#pw9 How might we ... (design thinking 1 of 12)

Image via Wikipedia"How might we engage students more deeply in ..."

Finish that sentence with any word you like; something to challenge yourself; something that might help you grow as a teacher.

Some possibilities: reading, mathematical thinking, the scientific method, writing, multiliterate expression, critical thinking, understanding bias, media literacy, etc.

Think about the second order principles of the discipline you teach;  use one of those to fill in the blank above. (Examples of second-order concepts in the study of history can be found here and there.)

Spend some time this week thinking about and jotting down one or two second-order concepts, or organizing principles, of the content area(s) you teach. Do you think a focus on these "big ideas" might make for more powerful learning for your students or maybe give them a way to begin thinking about their learning more deeply?

How might you incorporate these ideas into your lessons in the coming school year?

Does thinking about these second-order concepts help you understand your content more deeply?

Is there a course you teach that doesn't have any second-order concepts that underpins the content?

Please share your list of one or two ideas in a tweet, blog, leave a comment here or anywhere and include this tag in it somewhere: #wpedagogy

If you can think of a discipline that has no second-order concepts (SoC) please share that too!

If all this turns out to be hard, don't worry, we'll dig into this a little more deeply next week.  Start by thinking about this on your own. We'll figure out how to get help from other people next week.

(This series of posts inspired by Design Thinking for Educators.)

#pw7 Share Evaluation Criteria

Image by nchoz via FlickrMake the criteria for judging the range of student performance explicit.  Take this week to show your students exactly how they gain or lose points for a variety of assessment questions.

Ensure students know what success looks like; particularly if your students are writing final exams soon. They can achieve the targets for success we set for them if they know where the targets are and what they look like.

After a week of doing this do you find yourself thinking differently about how you assess student work?

Did this have any impact on the questions your students asked or how they showed their work?

Were there any changes in the atmosphere (culture) of your classroom?

Tweet, blog, leave a comment here or anywhere and include this tag in it somewhere: #wpedagogue

#pw6 No Numbers

Image by dkuropatwa via FlickrMore than once this week, assess your students work without assigning a numeric grade or mark, comments only. Keep it simple, like a short quiz with 1-3 questions. Some advice for giving comments:

Comments should identify what has been done well and what still needs improvement and give guidance on how to make that improvement. (source)

 Give yourself  1000 bonus points if you keep a digital record of this weeks assessments (questions, student responses, and your comments) in a blog, wiki, podcast, or digital pictures on flickr. (You might want to make your students' work anonymous to the public in some way.)

After a week of doing this do you find you ask different kinds of assessment questions?

Did this have any impact on the answers your students gave?

Were there any changes in the atmosphere (culture) of your classroom?

Tweet, blog, leave a comment here or anywhere and include this tag in it somewhere: #wpedagogue

#pw5 Make Thinking Transparent

Image by dkuropatwa via FlickrFind ways to make your students thinking transparent this week. You might have them explain their thinking to the class, write a blog post or leave a comment to a prompt on your blog, or create a visual summary of what they learned this week using five carefully chosen pictures from the flickr creative commons archive.

After a week of doing this do you find you know more about what your students know and still need to know?

Did this have any impact on class discussions?

Were there any changes in the atmosphere (culture) of your classroom?

Tweet, blog, leave a comment here or anywhere and include this tag in it somewhere: #wpedagogue