Book Club this month centered around Chapters 4 (First Days of School) & 5 (Routines) in Intellectual Character by Ron Ritchhart.  The group used The Leaderless Discussion protocol to structure the conversation.  The discussion pertained to the following questions that were posed by the group members:

• How can we get students to listen to other students' arguments and adjust or reevaluate their own thinking?
• We want a learning oriented classroom versus a work oriented classroom.  How does our current grading system support this?  And if it doesn’t, what do we need to do to change the grading?
• How did this chapter on routines change or extend your understanding or ideas of thinking routines?

• How does a student’s first steps into your classroom on the first day of school affect the rest of the year?

                                      Session 2 of Customized Tour with Brandon Middle School 

Reuther science teachers traveled to Brandon Middle School on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, to continue their action research project.

This second meeting between the two schools followed the same format as the first. Teachers were given the opportunity to do two classroom observations. Sandy Wiley’s classroom used the Step Inside routine to consider different viewpoints on the impacts of climate change, and Dave Green’s classroom engaged in a Think-Puzzle-Explore to uncover their understandings and questions about chemistry.

After the observations, the group met to debrief.  The two presenting teachers brought student artifacts from their lesson for the group to analyze. With the use of the Opportunities Protocol, teachers discussed the central thinking in each of the lessons and offered suggestions on how to “bump up” the lesson to encourage deeper thinking.

The session ended with each of the science teachers analyzing and reflecting on their own student artifacts with the use of Ron Ritchhart’s Student Thinking Continuum.

 

Due to the success of last year's Visible Thinking Gallery Walk, the School Improvement Team planned another one for today's professional development session.  Each staff member brought one set of student artifacts from a thinking routine that had been implemented since the October PD session.  Staff was asked to have identified the "thinking moves" prior to choosing the routine.  The Gallery Walk was conducted in three twenty minute rotations, which allowed each staff member to "present" their student artifacts to the rest of the staff. In addition to presenting the artifacts, the presenting staff members used a Compass Points thinking routine to guide their presentation:

WORRIES:
What worries do you have about the routine/protocol?  What worries do you have about the outcome of your lesson?

STANCE/Steps/Suggestions: 
What is your current stance or opinion of this routine/protocol?  What steps will you take to improve or change the way you taught this lesson?  What suggestions do you have at this point about how to teach this routine/protocol?

Following the Gallery Walk, staff reflected on their learning by using a Connect-Extend-Challenge in their journal that was followed by a Microlab Protocol to share their learning.