Making Thinking Visible - Chapter 4B

Can you believe it's AUGUST?!?!?! Where did summer go??

This August, I'm participating in a monthly blog challenge called Blaugust. My hubby actually started this a few years ago within his blog-o-sphere and I stole it last year to help motivate myself to blog during one of the roughest months of a teacher's year!

To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo below. Please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! :)

This will be the 4th or 5th time that I've tried to blog on a daily basis for a month and I am hoping that this is the time that I actually follow through!  I have been recording blog ideas using an app on my phone, plus we have the 50 prompts that I posted last week, so here's to a successful blogging challenge for all of us! :)

If you want to join in the blogging fun, it's not too late!  Go HERE to sign up! :)

Making Thinking Visible - Chapter 4B

About a month ago, I blogged about Making Thinking Visible.  Then for multiple reasons, I stopped. :)  We had workers at our house, Pam went to TMC, all the craziness that comes with July!  Anyway, I have finished the book and before I get into another topic, I want to finish up the posts on MTV so I will have the reference later on when I need it! :)  

Note:  As before, I've linked the specific routines discussed in this chapter so that you can learn more about them.  My notes and thoughts are below each heading.

3-2-1 Bridge

• Note:  the link above has some great resources, including templates for this routine!
• We are probably all familiar with the traditional 3-2-1 prompt, but this thinking routine adds a "bridge", which I really like.  This would be a great pre/post assessment tool, having students do a 3-2-1 before and after, then link them together with a bridge (meta cognition, anyone?)  I teach at a 1:1 school, so I wonder about being able to do this online even... thoughts?
• I really like the tweak of the 1 simile or metaphor - what a neat way to have kids think outside of the box!  (Note from the author: "A metaphore takes a bit more time and thought to develop, and therefore these often do reveal a layer of understanding or misunderstanding."
• As a pre-assessment, this routine wouldn't work well unless students have some prior knowledge of the concept.  In stat, we do work with concepts that kids know something about, but need to figure out a way to easily activate that learning.. maybe a visual or a concept map?  Just saying "This unit we will be working with Univariate data" won't help kids, but maybe showing visuals of histograms, boxplots, etc would.
• The bridge is the powerful piece.  From the author: "In the Bridge, students look at their initial responses (sometimes with a partner) and reflect on how those first impressions differ from their current take on things."  
• The instructional period between the 3-2-1 needs to be more than just a review of past knowledge or skills because that won't change student thinking or present new ideas.
• Could this be used as a structure to the entire year?  For example, have kids do a 3-2-1 at the beginning of the year over "Statistics", then revisit after each chapter/unit?  Maybe this would provide more structure to the "brain dump" reflections I use?

Compass Points

• This routine is a decision making routine that forces students to examine a problem from all sides.  You can again see examples and templates from the links above.
• I really saw this routine being used in my classroom in 3 ways:
• Back to School:  Have 4 posters up, one for N/E/S/W and ask them to put post-it notes on each.  The 4 prompts would be:  What are your NEEDS for this to be a good learning environment?  What are you EXCITED about for this school year?  What are SUGGESTIONS you have for me as your teacher?  What are your WORRIES about this class/school year?
• Parent Night:  We only have 10 minutes per class on parent night, so I think this would be kind of fun.  I would use similar prompts with the parents with some tweaks.
• Test Review:  Again, 4 posters with N/E/S/W, but the prompts would change... What are the topics you NEED to study?  What are the ESSENTIAL topics from this unit?  What are your most effective STUDY STRATEGIES?  What are you most WORRIED about for this test?

Explanation Game

• This routine reminded me a lot of See-Think-Wonder, with a focus more on the parts than the whole.  
• To be honest, I didn't see a ton of applications for this one in my classroom.  The best example I could come up with was when students are identifying sampling methods.  I use a card sort to provide some mixed practice and the cards could be dealt out to each group member, they read the card, then name the method, explain it and give the reasons they think it is that method.  Could maybe even add in Talking Points for the group to go around and agree/disagree and why?  (Note:  If you have additional suggestions, PLEASE live them in the comments!  Thanks!)

Day 1 of MTBoSBlaugust is done!  Only 30 more to go! :)