Hello to my friends who work with learners in the entire school. You have such a special role in touching many, if not all, of the students in your school. With that, comes a unique challenge to get learners to better understand the learning in your classes and give them the tools to become more independent thinkers. Welcome to this episode my friends that has been crafted just for our specialist and supporting teachers. Ever since the transdisciplinary challenge, I’ve been seeking ways to include you more in the process. In the past, we have been talking about a lot of topics that can be applied to any grade level and situation. As we get into the approaches to learning and teaching, we need to start to diversify to meet your needs. When I think of the ATLs, you naturally come to mind. You can easily apply the ATLs to your discipline or role, because your aim is to grow the level of independence within your learners. For specialists, you need to start thinking of how to wrap the skill development with your content focus. For supporting teachers, you need to start thinking about the learning objectives you have for your learners and how to pair them with the ATLs. In this episode, we are going to examine the ATL thinking skills from your viewpoint. We will refer to PYP From Principles into Practice: Learning and Teaching from pages 26-38, since these are the more advanced learning situations you will encounter. As we previously discussed, you set the tone for everything that happens during your time with the various learners in your school. What teachers do to set the stage for thinking skills to thrive
When I look at this list, I can get overwhelmed by all of the requirements placed on me while getting learners to understand their role in developing thinking skills. Then, I take a step back and think about the PYP structure in our units of inquiry. We are always encouraged to only pick 2-3 to focus on with our learners for the length of our unit. Since we do this with our learners, why are we not doing it for ourselves? This list is a success criteria for us to strive to make goals to better our practice. The thinking skills that students will demonstrate come under the sub-skill of critical and creative thinking. Critical thinking has the following sub-skill criteria:
Creative thinking has the following sub-skill criteria:
Now, we’re going to take a deeper look at one of the sub-skills and how we might approach using it with our learners. I chose the same ATL sub-skill for all teachers, because it allows coordinators to see how they can be applied in different ways. Considering new perspectivesAsk “what if” questions and generate testable hypotheses
If we get learners to begin “What if”, it naturally sets the stage for more agency and inquiry in our classrooms. Students will soon be pairing two unlikely things together and testing out their hypotheses. Specialist/Supporting Teacher
Apply existing knowledge to design new products processes, media and technologies This process can be replicated by allowing your learners to innovate better ways to use existing products, processes, media, and technologies. Specialist/Supporting Teacher
Consider multiple alternatives, including those that might be unlikely or impossible Allow students to consider ideas from multiple perspectives and make connections through unlikely pairings. Specialist/Supporting Teacher
Practice flexible thinking—develop multiple opposing, contradictory and complementary arguments Learners hunger to talk things out. What a better way to get them thinking by posing contradictory and complementary arguments. This means you pose a situation and learners but either defend or oppose it. Specialist/Supporting Teacher
Practice “visible thinking” strategies and techniques Muscle memory comes to mind when I think of Harvard’s Project Zero visible thinking routines, Muscle memory is the process of conditioning the brain through regular repetition and hands-on learning that ideas get hardwired to the brain. We want our learners to re-use the routines regularly. Specialist/Supporting Teacher
Generate metaphors and analogies If you’re like me, I get metaphors, similes, and analogies mixed up. I think this example will help to clarify it in your mind.
We use this figurative language to get learners to make unlikely connections between objects and to be able to explain their thinking in a different way. Whew, my brain is done after unpacking all of these ideas. See you in episode 53 as we unpack the research skills.
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