The Duckworth Chronicles

     This week I attended a conference at which the main presenter was Eleanor Duckworth, Harvard presenter, Piaget expert, and leader in examining how people learn. So, you can see why I had to use her name in my blog title this week. I mean, how does one become so fortunate to not only have worked closely with Jean Piaget himself, but to also have the surname Duckworth? Some folks have all the luck.

     The focus of the conference was on creative and critical thinking, and Ms. Duckworth (man, that name just keeps getting better and better!) encouraged we conference attendees to build in time on learning that promoted such thinking. 

     Her ideas are based on Piaget's insistence on self-regulation. There needs to be time and encouragement to allow our minds to think, "Why do I believe this?" The key to effective learning and to fostering critical thinking is that the individual must do this for him or herself -- not accepting information just because someone told them this is what they should believe. Duckworth asserts that not being told anything (i.e., the "answer") is what gets people interested. 

     The lesson for we teachers is to police ourselves to "get out of the way" of our students' learning. We must, as Professor Duckworth (oh, she's just been elevated to Harry Potter character status!) claims, put our learners in the position of researcher, in any content area and at any age, so that they are engaged with the materials of the topic itself, not just with the teacher. 

     I'll share some examples of all of this in action. Duckworth showed us an intriguing video from her days as an educational researcher in the classroom. The video featured two upper-elementary boys working with manipulatives on a math problem. They were given a rectangular block and were told it represented a candy bar, but that the candy bar company wanted to change the shape of the product without taking away the amount of chocolate. The boys were each given 4 small block squares they could use to determine the size of this rectangular block in order to deduce how to reshape it. Well, the boys went back and forth and back and forth, and finally came up with two different solutions to determining the size (volume, surface area, etc.) of the rectangular block. They also came up with two different answers regarding the block's size. They were then asked to explain their processes to one another, which they did, prompting another opportunity to grapple with which had been the correct method, leading to the correct answer. At no point did a teacher step in to announce who was right and who was wrong. 

     Now, you may be shuddering at the thought of this, as were many of the teachers present at the conference. We teachers often want to "jump in" to ensure that the correct answer is reached. Duckworth remained pretty insistent that it's okay to leave students with some healthy confusion, stating that once we tell them the answer is when the thinking stops. While this is a valid and, in my opinion, pretty fascinating concept, many of us are looking for more of a balancing act in our classrooms, at least as a starting point. 

     For example, although the boys were not using the terms "volume" and "surface area," it was clear this is what they were discussing. Many of us would have begun this lesson by supplying the students with these terms. But, in thinking about critical thinking and exploration, letting the students play around with the terms they are using first in the interest of building their organic experience with the concepts may be a better decision. Later, when this experience is solidified for them, the teacher can point out that there are terms for what they were discussing, and then teach them the vocabulary. Duckworth asserts, and I find myself agreeing, that only then will those terms have some true meaning for these students because they can attach the terms to an experience they have had. 

     A second video shown to us involved a class of first grade students reading a poem together. Once they had read it, the teacher simply asked them, "What do you notice?" Answers abounded, as, one by one, the first graders pointed out lines that rhymed, the rhythm and sound of certain lines, the use of colons by the poet, and repetition of certain lines and phrases. They even got into poetic structure, noticing that the beginning of each line of the poem started with a capital letter, even though there may not have been a period prior to this. Not once did the teacher jump in to clarify their "noticings:" she did not teach the term "colon," allowing the students to refer to it as "those two dots;" she did not introduce the term "rhythm" or discuss the "rules" of poetry regarding punctuation and capital letters. 

     Again, I watched as many teachers squirmed in their seats, asking, "When is she going to give them the answer?" And I guess what it comes down to is this: How do we work towards more of a balance in our classrooms so that there are times when "the answer" is less important than the opportunity to engage in some critical thinking and exploration? And, as a sub-question, how do we build up the resiliency in our students to be able to struggle through a problem without giving up?

     I think some of the answers lie in being sure that we take into consideration our students' zones of proximal development, challenging them "just enough" with a problem to explore without making it so challenging that they give up. Also, we need to build in more and more opportunities like those above for our students to critically explore a topic on their own. Imagine the critical thinking our students could experience once we build this habit with the proper scaffolding!

     

     Still intrigued?? 

