Today Reuther Middle School received notification that it is the recipient of a 2015 Meemic Foundation Grant. The grant will be used to purchase a set of Ron Ritchhart's newly released book titled Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools for each staff member. As the Reuther staff continues its transformation journey to a Culture of Thinking school, the professional development centered around this text will provide further insights into the development of the cultural forces in all classrooms. It is anticipated that the rich discourse that will come from everyone on staff reading about best practices will inspire transformational change.

At today's PD session, a video was shared that shows each member of the Reuther staff reflecting on the question: 

 How has a Culture of Thinking grown in your classroom over the last two years? 

This video provides documentation as we continue our transformation to a Culture of Thinking school. 
   

In addition, staff continued to reflect upon their Environment as a Cultural Force by bringing an item or two to the first-ever Environment Auction.  Staff auctioneer Tom McGill had staff members providing reasoning as to why a particular item would enhance one of the 8 Cultural Forces in their classroom next school year. The staff member that provided the best argument to the esteemed judges (Jari Pathenos, Jill Suhajda, and Eric Williams) was the recipient of the auctioned item.  

CIA Teams also reflected upon this year's department goals, determining how their 2015-16 goal will enhance the 8 Cultural Forces. 

Beginning today, our weekly Cultures of Thinking Lit Bit will be sent out to the entire Rochester school district staff in an effort to share little bits of helpful information to grow CoT classrooms across the district.

Today we explored the first chapter of Ron Ritchhart’s new book Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools. This chapter presents three stories of education: the old story, the current story, and crafting a different story. Staff members read and discussed the latter two stories of education and recorded their thinking with a 4C’s routine.  Some of the 4C’s discussed were learning in collaboration instead of isolation, seeing past educational barriers, and engaging students with their thinking and that of others. Staff members also watched Bring on the Learning Revolution by Sir Ken Robinson and discussed ways to craft a different learning story in their own classrooms.  

Today's afternoon PD session included three opportunities to grow the conversation regarding the 8 Cultural Forces in our classrooms:

Today our Book Club group used the routine Connect-Extend-Challenge to discuss Chapter 6 from Intellectual Character.  Chapter 6 was about the cultural force of language.  Many connections were made to the “Wheel of Wonder” Principal Cheryl Gambaro gave us a few years ago, and that the idea of language used in your classroom is not new.  We discussed the possibility of making “language” the overarching theme for our building professional development next school year because it is such a rich topic.  We discussed how powerful the words we use in our classrooms are, and the impact they have on student thinking and student products.  

Today we took a glimpse into Sharonne Blum's ninth grade history classroom at Bialik College in Melbourne, Australia. Using a 4C's thinking routine, the staff read and discussed pages 257-261 of Making Thinking Visible. Some topics discussed included connections to Common Core, struggling students feeling smart, teacher as co-learner, non-grading of thinking routines.

Bialik College will be hosting a 5th Culture of Thinking Conference in Summer 2015.