previous night • Regina’s Logo: find a closed form and recursive equation to determine the number of squares in a size 13 logo • Determine what size a logo would be that had 53 squares.

41. Upon Entering the Class • Work in Groups of 3 or 4 • Discuss Last Night’s Homework: • Compare the closed and the recursive equations you created • Share how you came up with them • Why they make sense • Why you need them • Then work on Schemel’s logo—pages 3 & 4, #5-9

42. The Video: Early Work on Talk • The groups have completed their discussions • Two students are at the board-one acting as scribe and the other facilitator • Teacher is off to the side of the room • Two students have offered equations and one has offered a table which have been recorded on the board • We drop in when the teacher asks how the students arrived at the equations

43. The Class has already established that this is a linear equation and shared a couple of different yet equivalent equations which are on the board.

44. Giselle’s Video • Write down what teacher is saying.

45. Day 2—Welcome Back! • Connections between Achievement Chart and Talk Moves • Naming the repertoire of moves made by the teachers in the videos in response to students • Assessment for learning (Informal) • In real time • Descriptive and Objective • Evaluation • Addressing the tension between assessing and evaluating • Acknowledging Paradox and Misalignment

46. Repertoire of Responses • Validation (You are seeing a different pattern.) • Scaffold (So where does this pattern show up on the chart? • Inclusion (Are you following what he/she said?) • Backtrack (Trace the thinking to develop self-awareness/self-monitoring.) • Redirect (Let’s go back to…) • Probe (Explain your idea.) • Encourage effort (Try again. You can do it.)

47. Repertoire of Responses • Invite discussion (Do you agree/disagree?) • Return to the Key Ideas (How is this logo growing?) • Ensuring Safety (You want to hear it again?) • Make Connections (How is your equation connected to his equation?) • Chunking (Wait. Who followed this so far?) • Careful Choice of Solutions/Perspectives to Discuss (Ambiguous, faulty, sophisticated)

48. Achievement Chart/Talk Moves • More talk time helps students process (think), dig deeper (inquiry), communicate their ideas and apply their growing understanding.

49. Is This Really an Either/Or? • How is it possible to both cover the curriculum AND have students engage in rich, robust dialogue frequently? • How might we need to think differently about the use of time in and focus of a lesson in terms of ‘covering the curriculum’ if we were to include substantial time for substantive discussion/dialogue in our classrooms to increase student understanding and application capacities?

50. A Both/And Perspective • Assessment can be enormously constructive in teaching and learning and also enormously destructive. • Pollard and Tann • …assessment debate awash with hidden assumptions, unstated views, partial truths, confusion, irrelevant emphasis and jargon. • Derek Rowntree