     Check out this video of Eleanor Duckworth's speech -- Confusion, Play, & Postponing

     Certainty:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6YE02B_IiU

     Or the website she founded: 

     criticalexplorers.org

     Also, you MUST check out the following two videos featuring Sir Ken Robinson if you've
     never seen his work --
     Changing Paradigms:
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

     And . . . On Creativity:
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSIkQwS-kcs

Taking Down the "Vocabulary Time" Banner

     Ever assign some reading to your students only to realize later that they walked away with very little comprehension of it? If your answer is "no," then you and I need to meet. In person. As soon as possible. So I can learn all your secrets. But my guess is most of us would answer "yes" to this question. And this is really a dilemma, because reading needs to occur in basically every content area and in many, many walks of life. Numerous studies show us that a student's reading ability is directly related to academic success -- or failure.

     Know what else a student's reading ability is directly related to? A knowledge of academic vocabulary. The following is a sample reading from Fisher and Frey's Word Wise & Content Rich in which the authors substituted in nonsense words so that we could get a feel for what it's like to read a text when we don't know just 5 percent of the words:

"Caffeine is tasteless. A 'strong' sjdkjdkj is mostly the result of the amount of coffee in relation to the amount of water. The longer a bean is ksjdksjd, the less caffeine it has. 'Arabica' beans have less caffeine than 'Robusta' beans. 'Arabica' beans have more flavor that 'Robusta' beans, which are mostly used in high-volume coffees and instant coffees. Djkjkefje is the way the bean is sjfkjfee, not the bean itself.  You can use many different sjkjdkejds to produce sdjksjdk coffee. You can also use the ksdjksjds roasted coffee to make a larger cup of coffee. In the United States, skdjksj roasting results in a darker roast than kjdksjd roasting in Europe."

     You can probably still figure some things out about this text even without knowing 5 percent of the words. I'm sure you all gleaned that the text is about coffee. But, you might have a difficult time answering questions about the meaning of the passage, right? Many of you probably have a decent amount of background knowledge about the subject matter, so you could use that schema to help you fill in some blanks. But imagine if you had limited background knowledge about the topic and didn't know the words. Enter incomprehension.

     Here's some awesome news: as an educator, you can do something about this for your students. And I know, I know what some of you are thinking: "I do not have time to teach vocabulary. I have so many other things to cover in my content area! Please do not add this to my plate!" Never fear, readers. Fisher and Frey argue that we don't "need to hang up a banner that [says], 'Vocabulary Time.' Instead, [we can] incorporate vocabulary development seamlessly into [our] content teaching" (2008, p. 35). 

     (Now, unfortunately for you, readers, this post is a tad pre-mature. I just started reading the Fisher and Frey text this week, and am only about halfway through. So, my "how-to" examples will seem a bit scant. But they are great starting points, and I promise to share more later...Cross my heart...)

     Here's one way to weave vocabulary instruction right into content instruction: teacher modeling. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- you cannot beat effective modeling when it comes to good instruction. This example is no different. Fisher and Frey provide a sample of a teacher modeling via a think aloud while working through a mathematics problem:

"I see that the innermost parentheses can't be reduced further. x + 1 is in the innermost, the most inside parentheses, and I know that I can't add terms that aren't alike. So next I look to the outside and need to distribute the eight across the terms inside the parentheses. By distribute, I don't mean pass out papers, I mean apply it across the terms, so inside the brackets, I would get (8x + 8) + 2."

     Do you see how this teacher anticipated that students might get thrown off by the terms "innermost" and "distribute?" What's more, she didn't put a halt to the teaching of her content; she simply wove in a think aloud of the meanings of the terms.

     Here's something I think is even more helpful: modeling what to do if you come across a word you don't know. (Now, some of you probably have some pretty amazing vocabularies, so every now and then you may need to pretend not to know some words in front of your students in order to pull off this kind of modeling. It's for the greater good, trust me!)

     In reading a passage to his class, the teacher encounters a word he doesn't know and can model several ways he might go about solving this problem. He could model using the content clues of the surrounding words and sentences to guess at the meaning of the word, he could model breaking down the word into word parts like affixes to help him determine the meaning of the word. Or, he could model how to use resources to figure out the meaning of the word (like using a dictionary or asking a peer). The key is to allow your students to see these thought processes in action. And, again, the wonderful news is this can all be done in the midst of your content instruction. Vocabulary + content = the perfect pair!

     (There are lots more ways to incorporate vocabulary instruction with content instruction, I promise. Just let me keep reading and researching for a little while longer, and I'll hit you up with the info. in a later post!)

