Thinking Foundation Blog

BIFOCAL ASSESSMENT at the ASCD Conference, San Antonio, TX

2010-03-01T03:20:50Z

I was leafing through the ASCD San Antonio Conference program and it looks like we are finally in the 21st century! It seems like every other presentation title includes a link to 21st Century Flat Changing World of Globally Connected Learning! Ok, I am playing the fiddle on the 21st century bandwagon like everyone else—and it is a conference theme. But even as we bring in new technologies, and new teaching and learning strategies, our educational community is still half blind as we look around for assessment tools that reflect what we know about from brain research, thinking skills development, and disciplinary learning.

Last year Kim Williams and I wrote a journal article for the ASCD-Plymouth State University New Hampshire Journal of Education and here is the link www.thinkingfoundation.org/david. Kim gave our article a great starting point by going back a few centuries and then into the future … to an invention that gave us the metaphor for what happens when Thinking Maps are used in “21st century classrooms” for formative (and summative!) assessment:

Among his other revolutionary accomplishments, Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals to allow us to see things more clearly—that which is right before our eyes as well as that which typically requires closer inspection—with the same tool. The most effective, revolutionary tools are elegant in their simplicity, leading to complex applications. Thinking Maps, as a fundamental language of cognitive patterns, have shown promise to become a revolutionary model for transforming educational assessment. This set of visual tools allows us as teachers the capacity to see student content learning and thinking processes through the same bifocal lens—viewing the content at the surface and the cognition more in depth. Our cognitive age requires that our assessment tools keep pace with our new understanding about how the brain learns and processes information. In this writing we offer tools for educators and learners to determine not only “what” is learned but also “how” it is learned.

On Monday, March 8, Kim and I will systematically present student work that reflects how we can move students to a high level of fluency with Thinking Maps so that teachers may assess and students may self-assess the discipline specific concepts being developed while at the same time seeing the development of thinking processes. Read more on the ASCD presentation.

Of course, in Texas, as in most other states, one of THE most important needs is captured in this question:

How do we assess ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS on their content learning as they are on a developmental path toward fluent language use in a second language?
What happens when one’s language abilities prevent students from fully expressing their best thinking?????

So we will address what Dr. Stefanie Holzman wrote about in her chapter of Student Success with Thinking Maps, and explicitly brings forward in this interview at Roosevelt Elementary School in Long Beach, CA…

… if you want to assess their content learning… leave it in a map!

If the above video does not play, download the free Quicktime Player for Windows and Macintosh.

SPREAD THE WORD to colleagues about our presentation and we hope to see some of you there!

…thinking IS the foundation for learning…

David

ASCD PRESENTATION information:

Title:
Bifocal Assessment:
Combining Teaching and Learning with Thinking Maps
David Hyerle, Ed.D. and Kimberly Williams, Ph.D.

Session # 3201

When:
12:15 – 1:15 pm Monday, March 8
Where: Henry Gonzalez Convention Center, Second Level
ROOM 217, C Room Capacity is 190

To Ethiopia and Back

2010-01-15T14:54:16Z

Hello again! This coming week, our colleague Bob Price will be back in the Addis Ababa area of Ethiopia. In late August of 2009, Bob facilitated a weeklong seminar with over 70 Ethiopian teachers and administrators. He wanted to return to continue the work—not dropping in and simply returning to the United States--and as you can see on the video clips and read below, the teachers wanted him back, and for very good reasons. This could well be the embryonic stage of a global initiative. A UNESCO official was at the seminar and offered his reflections and encouragement.

Usually in these blogs I offer my thinking in the moment, playing with ideas, sharing discoveries from educators in the field, some from those who have received grants from Thinking Foundation. This time, I will simply share the edited video and selected transcript of feedback from participants — View Bob’s Case Study here on the Thinking Foundation website. It is THAT powerful. The ideas and the deep reflections from the hearts and minds of these educators stand as beautiful, meaningful, inspiring signposts for us all.

One participant said at the end of the week, already welcoming Bob back to their country: 'I hope this journey will not be for first and for the last.'

Bob… have a good return journey this next week. And, bring back more signposts from Ethiopian educators!

