Changing the conversation...

If we are no longer teaching students what to think and instead encouraging them how to think, then it would stand to reason that our conversations at parent teacher interview also needs to be about the mechanics of thinking.

In an age of knowledge being just a click away, we no longer need to memorize information. We really need know how to find information and ascertain its accuracy. Good thinkers and good learners do this. There have been 16 Habits of Mind that have been identified in good learning. These skills range from persistence to asking good questions, and to metacognition (thinking about our thinking). Once we start focusing our teaching on facilitating learning, it becomes important to teach our students about good thinking. There are many websites, like edutopia, on the internet dedicated to the Habits of Mind. Our division even has a powerpoint circulating with pictures and definitions for teachers and students to view.

Thinking about using these tools with my own students got me to wondering about the conversations I would have with parents at our three-way-conferences. Being able to talk about habits that make for strong learning as opposed to focusing in on a subject area is an intriguing idea to me. So this reporting period I sent home information with my students for their parents about the 16 Habits of Mind. I also had a conference guide attached and had the students think about there best work this term, and identify the Habits of Mind that they were successful in using to be able to produce their finished product. I also asked them to look at their work that they identified as not their best, and identify a few of the Habits of Mind that they could have used to make the work better. Hopefully parents will take the time to read over the information and be familiar with these mind tools.

During our three-way conferences, I plan to steer the conversations as I usually do - having the student reflect on their learning and what they're doing well, and what they can work on. What will be different this time is that we will focus on the skills needed to be a good thinker. To become an even better thinker - what habits can they focus on for term two. I believe that this will be measurable. In the next round of interviews, we can view the students work again, and see if focusing in on 2 or 3 Habits of Mind increased their ability to think critically and creatively, and if it has a pay out in their classroom work and projects.

Occasionally we will focus on a specific Habit of Mind when exploring a new concept or creating a new project. Reminding the students of what that habit looks like, and modeling for them how they can use that habit to increase their level of thinking, should reinforce these tools and bring them into our everyday language.

The pace of change in education has started to move rapidly with the advancements in technology. Much of what we were taught as children is no longer relevant to the children of today. Now we must teach children to become critical and creative thinkers if we are to prepare them for their future.

Three-way-conference Guide for Parents
http://www.scribd.com/doc/114010670/Three-way-conference-Guide-for-Parents

Teaching kids HOW to think not WHAT to think...

As teachers we are constantly in a pattern of assessing what our students know, reflecting on what we need to do next, and responding by teaching to fill in the missing pieces.
While listening to my students' presentations on human rights violations, and reading their persuasive essays, I realized that I had missed an opportunity to teach my students some valuable skills.

Let me set the stage. Last year a few of my students attended the Me to We conference. There they learned about child labour, sweatshops, and that kids like them can help to initiate positive change. These students were knowledgeable and passionate about bringing awareness to these issues and being part of a solution. As a result, their project was on Fair Trade and they implored people to look for these products when they shopped. Sounds great, right? Well it was until they started to inform the class that Nike, The Gap, Old Navy, and many other local stores employed people in sweatshops and payed them a pittance. I asked them what their source of information was and they responded the internet. Well I have no idea whether these retails stores do in-fact employ child laborers in sweatshops, but that's not the point. The point is, at that moment I realized that I never taught them the skills needed to assess the reliability of a source.

I should have taught my students about bias, currency of information, reputation of the author, experience of the author, how to look at accuracy, relevancy, and to assess how convincing the information is. As well, I should have taught them about expertise, reputation, and corroboration. Fortunately I found three lessons to help. They are from the Tools for Thought collection at TC2. Not to keep harping about this resource, but it is a goldmine. Assessing the Evidence, Credibility of Sources, and Assessing Website Credibility are the three lessons I've selected to use over the next few weeks before we get into our next research project.

I had also noticed that the students wanted to go to the internet and type in their inquiry question. This may have worked well 10 years ago, but now Google is so full of junk websites that it's impossible to wade through efficiently. My students really don't see the wealth of information at their fingertips through the library. Our school backs the public library, so we're able to walk there whenever we want, but at this point, the kids wouldn't see why we would. With the support of our teacher librarian, we hope to change their minds. She wants to show them how to search for material in our library, the power of the encyclopedia, and the ease of finding good information in books. I've also been to the public library to pick up applications for the students. The library will process the applications before our visit, and I'm hoping that parents allow me to keep the small key-tag library card at the school for each student. This would allow students to look on the public library data-base and request books to the branch across the park. They will also be able to use their library card to look at online media like newspapers and magazines. When we're done showing them what's possible, I hope that they start to see "googling" as a last resort.

Giving them the tools needed to critically judge whether something they read is reliable, biased, opinion, or a hoax is exciting. It's teaching them HOW to think and not WHAT to think. I can also incorporate things like CBC's This is That, The Onion, and Adbusters. Using spoof news articles like the one from CBC's This is That about Texas adding sugar to their drinking water would be a fun way to put our new thinking skills to the test. After building these skills, we can even make our own spoof articles or advertizements. With such serious subject material, one must not forget the power of creativity.