O a Goal of Education Is to Get Students to Use Their Minds Well

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/122

[this weblink has examples on how to use strategies around the formation of essential questions-scroll down to the section COACHING HABITS OF MIND: Pursuing Essential Questions in the Classroom]

o a goal of education is to get students to use their minds well [ala 21st Century Skills, ala critical thinking, ala higher order questioning…see how it all connects to our overall Prof Dev plan?]

What, for instance, does it mean for a student to "work" in such a class? Clearly it does not mean to take assiduous (very careful, diligent) notes as a teacher delivers instruction from the front of the room. It is suggested that teachers, instead, act as coaches--"to provoke students to learn how to learn, and thus to teach themselves." This kind of "authentic" student work is active and collaborative; it has evident value and clear goals, and it generates more ideas, connections, and challenges the more it is pursued.

Authentic work, says Coalition research scholar Grant Wiggins, who has studied the pedagogy of Essential Schools, meets these and other very specific standards. When students are really workers, Wiggins says, they can always answer certain questions [ala the student interviews we have conducted and need to continue as a practice]--about the task's purpose, about the resources needed to carry it out, about what it means to do the task well. They can grasp what is essential about the task, set priorities, and make intelligent judgments.

This way of looking at work contrasts directly with the traditional pedagogy of American secondary education. For a century high schools have asked students to memorize facts and answers in carefully distinct fields of study; and teachers have been under pressure to design courses that cover a specific chronological sequence of material. This emphasis on coverage in the curriculum inevitably focuses attention not on how to learn or think, but on what facts one "needs" to know, presented once only in a linear "run" through four years of school. But what one "needs" to know depends, as David Cohen forcefully argues in The Shopping Mall High School, on what one's future role in the social structure is seen to be. The fragmentation [points to the need for an integrated curriculum] of the curriculum into subjects, levels, and purposes that will appeal to every student reflects the historical role of American high schools less as centers of learning than as holding places for people whose place in the social and economic structure is not yet ready for them. Except for a few at the top, whether or not our students learn to think has not been the point at all.

The starting point, as Grant Wiggins argues, is to "organize courses not around 'answers' but around questions and problems to which 'content' represents answers." Such "essential questions," as they are known, are an important ingredient of curriculum reform as the Coalition of Essential Schools sees it. On every level--from the most encompassing, school-wide questions to the specific question posed in a particular unit of a particular course--the "essential question" should shape the way students learn to think critically for themselves.

For example, the entire curriculum is focused on getting students to ask and answer questions like these: "From whose viewpoint are we seeing or reading or hearing? How do we know what we know? How are things, events, and people connected to each other? What in this idea is new and what old? Why does this matter?" When they are applied at the course level, such questions consistently engage students in what Benjamin Bloom calls "higher order thinking"--analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating evidence they gather themselves.

U.S. history class focusing on immigration centers around a more specific "higher-level" essential question: "Whose country is this, anyway?" That question shapes the materials and activities that will guide student research into smaller, unit-level questions, like "What factors motivated people to uproot themselves and come to this country?" or "Are there ethnic differences in these factors?" By exploring the political, economic, and social forces that shaped American immigration from its beginning--and by asking at every point the guiding "school-wide" questions--students gain a critical understanding of the content of U.S. history, rather than memorizing a set of facts or someone else's interpretation of what those facts mean. Asking questions as a way of organizing content also serves to strengthen students' sense of their own authority over the content. Through their work they become experts on one aspect of a problem, and learn to collaborate with other students in the exchange of important facts.

Each entry point question will have its own specific ways it encourages students to use their minds well. Some questions will tilt in the direction of content mastery, others towards the development of higher-order thinking skills like deductive reasoning. By actively carrying out such assignments students are learning different kinds and levels of intellectual skills all at once.