    

How Self-Assessment Can Play a Role in a Differentiated Classroom

     This school year has really been the year of differentiated instruction for me. This is not to say I never thought about DI before this year. In fact, while in my former district, I was one of the champions of DI, trying out a lot of the strategies I was reading about, discussing these strategies with colleagues, etc. But this year, as an instructional coach in a new district, I find myself working with numerous educators who really want to succeed with DI, but don't always know where to start, and have a lot of understandable concerns about how it all works. Coaching colleagues on implementing DI in their classrooms has opened my eyes to a lot of new possibilities concerning differentiation. In this post, I'll share one of my more recent thoughts and discoveries...

     It all started when I realized that the vast majority of teachers I was discussing DI with were asking the same questions: How do I group students? How can it be flexible? Shouldn't I be worried about how my students are going to react to being given different work to do than their classmates?

     I went digging around in all my books on differentiated instruction, and I found a lot of great ideas and suggestions to help answer these questions. But there was one suggestion that really hit home for me, that really aligned with how I believe DI can function in building student self-awareness and self-assessment, in turning some ownership over to the students. It's from chapter 6 of Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson by Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart, and it goes a little something like this:

     It doesn't always have to be the teacher who determines what differentiated work students do during a lesson. We can turn assessment over to the students, who, after all, are the experts on what they know and on what they don't know as of yet. Moss and Brookhart recommend using a student self-assessment sheet to do this. Here's a sample of what this might look like in a math class (2012, p. 111):

My Self Assessment

Try these problems, and then check what type of problem it was for you.

1.       Find the mean, the median, and the mode for this set of numbers: 2, 10, 4, 2, 7.

Mean _____     Median _____     Mode _____

 How is this problem for you?
__ I can already do it easily
__ I can do it, and want more practice with this kind of problem
__ I can learn it, and want to practice this kind of problem with help.
__ I am not ready for this kind of problem yet.

2.Jack sold newspapers at a newsstand. On Monday he sold 41 papers, on Tuesday he sold 58 papers, on Wednesday he sold 52 papers, on Thursday he sold 48 papers, on Friday he sold 57 papers, and on Saturday he sold 58 papers. On average, how many papers did he sell? _____ Is this number the mean, the median, or the mode? _____

 How is this problem for you?
__ I can already do it easily
__ I can do it, and want more practice with this kind of problem
__ I can learn it, and want to practice this kind of problem with help.
__ I am not ready for this kind of problem yet.

 3. Ms. Smith sold handmade jewelry at a shop. For the month of January, her sales totaled $163 the first week, $274 the second week, $873 the third week, and $842 the fourth week.

a. Which statistic makes her sales look better, the mean or the median? _____ Explain how you figured this out.

b. How many more dollars' worth of sales would Ms. Smith have to have made in January for her mean sales to equal $600? _____ Explain how you figured this out.

How is this problem for you?
__ I can already do it easily
__ I can do it, and want more practice with this kind of problem
__ I can learn it, and want to practice this kind of problem with help.
__ I am not ready for this kind of problem yet.

     I love so many things about this! It's a great example of a fairly simple pre-assessment that puts the ownership on the student to self-assess. I particularly love how this example requires the student to not only state where he or she is "at" in answering "How is this problem for you?" but also requires the student to actually do each problem before self-assessing. Sometimes, things can go wrong when we ask our students to self-assess in a differentiated classroom. They may not fully know their own current level of understanding. In having to do the problem first, they will be much more likely to self-assess accurately. There is also the worry of some teachers that, in a differentiated classroom, some students will be too easy on themselves on a self-assessment in the hopes that they'll be given an "easier" assignment as a result. I believe the above example helps to reduce this occurrence in asking the students to actually do the problems instead of simply making blanket statements about their current readiness. Of course, there may be some students who still try to "underrate" themselves on purpose. But I have to ask: does it make sense to not use these types of valuable self-assessments because a handful of students may abuse them? Besides, we teachers are not taken completely out of the equation just because there is self-assessment going on. We can always step in if we think a student has been too easy (or too hard) on himself or herself. 

     Something else I love about the above example is that it's so easy for the teacher to know what the next step is! Based on these self-assessments, the teacher can now form differentiated groups of students based on their readiness, and will know what types of problems to give each group, as well as which group he should probably work with first, second, and so on. 

     I hope this gives you some food for thought about ways you can involve your students in the differentiated learning process. Why not make them our partners in discovering what they currently know and are able to do?

