Connecting With Other Educators

Hello Reach Participants!

I hope this posting finds you working away on your pre-service work (big hint here!) and getting prepared for our retreat. We are looking forward to meeting everyone in person, and getting to continue some of the conversations about teaching and learning we have started here.

As you will notice on the del.icio.us site, more blogs are up! While your specific pre-service instructions are only about posting on your own blog, we want to encourage you (in all of your spare time-- ha!) to start to read and respond to others' blogs as well. Too often in education, people spend time isolated in their own classrooms, unaware of others' experiences and learnings. While the Reach coaches will make every effort to support and challenge every one of you throughout the year, you are all resources for each other. If you have nothing else in common, you are now connected with a group of people who are all going through their early years of teaching. This is a tough time, and trust me-- getting support from others who are going through similar experiences can be really helpful. 

See you in August-- and get that pre-service work done! ;-) 

Critical Thinking vs. Habits of Mind

Chris' reply to my post got me "critically thinking" about the notion of teaching critical thinking. While the intent of his post, that he is interested in teaching students to think critically, is noble and worthy, I'm no longer sure what critical thinking even means. I think it has become one of those terms that is so frequently used without examination that it has become nearly meaningless. I prefer to think in terms of teaching "habits of mind." Among these: use of evidence, supposition, understanding perspective(s), making connections, meta-cognition (thinking about your own thinking and learning), curiosity, and so on. To me, these are more concrete and definable, and therefore more teachable. I tend to incorporate these into my "essential questions" when I am planning units/lessons.

Here's a question: Why does each section of the California State Standards for Social Science start with the "historical and social science analysis skills," which include use of evidence, debates in history, connecting historical events to other events and current events, cause and effect, identifying bias and prejudice, understanding perspective; yet, these analysis skills are rarely included in a history curriculum? (Hint: What's on the STAR test?) But here is the rub, even if you want students to be "information sponges," they need to have a conceptual framework on which to hang all that information.

This idea becomes particularly important (and frequently problematic) in math education where an over emphasis on "procedural fluency" (i.e. practicing problems) trumps "conceptual understanding" (i.e. understanding how it works). There is some, debatable, thinking that this better prepares students for the next high stakes tests. However, there is substantial evidence that this undermines students ability to do more complex mathematics down the road (see, for example, How To Teach Mathematics by the National Research Council).

So, Chris, this is a long winded way of saying that I absolutely agree with you about teaching students to process and evaluate information. I also believe that serious information retention REQUIRES understanding. While there is plenty of tension in teaching between depth vs. coverage, there is not conflict between understanding and retention.