8/11/2019 Mark Church Visible Thinking

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Asteachers we are often isolated...rarely do we have a chance to be in each other's space and classrooms

There are universal teaching and learning conundrums which we all struggle with

What's the right amount of scaffolding to support or inhibit learning

Building a culture of thinking for our students and ourselves

A culture is a group of people enacting a story.

What is the story of any classroom? Certain things we value and traditionalist, give visibility to, what's the culture of the school

What is getting learned in hereWhat is getting learned about learning in here

Culture is what is created from the messages that are received about how people are expected to behave

Culture is a message conveyer

How does a culture get shaped and shared? How we act, what we bring visibility, what we talk about shapes culture.

What is the story of learning when I went to school?

MemorisationStudySkill repetitionSaxophone and ensemble - developed critical thinking and analysis beyond the physical skillDedicated activity which required hours of time to 'perfect'

Where did the message come from? These things have traditionally shaped culture

Tests,questions asked,how you were graded,Interactions with teacher, each other - hierarchyWhat was modelled

Assignments you were givenRoutines and structuresHow mistakes were handled

How did you handle that first mistake from your students this year - that was a HUGE message communicator to the kids and your class'sculture

How do we become aware of the messages, however subtle, we are sending?

What is in my realm of influence? There are a lot of messages we convey that we control that are not the realm of the curriculum or BOSTES

How do we look at the learning in our classroom and pay attention to the learning that will serve here and now as well as the long term

What is the story of learning we are communicating?

What is our sense of duty to the tests students face in their 20s, 30s etc. tests will look different but tests will come. We can't lose sight of the long term.Parents are paying a lot of money shor a short term outcome

Need to think short and long term - need to serve the learning now and later

What do we wish the students we teach to be like when they are adults?

Dispositions - who we want them to become on the inside as interactive participants in this world; the residuals of education - after the name and dates andassessments come and go, what's left over? How do we pay attention to these residuals?

Create classrooms that support development of residuals

How do we help schools get there? What does a classroom need to look like?

Enculturation - Ron Ritchard - what gets lived in the day to day culture fosters the dispositions

Vigotsky - children grow into the intellectual life around them

What is the intellectual life of this school

Cultures of thinkingAre places in which a group's collective as as individual, thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day to day experience of allgroup members

Culture of thinking moves the organisation forward

PD days give teachers a chance to make their thinking visible

Cultural forces

Routines and structures - what do we want kids to be able to do no matter what the subject?OpportunitiesTimeModelling - when to step in or our, making choicesInteractions and relationshipsEnvironmentLanguage - questions and provocationsExpectations

If someone stepped into your classroom - what would they see or perceive as of value in your classroom's culture

Cross curricular peer review