To Ask or Not to Ask: That is the Question

     Lately, in my role as an instructional coach, I've been fielding a lot of questions about . . . well, questions. Allow me to explain: most teachers (myself most certainly included) have the common experience of having allowed a class to get sort of "taken over" by a handful of student voices. It happens without us even fully realizing it at first. We ask a question, and see hands raised. Gasp! Every teacher's dream! But over time, we notice that those raised hands are always attached to the same students. And now we've gotten into the easy-to-get-into habit of only calling on those students, since -- let's face it -- it's so much easier to just call on a student whose hand is up, a student who is confident and won't feel put on the spot, etc., etc. 

     BUT -- then it appears. That nagging teacher voice inside our heads, reminding us that this is not the way to run a classroom. That we want to hear from all our students, that we need to check for understanding from all our students. And so, we start asking each other questions about questions. 

     The questions about questions I've been fielding mostly involve the following: How do I ask questions that really check for understanding? How do I call on all students without putting a non-volunteering student on the spot, making them feel uncomfortable, nervous, scared, terrified?

     Here are some of the answers I've been giving. First, I say -- it's sort of our job to put students on the spot. I don't mean that in a bad way or with the negative connotation that accompanies the phrase. I just mean that we need to check for student understanding, we need to send the message that, in this class, every students' voice is expected and is valued. So, how do we do it comfortably? I believe it has a lot to do with setting our students up for success when asking questions. Here are my ideas:

• I think one thing that's really important is that, in addition to asking a student for an answer, we ask him or her to also explain the answer, to explain the thinking behind the answer. Isn't that a better way to truly check for understanding? And here's a bonus I'll throw in for ya: you can use this opportunity to gently call on one of those more reluctant-to-participate students. Here's how. Ask the class a question, and go ahead and take it easy on yourself -- call on one of those frequent flyers to give an answer. Ok? Here comes the twist. Then ask the entire class who agrees with this answer. You'll most likely get more hands raised -- students are feeling more confident now, they're thinking, "Hey -- that was my answer, too! I must be onto something!" Now, call on one of those agree-ers (preferably a student who is a less frequent participator) and ask them to explain why they believe that is the correct answer. Bingo. You've got some good checking-for-understanding going on, along with the added benefit of making it easier for that more reluctant student to get his or her voice heard.

 (Another questioning strategy that I really like for checking for understanding is reflected in the following scenario: A student asks a question of you during a lesson. Instead of answering it yourself, use this opportunity to your advantage, and open the question up to the class. What a great opportunity to check for understanding!)

• These last two are more ideas on how to ease our reluctant participators into participating. If students have all been working on a task, call on the entire class to share, NO exceptions. Here's a blast from my own classroom past to illustrate: For a homework assignment, I would ask all students to choose three quotes from an assigned reading that they found to be significant and to explain why. In class the next day, I would ask all students to choose one of their quotes (the other two can serve as back-ups should another student share the same quote) to share with the class, along with their explanation of its significance. We'd proceed right along until, inevitably, a student would not participate. This would either be due to a lack of confidence or due to the students' incomplete homework assignment. Here's the key: I would not let this student off the participation hook. Instead, I'd give them an "in," all the while reinforcing my message that everyone's voice will be heard in this class. I'd say, "Ok. There are eight more students who will be sharing. I'd like you to listen to what they have to say. Then I'm going to come back to you and ask you who you agree with most and why." I haven't let my student off the hook, but I haven't crudely put her on the spot, either. Instead, I'm giving her a way in to the discussion with a very specific task. 

• If students are working on a task during class, you're most likely circulating the room and checking in with them, right? Well, while you're doing so, keep an eye out for student work that you can highlight later when the class meets back up as a whole. If you see an answer (or a drawing, or a sentence, or a mathematical solution, etc., etc.) on the paper of one of your more reluctant participators, point out to them that you really like what they've done. Then -- and this is key -- give them a heads-up that, when the whole class meets back up in a little bit, you're going to ask them to share that particular thing you've just commented on with the class. Again, you're inviting them in without putting them harshly on the spot -- you've given them an "in" to the class discussion by building their confidence and by being explicit about how they will participate.

 So, there you have it. To ask or not to ask? I think we've got the answer!

Aha Moments

     Thank you, Oprah, for coining the term "aha moment." Otherwise I wouldn't have quite the right phrasing to describe this week's post. Yes, readers, this post is dedicated to sharing three "aha moments" I have had this week while conferencing and collaborating with some of the teachers I work with as an instructional coach. Sometimes when I observe a class, or have a discussion with a teacher about issues he or she is experiencing, an idea will just occur to me -- a new way of looking at something, a fresh perspective, an aha moment. (Side note -- this is why I think that, as educators, we need to watch each other teach more often and we need to have more and more open discussions with one another about issues in our classrooms, because often it is through these experiences that new ideas will come to us!)
     Here we go . . .

