PLP Log Fantastic Four

Sarah Hambleton, Dabney Chitwood, Catherine Keeter, and Lauren Hughes

Date
February 1

Time
1:00 2:30

February 8

1:00 2:00

February 15

2:00 3:00

February 22

1:00 2:00

February 29

2:00 3:00

March 7

1:00 2:00

March 10
March 14

12:30-1:30
7:30 9:00

March 29
April 11

12:30-1:30
7:00 8:00

April 27

11:30-12:00

Topics and Projects

-

PLC plan
Semantic web analysis
Create MTV plan
Reflect on reading group
presentation
Bulletin board prep
Basal reading assignment
MTV meeting
Concept development vs.
concept attainment discussion
Bulletin board prep
Science safety
Reflect on PLC number talk in
math
MTV meeting
Prep for Lit Circles
Tab 1 Assignment
Language Arts narrative rubric
MTV meeting
Language Arts narrative rubric
Spelling sample analysis
MTV meeting
Math discussion video
Geometry project
PLC reflection
Diversity Activity
Disaggregated Data project

Making Thinking Visible Log

Date

Chapters

Thoughts

February
15

1-2

February
29

3-4

March 10

5-6

March 29

7-8

Thinking is a process and it relies on understanding and

creating. There is a difference in teaching and telling which is
why teachers should use essential questions to push students
to support/defend their answers. Ways to make thinking
visible include questioning, modeling, documenting, and
listening. Teachers muse dig into the thinking of a students
and understand what they comprehend versus what they do
not. This is a huge component of making thinking visible in
the classroom.
These chapters traveled into the actual thinking routines and
we discussed them as patterns of behaviors. Some of the
ones that were highlighted include See Think Wonder, Zoom
In, Think-Puzzle-Explore, and Chalk Talk. Each of these
provides the teacher a variety of ways to assess the thinking
of students. To end the conversation, we talked about how we
would introduce a new thinking pattern to a class. This was
interesting because I had never thought about this before. It
is important to model the thinking routine, explain it well, and
use it multiple times so students can grasp it.
The next two chapters outlined thinking routines for
synthesizing and organizing ideas and routines for diffing
deeper into ideas. Various ones discussed in our meeting
were headlines, CSI, concept map, connect-extend-challenge,
the 4 cs, the micro lab protocol, I used to think now I think,
sentence-phrase-word, and claim-support-question. The
conversation centered on how these routines would be good
exit tickets after a lesson for a formative assessment as well
as great reflection tools. It is important that the teacher use
these to promote conversation and communication in the
classroom.
These thinking routines are great, but they will never work if
community is not in place. The teacher must foster a
classroom environment that encourages building thinking.
They must understand the background of the students, have a
desire for their students to share their thoughts, create
collaboration and high expectations, and implement thinking
daily.

Making Thinking Visible - Unit Incorporation

We tried to incorporate Making Thinking Visible thinking routines in a
variety of ways for our Civil War Unit. CSI: Color, Symbol, Image was
used in the engagement of our first lesson. Students had to complete
CSI with a partner concerning the idea of conflict. They did this on
chart paper, shared their product with a small group, and then hung it
in the classroom. We also used Chalk Talk in one of our lessons. The
students had to journal and then they shared their entrees using this
thinking routine. Tug of War was used in our last lesson to debate the
differing perspectives of the North and the South on a variety of things.
This was a great way for students to outline and review how the North
felt versus how the South felt. See-Think-Wonder was also
implemented in one of the lessons where students had to view pictures
of slavery and describe what they saw, thought, and wondered
concerning the pictures. Implementing these strategies into the
lessons took some thought at first, but it became more natural as the
lessons developed more. As we continue in this field of education,
these routines will become second nature to us and we will be able to
implement them in many situations in our future classrooms. They
really expand and deepen thinking about thinking!