David

Announcing the Annual Ariel Awards

2010-01-11T15:50:02Z

We at Thinking Foundation wish to start the new year and a new decade with a special announcement. First, a bit of background. Back in the early 1990’s I worked with educators in Mississippi and found deep inspiration in the teachers, students and educational leaders in the state. In the mid-1990’s, I met an educator there, Dr. Marjann Ball, who inspired me to see how Thinking Maps could be tools for transforming education across the whole state. She was insistent: the WHOLE state. It is a long road, but Marjann is helping educators across the state build those roads, from her work at the community college level, her research there (see Ball Dissertation on the Thinking Foundation website), and over the years in pre-K to 12 schools. This is now witnessed in the Pass Christian Public School District that is being highlighted in the documentary film (in production) Minds of Mississippi. Even after 8 years of working in “The Pass” Marjann is still working with educators there this year… dedicated to learning from them as she offers her insights.

Bringing Thinking Maps to students and teachers in Mississippi has been Marjann’s calling for nearly twenty years. It is also a family affair, as Marjann’s sister, and other members of the family including a daughter and her niece have worked across the state. And then there was a greater calling. Marjann’s youngest daughter, Ariel, was diagnosed with bone cancer some years ago, fought hard and with grace to survive, and then passed away from all of us. I had some delightful, meaningful times with Ariel… one time sitting by her bedside as she was fighting the rare disease, talking with her as she watched one of her favorite shows: Gray’s Anatomy. She spent so much painful time in hospitals and she was still intrigued by a television show that dealt with the most difficult part of her world. She wanted to understand. She was a special child who was thoughtful and full of heart. Young Ariel was and IS an inspiration to many of us. You can read about her through Marjann’s letter.

When I suggested to Marjann that we offer annual Ariel Awards to honor inspired student work, she immediately agreed. With this background, Thinking Foundation is pleased to announce the establishment of the annual Ariel Awards in honor of Ariel Ball of Laurel, Mississippi who left a gift of thoughtful, artful thinking to this world.

Read about the annual awards at www.thinkingfoundation.org.

In the next few months, through this blog, we will be highlighting students who have created some amazing work, from abstract art to mapping out a whole biology textbook! We will honor them with an Ariel Award.

We hope, in a small way, that these awards honor Ariel for endless years to come and inspire more students to open their minds and hearts, as Ariel did, to the full range of possibilities in the lives they lead. We will keep a gallery of student work on this website, whether or not the students received the few awards we are able to give every year. Hopefully, this student work will also help all of us reflect on what is essential for educating our children, now and into the unknowable future.

David

A School District Rises UP: See the Movie Trailer, Read the Story

2009-12-06T11:50:16Z

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.

12th century or 21st century thinking?

2009-11-16T15:07:07Z

12th century or 21st century thinking?
Lower and Higher Order Thinking: Where is the line?

We have a new case study to share from England and it is extensive. You can check out a range of research and reflections.. and look at video clips sent across the now “virtual” pond from St Robert (a secondary school in American terms).

Kevin Steele, a lead administrator, and his colleagues at St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College drilled down to study “Thinking Maps and School Effectiveness"; in a UK Comprehensive School.” One of the outcomes of the research shows that students and teachers are now spending more time at the higher levels of thinking at St Robert School. Hmmm… What does that mean? Kevin and his team are tracking an essential question here in the 21st century… asking about Higher Order thinking...

Here are some clips to view. The first clip is of students showing and talking about the effectiveness of Thinking Maps for interpretation of poetry and essay writing;

the second clip is a new teacher being coached on pre and post lessons by Kevin—a seasoned teacher and administrator--using the very same tools. A secondary student, a new teacher, a seasoned administrator using the same tools. Hmmm… The young teacher is shown in the clip talking about how the maps helped her improve her own thinking and teaching effectiveness--- using a common language for thinking.

How can that be? Isn’t the teacher just naturally thinking at a “higher” level? The normative view (call it a paradigm) is that we all just “naturally” progress from lower order (concrete) to higher order (abstract) thinking in some grand stage theory staircase to “adult” thinking! As my teenage son might say: not. Let's not confuse Piaget with Bloom!