Aha Moment #1

     Lately I've worked as instructional coach with several teachers who are having difficulty getting their class's attention -- a problem all of us have experienced, for sure. We've talked about using quiet signals and about which quiet signal will work the best. The answer is that no one quiet signal is "the best." Truly this is the case since, if there were said magical signal, we'd all be using it. Here comes the "aha" -- it doesn't fully matter which quiet signal you use (whether it's clapping a pattern, ringing a chime, a call and response, etc., etc.). What matters is . . . drum roll, please . . . specifying your expectations for students. What should they do, specifically, when this quiet signal occurs?? I'd venture to say most of us (including myself before this particular aha moment) simply assume that of course our students know what we want from them at this quiet signal moment. But have we been explicit enough? Have we said, while practicing the quiet signal, "Students, when you hear this chime (or insert alternative quiet signal here), your eyes should be on me, and you should be absolutely silent. This means you are ready and are waiting to see what the next set of directions or what the next transition will be"? Have we posted these expectations in our classrooms? I think students need for us to be this explicit. Why leave it to chance that they just inherently know what the heck we're talking about?

Aha Moment #2

     This aha is sort of tied to a memory of mine. Lately, I've also been working with several teachers on using summarizers at the end of a lesson. Mainly, we've discussed avoiding falling into a rut with these summarizers. Tickets To Leave are great, but do students start becoming numb to them when they see them too often? My aha moment answers a resounding "yes." And I'll tell you why. While discussing repetitive summarizers with one of these concerned teachers, I was visited by the Ghost of In-Service Workshops Past. In a former district of mine, we teachers would be given a 3-2-1 exit slip at the end of each in-service. Reflecting on the workshop, we were to write 3 things that had interested us, 2 things we still had questions about, and 1 thing we could immediately start using in our classrooms. The first few times this type of exit slip was used, we all dutifully and thoughtfully filled out the 3-2-1 reflection. However, this went on for years. And years. By the time we had been filling out 3-2-1s at the end of each and every in-service workshop for four or five years, no one was being all that reflective or thoughtful about it anymore. Honestly? It was boring. It was old. We were tired of it. I can't help but think that students who are presented with the same summarizer day after day start to feel the same way. Aha! Variety is the spice of life!

And Finally . . . 

Aha Moment #3

     Lately, several teachers have lamented to me about students who repeatedly call out during a class discussion or during a question and answer session. This has frustrated all of us from time to time. And we know as teachers that this is not a good behavior to encourage in the classroom. It's unfair if only certain students' voices are heard, especially since these students are being heard due to behavior that can be interpreted as rude or inconsiderate of others. This is not the lesson we want to teach our students about how to be heard in life. But, what to do, what to do? And then it hit me! Get into the habit of asking questions by asking students to raise their hands. For example, instead of phrasing your question as "What is the main character struggling with in this paragraph?," phrase it as "Raise your hand if you can tell us what the main character is struggling with." Seem too simple of a solution to be true? Ah, my friends, but I've seen it work! With the latter phrasing, students are following the main direction being given to them, which is to raise their hands if they know the answer. With the former phrasing, no such direction is inherent. Another point for explicitness!

     I realize, having just written all of the above, how vital a tool reflective writing is. If I did not have this blog, this outlet for sharing my thoughts of the week, would I remember and retain these aha moments? Or would these realizations (simple and "common-sense-y" as they may be) slip my mind eventually, causing me to consistently struggle with the same issues? Reflective practitioning works, readers! Jot down those ahas!

     No more posts from me until I resume work during the first week of January. Happy Holidays, readers, and to my fellow educators out there -- have a lovely vacation!

