Chances are beyond, hairy, creepy, dangerous, yugggh.. You may not have any thoughts on these creepy crawlies

What are your thoughts on the creature?

students in Naomi Arrow's 5th grade class at Bialik College in Melbourne, Australia, came up with many initial observations when Naomi introduced a unit on the creatures, everything from "I think they're creepy" to "They are hairy and have many legs."

Beyond first impressions, the students generated questions on aspects of arthropods that they were puzzled about: "How do they walk upside down?"

"How does the spider produce its web?" And (in an intriguing somersault of perspective taking), "Is there stuff that they stamp on, like we stamp on them?"

Naomi's students were applying a thinking routine called think-puzzle-explore, which has students share what they think about a topic, identify questions they puzzle about, and target directions to explore. Thinking routines help learners ponder topics that might not seem to invite intricate thinking at first glance, such as arthropods. Such routines jump-start thinking and make it visible.

So what is visible thinking?

We learn best what we can see and hear. We watch, we listen, we imitate, we adapt what we find to our own styles and interests and we learn from them.

Mostly, thinking happens under the hood, within the marvellous engine of our mind-brain and remains unrecorded.

Visible Thinking includes a number of ways of making students' thinking visible to themselves and to others so they get more engaged by it and learn better.

When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more metacognitive, to think about their thinking. Teachers benefit when they can see students' thinking because misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding are more likely to be uncovered.

So what is visible thinking?

Six key principles anchor Visible Thinking and characterize our approach in schools.

Learning is a consequence of thinking. Students' understanding of content, and even their memory for content, increases when they think through—and with—the concepts and information they are studying. Thinking through issues is not a solo endeavour, however. Team members often share and build on one another's knowledge.

Notational systems, specialized vocabulary, and various technological and other tools also free up memory for more complex tasks.

Fostering thinking requires making thinking visible. Thinking happens mostly in our heads, invisible to others and even to ourselves. Effective thinkers make their thinking visible, meaning they externalize their thoughts through speaking, writing, drawing, or some other method. They can then direct and improve those thoughts. Visible Thinking also emphasizes documenting thinking for later reflection.

Classroom culture sets the tone for learning and shapes what is learned. We have identified eight forces that shape classroom culture:

(1) classroom routines and structures for learning,

(2) language and conversational patterns,

(3) implicit and explicit expectations,

(4) time allocation,

(5) modelling by teachers and others,

(6) The physical environment,

(7) relationships and patterns of interaction, and

(8) the creation of opportunities.

Depending on their form, these forces can support or undermine the rhythm of thoughtful learning (Ritchhart, 2002, 2007).

The development of thinking is a social endeavour. In classrooms, as in the world, there is a constant interplay between the group and the individual. We learn from those around us and our engagement with them.

Good thinking is not only a matter of skills, but also a matter of dispositions.

Open mindedness, curiosity, attention to evidence, skepticism, and imaginativeness all make for good thinking (Perkins & Ritchhart, 2004; Perkins, Tishman,

Ritchhart, Donis, & Andrade, 2000). Such characteristics concern not so much a person's abilities as how

the person invests those abilities. Children and adults often greatly underutilize their thinking capabilities.

Accordingly, besides nurturing relevant skills, education needs to promote open-mindedness over closed-mindedness, curiosity over indifference, and soon.

What are the visible thinking routines?

Thinking routines are ways in which our thinking can be recorded visibly further enhancing the higher order skills.

Such routines are short time bound goal oriented activities that can be used as classroom learning tools.

The visible thinking routines are a product of Visible Thinking developed at Project Zero at Harvard University –Graduate School of Education

So now going back to what we did at the beginning of the session-

Work in pairs and share which visible thinking routine did I engage you in

Activity 1- Activity 2 Gr 1- Gr 1- Gr 2- Gr 2- Gr 3- Gr 3- Gr 4- Gr 4- Gr 5- Gr 5- Gr 6- Gr 6-

ATL-Approaches to learning

ATL are deliberate strategies, skills and attitudes that permeate the IB teaching and learning environment.

ATL supports the IB belief that a large influence on a student’s education is not only what you learn but also how you learn.

Teaching students how to learn has always been a part of IB teaching, but now the IB is providing more explicit support for teaching these skills, aligning the Diploma Programme (DP) with the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and the IB Career-related Programme (CP).

Focus on ATL will improve the quality of teaching and learning across the programmes and may result in more engaged teachers and students.

What are the IB approaches to learning skills?

1. Thinking skills 2. Communications skills 3. Social skills 4. Self-management skills 5. Research skills

What are the IB approaches to teaching skills?

1. based on inquiry 2. focused on conceptual understanding 3. developed in local and global contexts 4. focused on effective teamwork and collaboration 5. differentiated to meet the needs of all learners 6. informed by formative and summative assessment.

How can you show evidences of ATL?

One way to create and reflect on your ATL and ATT practices in classrooms are by using Visible Thinking Routines.

For inspiration- Cultures of Thinking routine- Sentence-Phrase

-Word - YouTube (360p).mp4 Mark Church demonstrates the Headlines rout

ine - YouTube (360p).mp4

bibliography

http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/01_VisibleThinkingInAction/01b_WhyMake.html

Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins “Making Thinking Visible”-Educational Leadership-February 2008 | Volume 65 | Number 5 Pages 57-61

IB Diploma Programme- Handbook of practices and procedures- IBO ,2015