This all takes me back to when I was a young teacher 30 years ago (it could have been the 12th century)—the early 1980’s in Oakland, California teaching mostly African American youth living in a high poverty area—and I went to a workshop on Bloom’s Taxonomy. I was told to ask more questions at the upper end of Bloom’s taxonomy-- you know: analysis, synthesis, evaluative (FYI: see the revised Bloom, 2001--an Addison Wesley Longman book). These questions were to be asked of my students who were in schools that would be closed down today for lack of AYP. Talk about left behind. Sadly, most of the children I was teaching, in statistical terms and in life, were BOUND to failure by the system. Why?

All I know is that when I went back to the classroom after the workshop I asked more complex questions. I cajoled. I pleaded for responses. I didn’t know what to do. Later I went to a presentation by Art Costa on Habits of Mind (then called “intelligent behaviors”). I realized in that moment that I was just one in a string of teachers slowly remediating my students toward failure (imagine the slow simmering of frogs in water… they can’t save themselves and jump out… they are mesmerized by the
dullness of it all). I was re-mediating the content they hadn’t “learned” the first time. Or the second time… or for the previous eight years of their schooling. They had been “remediated” in reading groups during their first days of kindergarten. My students’ now had fully REMEDIATED MINDS!

OK, I’ll get to my point: What Art Costa offered was a vision of cognitive mediation (Google: Reuven Feuerstein). They were not being mediated through their fundamental cognitive processes. So then the question becomes: Where is the line between lower and higher order thinking? Consider: The fundamental cognitive skills—thinking skills—are at play at every level of Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy is NOT a stage theory of cognitive development: it is a LEVELED taxonomy of objectives all at play in kindergarten and preK!

So take a look at the two video clips, one of students, one of a new teacher being coached on the content AND her thinking. Look for the commonalities in thinking. The message was delivered long ago by Lauren Resnick and others: higher order thinking occurs at the earliest ages of schooling and through, dynamically, our latest years of life. And now we even know of the plasticity of our brains… networking patterns of thinking as we sleep.

We can’t wait
and THEN…
remediate.

So how are you thinking about this?

David

Thinking is the Foundation for Learning

2009-10-30T11:24:20Z

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

21st Century: Thinking Leadership-Thinking Learning-Thinking Schools

2009-06-03T13:41:24Z

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.

Returning to Learning Prep - Beyond Words

2009-04-26T16:55:28Z

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!

Japan, Mexico + Entry Points of Thinking

2008-11-17T16:33:52Z

Hello all!

After I calmed down, I have been reflecting on the election of a new
President OBAMA and the ripple effect of his election on the rest of the
world. From Kenya to Indonesia and around the globe, people may be
reframing their view of US.

There is something deep and exciting about the interdependency many of us
now feel that did not exist before global communication networks and
citizen travelers. As I think about what it means to be global citizens
in the 21st century I also think about how we can work to bridge across
cultures and languages. I believe that our common emotional states and
fundamental patterns of thinking are entry points.

So I invite you to take a few minutes and visit Japan and Mexico and
consider how common thinking patterns may traverse the global landscape:

http://www.thinkingfoundation.org/video/topic/video-global.html

David
--
David Hyerle, Ed.D.
Founding Director
Thinking Foundation
www.thinkingfoundation.org
ph: 603.795.2757
fax: 603.795.4620

"The years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing,
their alternations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence
into the light--only those who have experienced it can understand that."

Einstein
"Notes on the origin of the general theory of relativity"
1934

Hello from David at Thinking Foundation (England)

2008-10-20T04:45:52Z

I am in merry ol' England this week working with educators from around the country, and having a great time! Each day I am in a different part of the country where Thinking Maps are spreading-- now in over 100 schools. On one of my past trips I had some eye opening experiences. The teachers here are very well versed in standards, but over the past years they are shifting toward a focus on developing thinking abilities. Thinking Foundation has been collaborating with the Thinking Schools initiative based at Exeter University. Check out their criteria for a "thinking school"... maybe this will help us all reflect on the work we do.

View the video clips from my last trip here...

I especially like the young high school guy who, when he found out I was the developer of the maps exclaimed "BRILLIANT!" funny... like out of a Guinness commercial I love!

More upon return!