"Instead of merely 'covering' material, students UNcover and REcover important ideas in context," says Grant Wiggins. "No essential idea, fact, theory, or application can be learned by doing something ONCE." Wiggins compares such learning to the ways in which ball players or musicians master their skills--they learn new rules and strategies as they need them, not in "logical" order; and they make such essential skills habitual by practicing them again and again.

If the analogy is carried further, the teacher's role as coach becomes even clearer--to make herself gradually obsolete as students learn to solve problems for themselves. This attitude extends also to the textbook, which the student learns to use as an intellectual resource for research, not a program to be rigidly followed in sequence.

For a school to decide it wants to abandon these goals, and move instead to another vision of teaching all its students to use their minds well, has deep political consequences. It is threatening to teachers, who must give up thinking of themselves as deliverers of information; and it threatens the assumptions that underpin the socio-economic stratification of our society. Little wonder that to move towards a school-wide curriculum reflecting the belief that "Less is more" is a step so hard to take. In the Coalition, the schools that have attempted it are almost without exception the ones directly seeking to empower students who might not otherwise succeed.

Essential Questions to Shape a School's Curriculum

In every class and every subject, students could learn to ask and to answer these questions:

 From whose viewpoint are we seeing or reading or hearing? From what angle or perspective?  How do we know when we know? What's the evidence, and how reliable is it?  How are things, events, or people connected to each other? What is the cause and what is the effect? How do they fit together?  What's new and what's old? Have we run across this idea before?  So what? Why does it matter? What does it all mean? http://questioning.org/mar05/essential.html

[there are more exs. of essential questions on this site]

What are the traits of an essential question?

 The question probes a matter of considerable importance.  The question requires movement beyond understanding and studying - some kind of action or resolve - pointing toward the settlement of a challenge, the making of a choice or the forming of a decision.  The question cannot be answered by a quick and simple “yes” or “no” answer.  The question probably endures, shifts and evolves with time and changing conditions - offering a moving target in some respects.  The question may be unanswerable in the ultimate sense.  The question may frustrate the researcher, may prove arid rather than fertile and may evade the quest for clarity and understanding.

Essential questions are not simply BIG questions covering lots of ground.

To trace the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a grand task, an enormous task, but it hardly makes for an essential question because it lacks focus and fails to move past description to analysis, synthesis or evaluation. If we were to ask instead how our modern state, be it Australia, the United States or Canada, might avoid a decline like the one experienced by the Roman Empire, we would convert mere collecting and description into a much more important and intriguing task.

It is not the sweep or the grandeur of the question that matters so much as the significance of the issues addressed. Matters of import are the crux of the matter.

They are worthy of our time and are likely to spark interest and awaken curiosity. They require new thought rather than the mere collection of facts, second hand opinions or cut-and- paste thinking.

The chapter proposes ten question functions to focus the transformation process:

 Build or Invent  Challenge or Destroy  Decide  Figure Out  Persuade or Convince  Wonder  Acquaint  Dismiss  Predict  Understand

If you Google essential question and include your subject area there are plenty of excellent resources. e.g. I found this link by googling “essential questions for math” http://www.keyschool.org/documents/Concepts%20of%20Elementary%20Mathematics.pdf The questions are at the elem. Level but are relevant to middle school.

STUDENT DIRECTED TEACHING

Other than the Teaching Styles, what sets Student-Directed Teaching apart from other teaching methods is the Community of Learners. Outlined by Anne Green in her book, Let Them Show Us the Way: fostering independent learning in the elementary classroom, the Community of Learners transforms the classroom into an experiential educational space.

The idea behind the Community of Learners is premised on the notion that "in [this] environment children take charge of their learning, as their strengths and gifts rise to their potential."

