Powerful Questions to Get Students Thinking

I don't take credit for these questions, but just think how effective they can be in pretty much any discipline at school.  I have them posted and ask them to my students often.  My next job is to make sure each student has their own copy laminated and put on their own desk so they can ask each other the questions as they plan, discuss, ponder and create together.

I started off using them during math instructional time, often in a think-pair-share situation, sometimes in a whole group discussion, and sometimes with an individual student who is working through a challenge.

What about using this when defending your point of view in a debate?  How about using it to structure an essay?  How about as a pre-assessment when you want to find out what students know about a particular concept or skill?  How about as a simple summative task at the end of a unit, using the Lines of Inquiry to frame your questions?

You can use these questions as a teacher of five year olds or as a teacher of twelfth graders, equally effectively.  They transcend age and topic.  In fact, you can use them in your business or in a family discussion.

Love 'em!  Enough said.

Messy Thinking

I'm a big fan of "making thinking visible" in its many incarnations, and my big goal is to use at least one visible thinking routine each day in any discipline (or transdiscipline, better yet!), and to really start to make the routines what they are: routines.

I am presently reading Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison and so far one of my biggest takeaways is the messiness of thinking - in a positive way.  They suggest that instead of thinking about the different kinds of thinking ala Bloom's Taxonomy, it might be better to start thinking about the quality of thinking within different kinds of thinking, and to start teaching to that.  Project Zero research suggests, contrary to Bloom's taxonomy, "understanding is not a precursor to application, analysis, evaluating and creating but a result of it (Wiske, 1997).  Therefore, understanding isn't a type of thinking, but a result of thinking.

All of this thinking is actually making my brain hurt after a long day of tending to a daughter with food poisoning, and doing my own soul searching kind of thinking about the randomness of the universe, how powerless we can feel when we can't help the people we love the most, and at the same time list-making all the items I need to pack for my five day trip to Xi'an tomorrow with a group of ten and eleven year-old students that begins tomorrow.

Today I am living proof that thinking is disorderly, non-sequential, doesn't always seem to make sense yet is strangely interconnected.

And so to bed.  Dreaming is a whole other level of thinking that I think it's safe for educators to stay well away from in their research!

Making Thinking Visible While Measuring Angles

Warning: Unless you are familiar with both "Making Thinking Visible" and an inquiry-based teaching approach, you may not find this particular blog useful.  If you are, please read, comment and add your suggestions!  I don't profess to be an expert by any measure or degree.  (I'm making a funny...)

I will soon be starting an inquiry into angles in mathematics, which fits well with How the World Works and our primary six/grade five study of structures.

After taking the "Making Thinking Visible" online course offered through Harvard as a staff last year (google it to find all the thinking routines/take the course to dramatically improve your teaching and your CV!), it has become clear to us all how well the thinking routines fit in with our inquiry model in a PYP school.  Last year, I used them extensively within my transdisciplinary themes, but this year I'm getting more comfortable using them in stand-alone mathematics planners.

The conceptual understanding I want students to arrive at is: Angles can be measured and constructed for a variety of purposes.

In order to do this, students are going to start by doing a THINK/PUZZLE/EXPLORE routine.  This can be used as a mini assessment.

Students will make obviously connections that go beyond geometry.  Angles are a very important concept in geometry though they are not often thought about in our daily lives. However, angles impact our lives in more ways than we think. Students will begin to understand that we all use angles without even realizing.

We will do a THINK/PAIR/SHARE with the following questions:

1.              How do people in various professions use angles to complete their work?

2.              How do all people use angles in their everyday lives?

3.       How do you use angles?

After time spent walking around the school in pairs and identifying angles, then coming together to list them, students will get an “Angle Facts Worksheet” in which they will have to draw the examples they found. 

Students will also undertake a “building a house” activity that promotes understanding of angles; students will do the CREATIVE HUNT thinking routine with the word TRIANGLE, identifying its parts and purposes (How does it work?); the main purpose (What is it for?); and the audience (Who is it for?).  Students will make a ‘target diagram to explore this idea.