When the Teacher Sneezes

     I've been reading a book by Todd Whitaker lately entitled What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most. It's an easy little read that (unfortunately at times) doesn't delve into too many specifics, but does offer a nice educational philosophy. Whitaker has conducted several studies on great teaching, theorizing to his readers that there are certain things that great teachers consistently do as part of their practices that set them apart from their colleagues. I thought I'd share some of these with you this week:

• Great teachers set -- and stick to -- expectations. Whitaker explains that establishing expectations is vastly different from establishing rules. He claims that "great teachers don't focus on 'What am I going to do if students misbehave?' They expect good behavior -- and generally that's what they get" (2004, p.18). (Remember I warned you about the lack of specifics?? Whitaker doesn't go into much detail about how great teachers expect good behavior -- about what that looks like and sounds like, etc. But his philosophy is a nice starting point for us all to start thinking about what that might look like for us.)
• Great teachers have a bag of classroom management tricks, like using eye contact or proximity. Great teachers know that a teacher never wins an argument with a student: "As soon as it starts, we have lost. If their peers are watching, they cannot afford to give in" (p. 26). And great teachers recognize that yelling doesn't work. (I learned this last lesson the hard way when I first started teaching. During my very first year, I yelled full volume at a very talkative class. It resulted in pin-drop silence . . . for about five minutes. I had lost my cool, my control. My students had won. They had been able to do that to me. I never yelled at a class again because I knew it didn't work.)
• Great teachers know that they want all students on their side. Whitaker offers this scenario: It's the first day of school. There are 25 students in a class and 24 of them are on their best first-day-of-school behavior. But #25 is not. As Whitaker insists, and I agree, right now the remaining 24 students are on the teacher's side. They want the teacher to take steps so that #25 will stop misbehaving. However, because #25 is one of them, they want the teacher to deal with #25 in a professional and respectful way. If the teacher does so, he's got the class on his side. If he does not, other students will begin to shift their allegiance to #25, and now the teacher has several #25s on his hands. Whoops. Whitaker claims that great teachers demonstrate respect for their students.
• Great teachers have high expectations of their students, but even higher expectations of themselves, says Whitaker. As a former high school ELA teacher, my expectations of my students and of myself were tested each time I assigned a major essay. I knew that if I expected my students to be able to complete this essay within a certain time frame, that I also had to be able to assess the essays within a certain time frame in order to provide feedback to my students. My expectations for my students kept my own expectations for myself in check.
• And, finally, when the teacher sneezes, the whole class gets a cold. As Whitaker says, "Our impact is significant; our focus becomes the student's focus" (p. 56). We as teachers set the tone for our classes each day. The teacher is the variable in her classroom. Whose behavior can she control? Her own. Whitaker recognizes that how teachers respond (to misbehavior, to a majority of a class failing a quiz, etc.) is the variable. "Good teachers consistently strive to improve, and they focus on something they can control -- their own performance" (p. 38).

     Now, I fear at times Whitaker might get a little "preachy" or a little simplistic -- and I've already remonstrated the poor man for his lack of specificity (give us some examples -- jeesh!) -- but all in all I enjoyed his common sense approach to what great teachers are doing in their classrooms every day that sets them apart as "great." I like that the above (though abridged) list is full of attainable mindsets and ways of thinking about teacher ownership over what occurs in a classroom. I hope this list sparks some thought and reflection -- I know it did for me!

John Dewey Throw-Back

     Hi readers. Just a quick post this week -- sorry (I'm a bit under the weather and not at my blogging-best!).
     Remember all that John Dewey you had to read as a undergrad education major? Well I stumbled upon some wise words from the father of progressive education just the other day on -- of all places! -- Facebook. I think I first saw the quote on Edutopia, a Facebook page that I "like" due to some interesting education blogs they sometimes post. Imagine my delight as I came across the following quote while scrolling through recent status updates:

"We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience."

~John Dewey

     Teachers, surely we can relate. We can have those wonderfully magic days in our classrooms where every objective is met smoothly by smiling students, every minute is well-paced. But, is it really just that 50 minute experience, the in-the-moment of teaching that lesson, that we learn from? Or does our learning truly come when we take the time to be reflective practitioners, when we sit down after teaching that lesson and reflect upon just what made it all work so well, and how can we replicate this magic in the future? The same can be said for those wonderfully horrid lessons -- if we take the time to reflect, these can also be excellent learning opportunities.

     But this doesn't stop with the teachers. Students should also learn from reflecting on experience. Of course, the first step has to be (as I wrote about in my previous post) making sure that the students are the ones doing the work and having the learning experiences in your classroom. But, as Mr. Dewey reminds us, the next step is equally -- if not more -- important. We must provide our students with opportunities to reflect on their learning experiences. Students must also engage in metacognitive practices, and, in order to do so effectively, must be taught how to be self-reflective about their work in the classroom.

     There's lots of ways to help students engage in thinking about their own thinking and about their own learning. Interested, and teach in my district? Then give me a shout and we can work together on building more opportunities for students to reflect!