Appendix C Task I: Eliciting Student Thinking PLANNING TOOL A. Why Elicit Student Thinking?

Imagine that your big goals are like the destination on a map. As a teacher, you are like a guide for your students. Your job is to guide them through the terrain represented on this map towards the destination: your big goals. As a guide, knowing the location of the destination is of little help to you if you do not also know the location of the person you are guiding. One way to learn about where your students are on this map is to elicit their thinking. Whey you get students to speak about what and how they are thinking about the content that you are teaching, you get a picture of where they are on that map how close or far from the destination and in what direction. If you frequently elicit student things, you will get a daily snapshot of where each student is located on the map in relationship to your big goals. Only if you always know where your students are in relationship to where they are going can you offer them the guidance that they need to get them to their destination. As travelers on the complex and difficult terrain of your curriculum, your students are constantly making navigational decisions: Should I turn left or right? Should I double-back? Should I throw up my hands and sit down in the trail? In order to guide them across this landscape that is both unfamiliar and difficult to traverse, you need to always be aware of three things: 1. Where they re going 2. Where they are 3. How they make decisions about where to go next Number 1 is easy you already have big goals (although you ll also want to identify some way-points along the route). Number 2 is harder you have to start really listening to students to understand what they already know. Number 3 is hardest Not only do you need to know what students know, you also need to know how students know. For example: a traveler takes a left when taking a right would have been the faster route. The traveler s guide could do one of two things. She could say to the traveler, turn around, you went the wrong way! This tactic works quickly and efficiently to get the traveler onto the faster route, but it does nothing to help the traveler make future navigational decisions. A better guide, one who realizes that the traveler will have to make these navigational decisions again and again, might ask the traveler why he chose to take the route he did. What did he take into account when he chose to go left instead of right? The guide might then discuss with the traveler other possible approaches to making the decision about whether to turn left or right and together the guide and the traveler could make the decision about which way to turn. This way, the guide helps the traveler not only to go the faster route, but much more importantly, she helps him to hone his decision making strategies for upcoming forks in the road. The plan for eliciting student thinking that you are now designing is like a fork in the road for you and your students it s a way for you to learn about how your students are making decisions when faced

Appendix C with problems or tasks. Every time you elicit student thinking, you re gathering information from your students about what they already know and even more importantly how they make decisions based on what they know. When you elicit student thinking, you collect information about: 1. 2. Students partial understandings of the concepts you are teaching: These will be extremely helpful to you because they give you a place to start. Students alternative conceptions about the concepts you are teaching: These will also be extremely helpful to you. If you don t engage with alternative understandings of the concepts you are teaching, you and your students will often be talking past each other. Students everyday language that can be leveraged to help them understand academic language related to the concept you are teaching Students everyday experiences related to the concept you are teaching. These experiences can be leveraged in later instruction. (Windschitl, 2011)

3. 4.

You have a lot to gain by eliciting students thinking. In the next section, we ll dive into possible ways to approach the task. (The approach is a modified version of Mark Windschitl s Tools for Teaching Science: http://tools4teachingscience.org/) _____________________________________________________________________________________ B. Things to Keep in Mind About Eliciting Student Thinking Let s say you re teaching students about tectonic plates (although you can imagine the following example working for many curricular topics: the quadratic equation, metaphors, checks and balances, etc ). You want to elicit your students existing thoughts about concepts related to tectonic plates and you re wondering where to begin. Here are some possible approaches: Teacher: Alright class, today we re going to talk about tectonic plates. How many of you have ever heard of tectonic plates?

While this is a fine approach, and one that you might hear in a lot of classrooms we can do better. Here are some things to think about related to this opener: First, this teacher is starting out by using academic language that students are likely unfamiliar with. Second, the teacher is asking a directionless question: how many of you have ever heard of tectonic plates? doesn t lead students anywhere. Both of these things might deter students from actually sharing their emergent thinking about the topic. Here s another approach that you might hear in classrooms: Teacher: Who can tell me what a tectonic plate is?

While it is important for students to know vocabulary, defining terms aloud is very different from sharing thinking about complex ideas. This approach is likely to lead to students either sitting silently or trying to reproduce textbook definitions. It is less likely to get kids engaged in sharing their ideas about the earth s surface. Here s another approach often heard in classrooms:

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Teacher: What do think makes up the earth s surface? Of the examples above, this is the first example that gets kids thinking about the idea that you re trying to teach. However, it s an incredibly complex and abstract concept and without some engagement in the material, students have little to hang their ideas on. Prematurely asking students questions about broad and abstract concepts can limit conversation instead of opening it up. So, lets think about another approach: The teacher shows a video taken during an earthquake in which items are falling off of shelves and walls. She then asks students: What is happening to the items on the shelves at different times? What might cause the different types of shaking? Do we know how close this store was to the center of the earthquake? (Windschitl, 2011)

By showing students a prompting event (or a puzzle, story, question, image or activity) and pairing it with starter questions, this teacher is giving her students a way into the topic and she s mining her student s prior knowledge for information related to the topic at hand. This type of opener is likely to get students (1) interested in the class, (2) thinking about a complex idea, and (3) willing (and maybe even excited) to share their emergent ideas with the class. C. Creating Your Own Plan for Eliciting Student Thinking

STEP ONE: Understanding the what it is you want to get kids thinking about First, you ll need to identify what it is about the topic that you re teaching that is important. Is the knowledge, tectonic plates exist itself the important thing you want students to know or is there something related to tectonic plates that is more fundamental and likely to engage students, like perhaps: Earthquakes transmit energy. This energy travels in waves. Earthquakes result from sudden shifts in tectonic plates. These plates make up the earth s crust a. What fundamental and engaging idea is embedded in the topic that you are teaching? __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

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b. What are two to four consequential parts of this fundamental and engaging idea that you need to probe students initial understanding of? ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

c. What kinds of alternative conceptions do you think students will bring to this conversation? ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

STEP TWO: Finding a way in Once you have a handle on the fundamental and engaging idea that undergirds the topic that you re teaching and you ve identified some important parts of that idea that you want to get students sharing their ideas about it s time to come up with something quick and exciting to share with students that

Appendix C will get them thinking about the idea you re trying to teach. This could be a demonstration, an activity, a puzzle, a drawing, an image, a video clip, a story, a poem, a headline, a brochure, a post card, a diary entry, a resume, a list, a speech, a song, a map, a mural, a timeline, a collage, a skit, comic strip, a letter, a dialogue, a story board, a commercial, a floor plan, a want ad, a game, etc, etc, etc really, it could be ANYTHING, as long as it exemplifies an important part of the fundamental idea that you want to get kids talking about. STEP THREE: Making questions to prompt students to share their ideas Once you ve found your way in, create a set of questions or tasks to accompany it. These questions should be one that: 1. Students will understand 2. Don t have yes or no answers 3. Get students thinking about complex phenomenon Remember that you re not looking for right answers, you looking to get students thinking and talking about complex ideas. By listening to the thoughts that they share in response to these questions, you ll be learning about 1. Students partial understandings of the concepts you are teaching 2. Students alternative conceptions about the concepts you are teaching 3. Students everyday language that can be leveraged to help them understand academic language related to the concept you are teaching 4. Students everyday experiences related to the concept you are teaching Questions for students to get them sharing their ideas about the way in to the idea: 1._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 2._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 3._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 4._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 5._____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________