Creating cultures of thinking through teacher language
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This document discusses how teacher language can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking in the classroom. It identifies seven key areas of language that impact culture: the language of thinking, community, identity, initiative, mindfulness, praise and feedback, and listening. For each area, the document provides examples of language moves teachers can use to align their language with developing a culture of thinking among students. It encourages teachers to reflect on how their language cues student behaviors and positions them in the learning process.
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Creating cultures of thinking through teacher language
- 1. Creating Cultures of Thinking Through Teacher Language ECET2 #OneCityUnited September 19, 2015 Denise Rawding
- 2. Creating a Culture of Thinking: 8 Cultural Forces • The modeling of the group leader. • The way time is allocated. • The way language and conversation are used. • The interactions and relationships that unfold. • The expectations that are communicated. • The opportunities that are created. • The routines and structures that are put into place. • The way the environment is set-up and utilized.
- 3. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 4. Do Now • With your table group, identify words that describe thinking and write them on the chart paper.
- 5. Language of Thinking • Defines processes, products, epistemic stances (attitudes), and states and allows us to communicate with others
- 6. Why is This Important? • Cue actions and provide a means to regulate our activity • Creates a “strategic narrative” • Assists metacognition for reflection and planning
- 7. How do we help students develop a language of thinking? • Noticing and naming
- 8. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 9. Language of Community • Speaker’s use of pronouns tells listener’s where the speaker is focusing. • “We” must include the teacher as a participant in the learning process. • Use of “they” – What kind of answer are they looking for in this problem? − Places control of the learning outside of the classroom − Put the focus back on the learner – What kind of answer do you think fits this problem?
- 10. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 11. Language of Identity • “Aboutitis” – teaching students about the subjects rather than engaging students as members of it. • Treat students as members of the discipline: readers, writers, authors, etc.
- 12. Using the Language of Identity to Frame or Set-Up a Lesson Today we are going to learn about chemical reactions. Today as scientists we are going to be investigating how chemicals react under various circumstances. Ritchhart, p. 75
- 13. Language of Identity • Conveys our intentions and cues behaviors • Places students in a specific role with an attendant set of behaviors • Rejects the role of the teacher as the deliverer of information and students as passive receivers
- 14. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 15. Language of Initiative “A generation of bored and challenge-avoidant young adults is not going to be prepared to deal with the mounting complexity of life and take on the emerging challenges of the 21st century.” Reed W. Larson, 2000, p. 170
- 16. Language of Initiative • Ability to be motivated from within to direct attention and effort toward a challenging goal • How does language help? − Helps students identify their reasoning and makes their thinking visible − Asks learners to identify explicit strategies − Can be used to frame situations and make explicit causal relationships and possible contingencies • Who is doing the thinking?
- 17. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 18. Language of Mindfulness • Conditional v. Absolute Language • Conditional Language – − Keeps the mind open and flexible − Allows students to access prior knowledge and build understanding of a subject − Encourages critical thinking
- 19. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 20. Language of Praise and Feedback Jigsaw Activity • Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job” by Alfie Kohn • Naming What Children Can Do • The Perils and Promises of Praise by Carol Dweck
- 21. Language of Praise and Feedback • Praise is not feedback. • Effective Feedback − Specific and related to the learning task − Received − Actionable
- 22. Agenda • Key language moves that can facilitate the creation of a culture of thinking. The language of: − Thinking − Community − Identity − Initiative − Mindfulness − Praise and Feedback − Listening
- 24. Language of Listening • Wait time • Ask authentic questions to clarify • Threading – making connections to other’s ideas • Conversation is facilitated through listening. • Challenge ideas in an exploratory sense • Extend the conversation by inviting others in
- 25. Leveraging Language • Becoming aware or our language and striving to align it with our intentions • Audiotape yourself teaching a lesson • Plan the key thinking moves you want students to make to help you notice and name them during the lesson. • Listen to your students • Other Ideas?
- 26. Connect/Extend/Challenge • How do the ideas presented today connect to the work that I am already doing? • What new ideas have surfaced that extend or push my thinking in new directions as a result of today’s session? • What are some challenges involved in taking these ideas back to my classroom and school? What questions or puzzles do I have now?
- 27. Further Resources • Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools by Ron Ritchhart • The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language that Helps Children Learn by Paula Denton, EdD • The Language of Learning: Teaching Students Core Thinking, Listening, and Speaking Skills by Margart Berry Wilson • Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning by Peter H. Johnston • Toward a Psychology of Positive Youth Development by Reed H. Larson, American Psychologist, January 2000.