The Community of Learners is a way of arranging the classroom in which learning is actively experienced rather than passively absorbed. The children are free to move around the classroom, interacting with their peers, teacher and available resources equally and indiscriminately. This type of room configuration is meaning full for classroom discussions. This allows not only for students to gain from interaction but also interaction from the teacher. The student teacher relationship many times is based on authority. In this room figuration the teacher is seen as more interactive with the students. There are more opportunities for teacher to mentor and guide discussion and classroom instruction. This allows for the students to see the teacher as an educational model. The teacher will be more approachable and may even be able to guide students in various subjects other than just learning. This more friendly atmosphere will allow all students to participate in classroom discussion. This discussion prepares the student for further interactions with authority figures and they will learn healthy way of talking with peers and those who hold a higher status position. The community is created in equal parts between the student and the teacher, erasing traditional, superficial, hierarchies. Anne Green arranges her Community of Learners in the following manner:

...children's desks, or home base (as they call it), are arranged in a circle, leaving a wonderful free area in the centre of impromptu mime, plays, dance , and groups gathering to hear a story, song, or poem woven into the learning... the outer edge of the classroom accommodates painting, music, books, manipulatives, children's projects, and small groups of students, parents and the teacher, all of whom can slip in and out of the center to mediate or join the ongoing learning.” The Community of Learners must not be confused with an area of anarchy. The students have complete mobility and freedom to demonstrate their understanding and ability, but there are certain rules.

 Refrain from stepping on anyone else's words. Teachers and parents, in particular, must be aware that as children interact socially, adding their story versions and asking questions, the narrative invariably improves. Often what adults think of as interruptions actually give wings to the stories.  Build onto one another's ideas and accept all ideas as a part of the thinking that is responsible for webbing the rich and welcome everyday knowledge with the school knowledge, and vice versa.  Use space wisely  Stay on task.  Share as needed with a peer or an adult in the room after asking politely if that person can spare a minute.  Assemble at home base to share works-in-progress. Everyone is welcome to continue writing; however, out of respect for those wishing to share, side conversation is not welcome.  Give whole class attention when there is a teacher lesson or a guest speaker.  Give whole class attention when a peer is celebrating his published work.  Understand that when asked to focus as a whole class there will be strategies, skills, stories read, or information shared in context with the ongoing learning. (This is a time when the teacher takes advantage of the "teachable moments.")  Take advantage of the one-to-one mini-lessons. During these lessons, it is important to practice listening, wondering, and questioning with the student. This can be a time of growth and self-discovery, and often a student just needs encouragement to use his own ideas to solve a problem.

The strategies that are critical to teach:

 antecedent cue regulation and picture cues: visual or audio cues that students can use to guide their behavior, such as a card that says HOMEWORK placed on a child's desk before homework is due

 self-instruction: a problem-solving strategy that involves talking out loud through a problem and its solution

 self-monitoring: a way for students to monitor their tasks and behavior through self-questioning, checklists or other tally devices, and audio cues

 self-evaluation: a way for students to evaluate the quality of their work, skills, or behavior by using rating scale (e.g., 1-5, phrases, pictures)

 self-reinforcement: a strategy for having students self-administer rewards or consequences (e.g., a student can say out loud, "I did a good job!")

"These strategies can be learned," Dr. Agran says. "You can use step-by- step instruction sequences, approaching the teaching systematically like any other teaching environment, to get the student to be more independent." Although the skills can be combined into a complete curriculum for some students, "use the skills that best suit individual students, and don't confuse students by trying to integrate more than one strategy [into a student's repertoire] at a time." Constructivism: Learner-Centered Instruction

In Constructivist Teaching learners construct their own understanding rather than having it delivered or transmitted to them. Learners use their own experiences to construct understandings that make sense to them. New learning depends on prior understanding and is interpreted in the context of current understanding, not first as isolated information that is later related to existing knowledge.

Learning is enhanced by social interaction. Social interaction in constructivist lessons encourage students to verbalize their thinking and refine their understandings by comparing them with those of others.

An important part of Constructivism are authentic learning tasks. They promote meaningful learning. Authentic tasks are classroom learning activities that require understanding similar to thinking encountered outside the classroom. Many abstract ideas can be made more realistic by embedding them in authentic tasks.

