Thinking Foundation Blog

The film trailer you are about to see is powerful. It may be one of the most moving and influential few minutes of this school year for you and your colleagues. Please share it with others. It is showing us about the power of thinking and the human spirit. “Minds of Mississippi: The Pass Christian Story” trailer is a prelude to a full length production that will be available for broadcast a few months into 2010 (five years out from Katrina), with funding from Thinking Foundation and hopefully other supporters.

Over the years, on average 70% of the children in “The Pass” (as the town is called) live in poverty. 85 % of the students and teachers lost everything in Katrina, but this diverse population is also the highest performing in the state. As of November 22, 2009, The Pass was awarded Federal “STAR” status, meaning that the performance of Pass students is comparable to the other highest performing systems in the country.

18 months after Katrina I visited Pass Christian, landfall for the storm on the Gulf Coast. The context for my visit was that The Pass had been using Thinking Maps as a foundation for growing and sustaining the quality of performance across their schools to Blue Ribbon status. I wanted to show support. I walked in the mud and on boards between the FEMA trailers that today still remain classrooms for displaced students and teachers.

See the film trailer and read the story online at the Thinking Foundation website.

I have spent lots of time working in under-resourced rural and urban schools, and since the late 1980’s I have done consulting work in Mississippi schools. I have seen around this country schools amidst economic deprivation that was systemic and generational, and the great courage of teachers, but never have I seen teachers working with such extraordinary clarity and sustained focus to respond to a communal disaster. They rose up.

During that visit, I also stepped into the cramped trailer from which Dr. Sue Matheson, the Pass Christian School Superintendent, and her leadership team, were leading a community of learners to excel beyond the expectations of anyone around them. We talked. I told Sue I would return.

Little did I know that last year I would return to be part of the filming of a documentary about Pass Christian, the story told only in part through this trailer. This is not just a “feel good”, isolated story of success as you can see by looking at the results from around the country and globe… all on this website. We have provided data and documentation from The Pass, along with writing and poetry by Suzanne Ishee, a middle school teacher in The Pass, all giving context to this documentary. Take a deep breath and look through these frames into a story that not only inspires us, but also offers us insights …

… into thinking as the foundation for learning.

David Hyerle

See the film trailer and read the story online at the Thinking Foundation website.

Posted by think at 11:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello all!

I have waited a bit until everyone is back in school to kick off a new year of blogs. But now I can't wait any longer.

Expect many this year as we have some remarkable stories to tell, including the unveiling of new research case studies from England, New Zealand, North Carolina, California, Mississippi, and New York ... we will soon let you in on a documentary movie trailer about what happens when a school system rises up against adversity and devastation (and 70% poverty rates) to become THE highest performing system in their state... how did they do it? An explicit focus on students' thinking.

So I was moved to write this morning because of what I read last night in a groundbreaking research book 15 years in the making. Actually I woke up thinking about this in the middle of the night-- crazy right?

The book is "Visible Learning" by John Hattie-- a Routledge book. It is the most comprehensive synthesis of 800 meta-analyses ever completed on what drives high quality student performance. Bob Marzano has offered us many insights down this line and now John Hattie of Auckland, New Zealand has taken the research to new heights.

So what is one of the most important influences on student learning?

Make a Guess, then read on.

The findings, in THE summary statement of the book.. are visible before
our eyes:

".... The story is about the visibility of teaching and learning: it is the power of passionate, accomplished teachers who focus on students' cognitive engagement with the content.... developing a way of thinking, reasoning, and emphasizing problem solving and strategies in their teaching about the content they wish students to learn."

Surprising? Not really, but then educators around the world really do not explicitly focus on thinking and cognitive development. The direct teaching of, for, and about thinking (Brandt/Costa) does not happen systemically across grade levels and classes. Students may even learn about how the brain works.. but not the mind.

John Hattie identifies an array of factors, but the vision is clear:
1. cognitive engagement,
2. metacognition,
3. dynamic feedback between students and teachers...

these focal points have high effects and great power in the lives of learners... and teachers.

John is clear cut in his warning: this is an explanation of results from studies and does NOT pretend to suggest direct causality. This basically means ... don't read these results as a list of TO DOs. Many people have misinterpreted Bob Marzano's work as a shopping list of nine "things" to do in classrooms to bring about change. But the cluster of results explains what success looks like from across the seemingly endless research studied.

Where do we start? At every grade level pre-K through college.

How?

Here is an example of a pre-K teacher in Syracuse, New York who fully engaged her students' cognitive abilities --- EXPLICITLY..

thinking IS the foundation for learning.

let me know what you think.

David

Posted by think at 11:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just got Tony Wagner’s new book, “The Global Achievement Gap” (Basic Books, 2008). Tony is Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group out of Harvard School of Education. So what does he suggest as the major pathway for 21st century learning and leading? THINKING. But not just tired old logic games and tortured critical thinking, but dynamic, creative, collaborative problem-solving and decision-making. So what are the actual TOOLS for innovate, entrepreneurial thinking? And what are the tools for thinking that support effective oral and written communication, and high quality performance?

It takes a school—a whole school and systems working very consciously toward becoming a thinking community. What does it look like? Check out this interview from a school in Rochester, New York. Thinking Maps had been successfully used across the school for the students and teachers, but Marcie Roberts, principal at Norman Howard School in Rochester, NY began using Thinking Maps for leadership decision making --- and for communicating and working with the school board. The result? Marcie transformed a dull strategic plan into a dynamic change document by using the maps as tools for transforming information into action-based knowledge for her school board.

In this wide ranging interview that we have edited down to a few minutes, Marcie and two members of her leadership team share how Thinking Maps are used in their thinking and decision making. And then Marcie tells her story and shows the process in action.

Marcie doesn’t tell you in this interview, but off camera she told me that she got a standing ovation from her school board after presenting the dynamic document. Rock stars, politicians, and motivational speakers get “standing O’s”… but school directors in front of their school board?!

David Hyerle

See more leadership video clips including a conference Leadership Panel.

Posted by think at 01:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I remember returning to Learning Prep School (K-12) to find out more about how the Thinking Maps had been working in this West Newton, Massachusetts school. I was taken aback. It is a unique school that serves over 150 communities across the state—for those children with special needs who for whatever reason could not be fully supported by other schools. I also was eagerly anticipating talking with a parent who had been telling everyone that the maps had profoundly affected her daughter—not just in school—but also as tools for supporting her during a medical emergence. This story told by her mother in the video interview on our home page reinforced a view that I have seen played out around this country: the maps, used together, are a language that directly supports communication between human beings in learning communities and at home … even in a crisis at a Boston hospital. Words alone do not always do the trick, especially when a child has a hard time articulating what is going on in his or her head… or when a child is learning content concepts while also learning a second language. Learners have rich patterns of thinking in mind that cannot always be expressed clearly – vocally or in writing or in hand signals—but they are able to map out their ideas in the moment. I have been to Learning Prep three times over the past five years; this last visit was for two full days with Bob Price to video what is happening there. Amazing interviews with kids, teachers, administrators--even in the day care and after school program!

Dig deeper into all the video and documents about this breakthrough in special education: Check out the full Learning Prep Case Study, download Cynthia Manning’s Master’s Thesis, or view her analysis of the extraordinary results in the last chapter of “Visual Tools for Transforming Information into Knowledge” (Chapter 8). Learning Prep is a school that has been transformed… along with so many of their high school students who passed the MCAS and continue improving their abilities to think and problem solve in the complex world of 21st century life!

Posted by think at 04:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)