Editor's Notes
- Process – justifying, examining, reasoning Products – a hypothesis, a question, a judgement Epistemic Stances – Reflects one’s attitude toward a bit of knowledge or an idea – agreement, doubt, confirmation States – confusion, awe, wonderment Why does this matter? Lang of thinking helps us to cue action and provide a means to regulate our activity (We don’t just want students to “think” about the text they read. We want them to consider alternative actions for the characters, make predictions about what will happen next, raise questions about characters, motives, etc.) Being more specific in our use of language directs students to specific cognitive acts. This is especially important for students who are struggling to engage mentally. **When we draw students’ attention to causal processes, we create a “strategic narrative that becomes available to struggling students and all students. **Powerful Notion: using our language to cue, promote and make visible the various strategic narratives of learning Having a language to identify thinking processes is a requirement for us to call them into play. If we cannot name the processes, then we can’t easily and effectively activate them.
- Noticing and naming- Noticing when and where students are thinking and specifically naming the thinking being demonstrated. This makes the thinking visible to the student doing the thinking and to others in the class also. Why is this effective? For us to notice something it has to be on our radar. **So we need to identify what kind of thinking we are looking for in a particular lesson. What kinds of thinking are needed to be successful What do I want to reinforce? To what do I want to call student’s attention? Becoming more aware of thinking ourselves and identifying what is needed to facilitate learning help us to be more responsive. We will be more attuned and more likely to notice what we are looking for, and notice when it might be missing. When it’s missing, we can step in and provide scaffolds to promote learning and thinking. When it is present, we can notice students thinking and make it visible to the group. **Whatever we are noticing and naming, we are reinforcing as well.
- Our use of language reveals our priorities, beliefs, and intentions. Examine our language to see if it is revealing what we want. If it’s not, we can make changes. Is our language inclusive and community-oriented? Use of “they” – especially an issue in math classes Who is they?
- Aboutitis – We teach a subject in terms of its elements, pieces, topics, and so on rather than engaging students in authentic activities such that we let them “play the whole game” Treat students as members of the discipline – Lucy Caulkins and Writing Workshop – “Caulkinized” but the language was one of identity Helps students assume the role, which goes beyond merely having a certain knowledge base as one disposal to actually engaging in the thinking and key processes that are important in the area. By using the language of identity in the classroom, a signal is given to students that they need to activate certain applicaple ways of thinking.
- At you table, compare these lesson openings. Does one seem more passive to you as a prospective learner? Does one of the framings prompt a more active response and engage a different set of mental processes? Does one framing seem more exciting to you than the other? What roles do you imagine for both the teacher and student under each framing?
- This breaks a paradigm of education where students are taught for a test. We need to help students envision themselves in the new role. The language of identity includes not only discipline-based roles, such as scientists, writers, and historians. It also includes process-based roles such as thinkers, researchers, analysts, commentators, advocates, and inventors.
- Initiative is a core requirement for other components of positive development, such as creativity, leadership, altruism, and civic engagement. In schoolwork, adolescents experience concentration and challenge without being intrinsically motivated. It is mental effort that is under the control of incentives and structuring provided by adults. As people develop a sense of agency, they see the world not as something that unfolds separate and apart from them but as a field of action that they can potentially direct and influence. How does language help? By asking questions and probing thinking – What do you think you were basing that idea on? What makes you say that? (reasoning and thinking) Tell me what you did. What’s your plan for tackling this? Where will you go next? (strategies) **One way to know that we are using the language of initiative and independence, rather than rescuing students and furthering their dependence n us, is to ask ourselves, “Who is doing the thinking?”
- Language is subtle in its presence but powerful in its impact on our thinking. Use of conditional words, such as might, could, one way to solve the problem… allows for mindfulness (Ellen Langer, 1989) Mindfulness is defined as an open, flexible state in which new categories and possibilities can more easily be created. Think of a time when someone made a statement using absolute language that you disagreed with. How do you feel about voicing your disagreement? Using absolute language can have the effect of shutting down the conversation. When someone expresses an idea in conditional language, it is easier to add your thoughts to the conversation. As teachers begin to model the use of conditional language, students begin to adopt the use of conditional language also. Conditional language is not about forgoing answers; it is about forgoing early closure to the process of finding answers. The use of critical language encourages people to think more critically rather than just accept what they are being told.
- Feedback should identify what has been done well, what still needs improvement, and then gives guidance in helping student achieve that improvement. If our words don’t achieve this, then our comments are probably best understood as evaluation rather than feedback.
- Listening shows respect for and interest in other people’s thinking. Ask authentic questions to clarify points, unearth any assumptions they may be bringing to the situation, and be sure of the speaker’s intent. Good listeners may paraphrase what speakers have said and ask speakers to verify that they have correctly represented their ideas. Threading – builds coherence and moves the agenda of learning forward, It requires the listeners to listen for the expression of key ideas, questions, or issues that might not yet be well formed in the speaker’s mind. We highlight these ideas for the group by noticing and naming them, thus bringing them forward for further discussion. Challenge ideas through questions – How do you think that idea would play out in another context? Let’s follow that line of thinking; what’s the action that might follow from it? Inviting others in: Susan, what do you think about what Tom just said? Susan, how does Tom’s idea connect with yours? These types of questions don’t come from preplanned lessons; rather, they come from careful listening to students.
- Becoming aware – Put up key phrases that you want to use “I notice…”