Constructivist learning activity lessons focus on explanations and answers to problems or questions [ala Essential Questions]. The explanations and answers come from learners, not from the teacher, and derive from content representations and social interaction. The teacher helps students construct knowledge by guiding the social interaction and providing content representation.

Constructivist lessons face students with a question that serves as a focus for the lesson. Students are active, both in their groups and in whole-class discussion. Students are given autonomy and control to work on their own. Students develop understandings that make sense to them. Students also acquire understandings that can be applied to the everyday world. Constructivist lessons are intrinsically motivating because they stimulate curiosity, keep learners actively involved, autonomous and controlling of what they learn. This also increases motivation which results in children learning more.

Teachers must know when to intervene to guide the lesson in the direction of the content goal. The also need to know when to provide additional representations of the topic, like when children are having a lot of trouble on a topic. It is very important to have proper timing on when to bring the lesson to closure.

One way to make constructivist teaching more effective is by providing students opportunities to verbalize and share the ideas they are constructing. Group work involves students working together in a group small enough so that everyone can participate on a task that has been clearly assigned. The purpose of group work is to provide opportunities for each student to become actively involved in the thinking task at hand which increases their learning.

Direct Instruction: Teacher-Centered Strategies

Direct Instruction assigns a central role to the teacher in explaining, modeling, and providing opportunities for practice with feedback. The goals are understanding, logic behind skills; automaticity, skills are over learned to the point that they are used with little mental effort; and transfer, something learned at one time is applied later in another setting.

Characteristics of direct instruction include the teacher’s classroom management is especially effective and the rate of student interruptive behaviors is very low. The teacher maintains a strong academic focus and uses available instructional time intensively to initiate and facilitate students’ learning activities. The teacher ensures that as many students as possible achieve good learning progress by carefully choosing appropriate tasks, clearly presenting subject-matter information and solution strategies. Continuously diagnosing each student’s learning progress and difficulties allows teachers to provide effective help through remedial instruction.

Direct instruction is very efficient when specific content and skills are the teacher’s primary goals. The central role of the teacher’s modeling of attitudes, skills, and behaviors is one of the most powerful vehicles available for teaching these kinds of attitudes and skills. Procedural skills have a specific set of operations or procedures. They can be illustrated with a wide variety of examples and are developed with practice.

Planning for skills instruction includes the process of task analysis. The teacher specifies the terminal behavior, identifies prerequisite skills, sequences subskills, and diagnoses students. The teacher must also provide multiple opportunities for student practice and feedback.

Students often have different learning needs. Children have diversity in background knowledge which effects what they learn. To help these students, peer tutoring is effective. More able students can work with other students on specific skills. Strategically designed cooperative learning groups in which some members know and can explain missing skills or concepts is also helpful. If the teacher needs to re-teach skills, enrichment activities are useful for students who already know the concept. Technology also can target specific concepts and skills. Those programs can help children without taking away from class time.

The skills model is arranged along a continuum of decreasing teacher control. The first phase is the introduction. The primary focus is for students to learn about the skill, why it is important, and when it’s used and how it’s applied. The teacher verbally introduces the skill. The second phase is the explanation and modeling. The mechanics and subcomponents of the skill are explained. The teacher models the skill and explains how it works. Third is the teacher-directed practice. Students try the skill out under teacher supervision. The teacher leads guided practice to further explain the skill and ensure high success rates. Effective feedback increases student motivation by making the process of skill acquisition more efficient. The feedback is immediate, specific, provides corrective information for the learner, and has a positive emotional tone. The fourth phase is independent practice. The primary focus is on the students practicing the skill on their own. The teacher monitors practice to identify problem areas. Finally the fifth stage is extended practice. Automaticity and long-term retention and transfer is the primary focus. The teacher assigns homework and conducts long-term reviews.