Deepening my curriculum: Teaching Up “Syllabi, examinations, and university admissions criteria were changed to encourage thinking out of the box and risk-taking. Students are now engaged in project work and higher order thinking questions to encourage creativity, independent, and interdependent learning.” Ng Pak Tee from Singapore’s National Institute of Education (Darling-Hammond 185) In order to have a classroom which embodies the type of educational environment described above, I must deepen my curriculum. I must create projects which foster the creativity and and higher order thinking. What is the best way to do this? In researching, after I just asked myself this question, I discovered a workbook on Edutopia, which encourages teachers to ask three higher order thinking questions per lesson. That is a way that I can begin to build a different kind of classroom. I can then base projects only around these higher order thinking types of questions. Collaboration There really isn’t enough time to properly collaborate with my co-teachers. Our school meetings do not allow for the proper engagements, but they are more of the “hit and run” variety spoken of in the section entitled “Use of Time for Improving Teaching” (Darling-Hammond 201). I need to find a way to encourage our meetings to be more collaborative in an effective way. Making to time to encourage teachers to really collaborate, step into each other’s classes and understanding our peer teachers’ curriculums will help us to work together better. Student Ownership In order to really change the classroom, I have to give my students more ownership. I have to learn to teach them confidence, build their self-esteem, and encourage them to think and not just say what they think I want to hear. If I learn to trust my students, this will help the classroom to change into a more forward thinking, higher order thinking, engaged classroom.
7 Comments
K
10/26/2015 05:24:15 pm
The Ask Thinking Questions graphic is great. A suggestion that I can offer, and maybe you already do this, is to encourage your students to answer these questions in complete sentences. For my 2nd graders this is awesome practice. Many of my students are ELLs and assisting with and insisting on complete sentences improves their vocabulary and helps them to transfer ideas to paper.
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KIM VALLE
10/26/2015 07:57:07 pm
A great response! I totally agree with you on faculty meetings being more collaborative since in order to improve any school you need to have the faculty working as a team rather than separate entities!
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Andrew Biggs
10/27/2015 04:24:52 pm
I agree with your assertions regarding the importance of both projects and higher order thinking. As a relatively new adopter of PBL pedagogy at a PBL school, it's been amazing to see the levels of growth and student engagement that happen solely as a result of authentic purpose to student work. Regarding the Higher Order Thinking questions, are you familiar with Costa's Levels of Questions? A thing I've been trying out with students is to have them make Level 1, 2 and 3 level questions about a project that they are starting. It helps them to see the value of deeper questions while still honoring the fact that something they just have a base-level question.
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Devorah
10/28/2015 08:55:47 pm
Thank you for this! I will definitely look into the Costa's questions. This is great suggestion.
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Miryam Heller
10/27/2015 08:29:36 pm
I really enjoyed reading your blog. When I collaborate with my co-teachers I feel that I am better equipped to teach my class. Its very helpful to get the other teachers insights into the students and the curriculum that we are developing.
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Roger
11/6/2015 05:30:36 pm
Nice thoughts. I too like the triangle of thinking skills. I'm working with my students to push higher order thinking/creativity through developing and narrating content area (science) digital stories that link the "knowing" skills to the "synthesis" level. Trying to get them to understand that learning is a complex, contextual pursuit.
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Jane Gould
11/7/2015 07:44:06 am
Thank you for your suggestions, I found your blog to be very concise and it resonates with my philosophy. We teach Costa's levels of questioning at my school and one thing we do with it is give our students sentence starters and frames that relate to it. This way when they are talking to each other, they are using and hearing academic language. This is especially effective during Socratic Seminars. I think it is very empowering for them as they feel very clever :)
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