After ample inquiry time, students will watch two khanacademy.org videos on identifying and measuring angles.  After they complete their viewing, they will do the CONNECT/EXTEND/CHALLENGE routine.

Students will then engage in some Mathletics exploration and problem solving to do with angles and finally do a HEADLINE routine to summarize their overall understanding of the importance of angles.  This will serve as a good summative overview.

 Reflections on planning a mini-inquiry using the thinking routines:

By using the “backwards by design” planning model in addition to incorporating the visible thinking routines in my mini-inquiry into angles, I feel really empowered about how I can teach students to think and explore through mathematics without using direct instruction at the outset.  Though it wasn’t my intention, I find it interesting that I used three UNDERSTANDING ROUTINES (Connect/Extend/Challenge, Think/Pair/Share, and Headlines) while planning an inquiry into angles.  It makes sense in that this is a rather straightforward concept, but can be taught/learned with a depth that I haven’t explored before as a learner or as a facilitator.

The fact that I plan to use a CREATIVITY ROUTINE (Creative Hunt) will also be an interesting trial: I'm hoping it will allow us to see that you can go beyond basic facts in geometry and see things from different angles.  (Pardon the pun!)  I like the idea of extending student thinking beyond the factual and exploring the creativity and play behind things, even when dealing with empirical, proven information.

I'm so thankful that I am learning how to be playful in mathematics, and teaching my students to be the same.  The best part?  They're learning more deeply through their exploration and play, and they're having fun.  You can't argue with that combination, can you?

The Thinking Questions

My very favorite visible thinking routine is probably the simplest one: the thinking questions.

What makes you say that?

What do you see/hear/read, etc that makes you say that?

What does that tell you, then?

I keep these questions laminated and have students use them with each other during discussions about ANY topic/subject/discipline.  It deepens their level of thinking and makes them justify their opinions.

The simple act of  just saying, "What makes you say that?" regularly in class is a big game-changer.  If you just start with that and make a point of doing it whenever you can, students will get used to it, and their thinking will automatically grow deeper with little planning on your part!

I also use these questions for writing prompts.  Below is a piece a student wrote regarding puberty using the thinking questions.  You can do the same with any topic.  This is written by a grade five student with quite strong writing skills, but I believe this sort of thinking, brought forth through speaking and writing can be encouraged and developed at any level.

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An Example of Using the “THINKING QUESTIONS” to write:

Introductory Sentence:

I think puberty is going to be a challenge.

What makes you say that?

From what we have read, it seems I am going to have to learn some new strategies for getting along with my parents, some new ways of communicating with my friends, plus I am going to be dealing with all my hormones at the same time.  I’m a bit worried about getting my period and all the stuff that goes along with that.

What do you see/hear/feel/read etc. that makes you say that?

I see people like my brother who are already in puberty and the way they act.  They try to be cool, but I can see that he feels insecure and uncomfortable with himself.  His voice is changing and he’s got pimples.  He sometimes talks to girls on the phone, but he always seems embarrassed around girls.

What does that tell you, then?

Watching my brother and other teenagers tells me it is going to be fun, especially since he gets to do way more things that I do, but also rather embarrassing and sometimes a struggle.

Final Paragraph:

I think puberty is going to be a challenge.  From what we have read, it seems I am going to have to learn some new strategies for getting along with my parents, some new ways of communicating with my friends, plus I am going to be dealing with all my hormones at the same time.  I’m a bit worried about getting my period and all the stuff that goes along with that.  I see people like my brother who are already in puberty and the way they act.  They try to be cool, but I can see that he feels insecure and uncomfortable with himself.  His voice is changing and he’s got pimples.  He sometimes talks to girls on the phone, but he always seems embarrassed around girls.  Watching my brother and other teenagers tells me it is going to be fun, especially since he gets to do way more things that I do, but also rather embarrassing and sometimes a struggle.