And I hope you consider submitting a grant for the 2008-09 RFP on assessment!

jolly good!
David

2008-2009 Request for Proposals

2008-10-13T04:04:18Z

Hello!

The leaves are falling off the trees her in New Hampshire, and so is a new RFP.

Over the past few weeks I have been receiving extraordinary video clips, results, and insights from the 2007-08 Thinking Foundation grant recipients. And they are all expressing to me how meaningful their experience is as they look at leadership and learning about how they work together using Thinking Maps. In the next few months you will get a look at the results as well.

But for now, I hope you consider putting together a short proposal for the 2008-09 request for proposal centered on assessment. How do we assess student learning? Thinking? and, as Art Costa and Bena Kallick ask us: How do help students become self-assessing? Check out the new RFP, due in mid-November.. plenty of time!

An overview of the 2008-2009 Request for Proposal is available online including the description, steps for completion, proposal preparation and submission instructions, forms and instruction, and other support materials. Download the Request for Proposals 2008-2009 – Assessing Thinking and Learning overview. Also read more on the Thinking Foundation "funding" web-page.

take care,
David

Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge

2008-10-06T10:22:53Z

Last week I sent out the Thinking Maps Election Guide… and the election is now twisted by the “bail out-rescue.” Maybe I should mock up some application ideas to help students and Secretary Paulsen think through the economic crisis! I’d love to find out if you have tried out the Election Guide or have any suggestions for improvement.

I’ll be sending out weekly posts on the blog and this week—as my new book Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge came off the presses—I got a timely email from a friend in Canada (yes, a foreign country next to Alaska) who was questioning how Thinking Maps might work with severely cognitively disabled children. I realized that a big part of the answer is right there in the book! There are so many people who wrote pieces for the book, but probably the most groundbreaking is the last chapter written by Cynthia Manning from Learning Prep School—an all special education school K-12. Her chapter is AMAZING as it details how Thinking Maps have become a foundation for thinking, learning and significant changes in student performance over the past five years. I know that the work at Learning Prep is a window into the possibilities of using visual tools for all children... deeply… over time… over a lifetime.

You can check out the video of Cynthia below and a dozen more video clips on Learning Prep School, and I invite you to write back on the blog about what you see and hear.
Go to the Learning Prep School Case Study to learn including video clips.

Thinking About the Election and The Debates

2008-09-22T05:03:18Z

As with many people across the United States, and the world, my mind has been wrapped around the upcoming historic election and the upcoming debates. With the word "change" in the air, it has me wondering how students (and adults) can best reflect on their own thinking using Thinking Maps®. I am also interested--as are most teachers at this time--in having students LOOK at how their own experiences and beliefs, "The Media", "The Campaigns", and "Special Interest Groups" frame how they think about the election. The election is really an event that calls for critical thinking about the issues and reflection on how one's own frame of reference influences what and how we are thinking.

So here are a few examples from an "Election Guide" I put together for your use. Click here to download the whole guide! Read, Try it out and respond by getting back into this blog with your ideas. It will be great to hear from you about what you think of this guide. If you work in a whole school using Thinking Maps®, send the document to your colleagues. Even if they don't use it.... they may get some more ideas about how to use these tools as a foundation for thinking!

Examples from the complete Election Guide.
What are the characteristics that you believe are most important for the next president of the United States to have as a leader? Create a Bubble Map, and try to use adjectives or adjective phrases to describe these qualities (ex: honest). Put a Frame around your Bubble Map. Within the Frame note where these qualities are important in your life. How would you evaluate each candidate using these criteria?

One of the major issues of this campaign is America's involvement in the Iraq war. Let's analyze this important topic. Create a Multi-Flow Map and write "Obama: Remove the Troops." This is a simplification of Obama’s position, so discuss his solution in greater depth. What events and ideas cause Barack Obama to believe that this is the correct solution (add causes on the left). What are the effects of this solution, short and long term (extend the map to the far right for long term effects).

Now create a second Multi-Flow Map in the same way and explore John McCain’s view, writing "McCain: Stay until Victory is achieved" in the center of the map and show the causes and effects. Again, this is a simplification of McCain’s position, so discuss his solution in greater depth before further analysis.

David Hyerle
dhyerle@sover.net