I used to think...now I think

Connect: While studying the Native American's of Colorado's past, I wanted to let the kids research and discover information on their own via a great website we found for Colorado history.
http://hewit.unco.edu/dohist/themes.htm In doing this, I still wanted the kids to be deeply thinking, asking questions, activating their background knowledge and making inferences as they looked a the photographs and read the captions.

Extend: Before we even got on the website kids organized their notes by sections of Native American history. Then, they went through and wrote what they know today (what I used to know) and what I know now (now I think). By activating their background knowledge they filled in what they already knew. As kids explored the website on the Ipads they jotted down noticings. Finally, students reread their notes, determined what was important, thought about how their thinking changed, and filled out the 'now I know'. Overall, I think students were rather amazed at how much their schema grew from looking at the website and conversing with their partners. It is really powerful to see-especially for some of those kids who were apprehensive to write they didn't know anything or very little about a topic before we began. What a great visual.

Challenge:
This seemed like such a natural way to use this routine because when we're reading to learn new information  our thinking is changing so much. I've struggled with how to help kids realize what they thought before reading, researching, etc. Hence, that is why we wrote what we knew today prior to looking at the website. Hopefully, that will change over time. I also can't help but think about how our study of synthesis ties into this as well. Maybe kids will embrace more of their evolving thinking rather than feel inadequate. Perhaps someone else has been successful with helping kids truly reflect on their evolving thinking after the fact, not during?

What I think I Know About Farms

Connect: I decided to give the I used to think...now I think routine a try with my ECE students. I however felt the need to modify the routine despite what it said in the book. I felt that preschool aged children would not be able to differentiate between what they new before and new learning or how their understanding had changed. So I decided to use it as an opportunity for a pre-assessment and to help the children understand that what they know already know is valued and important.

Extend: Instead of using the routine over the course of one time or one lesson, my plan is to use it throughout the unit in stages to help the children connect over time how their understanding of farms has changed. My hope is that by doing it in stages the children would be able to see this progression through their drawing and dictation.

What I did: I used the routine as a pre-assessment tool and an assessment tool throughout the unit to determine what the children had learned and how their thinking and understanding about farms had changed. Before doing any instruction on Farms I wanted to see what they already knew about them so I gave the children a sheet of paper that had the writing prompt "What I think I know about farms" and had the children illustrate and dictate whatever they had in their schema about farms. We then delved into our unit with a focus on traditional farms. The next time, I showed them what they had "written" earlier and tlaked with each of them about my expectation that they must write about "new" information they now know about farms. I then gave them a sheet of paper with the prompt "What I now know about the traditional farm is..." for them to illustrate and dictate any new learning.

Challenges: The challenge during this lesson was to determine when to prompt the children with a new writing reflection and how to do it. WOuld it be best to show them their illustration before having them write to the new prompt? or would that cloud their thinking and stagnate it to just copy what they had written before. I decided it would be best to show them their material but model how I wanted them to reflect new thinking through a different illustration and dictation. 

Reflection: The children's illustrations were still often quite basic with the addition of perhaps more animals or buildings. But with prompting and asking open ended questions i.e. "What more do you know..." during the discussion and dictation,  I was pleasantly surprised by the effort and elaboration of most students on what they had learned about farms. Only a few got really stuck and were not able to reflect too deeply on new understandings. In the end, I attributed the rather basic illustrations as more of a limitation of fine motor than in thinking. In other words, it was just challenging for them to draw everything they knew in a picture. When putting myself in their shoes, I thought it would be hard to illustrate what I was asking of them even considering my stronger sense of mental imagery and greater fine motor ability. So in the end, I was very proud they knew as much as they shared through their language with as much support as possible through their writing. Their thinking is the important part. 

I Used to Think, Now I Think

I Used to Think, Now I Think

Connect:  I decided to use this routine in a different way with a group of 2nd grade reading intervention students.  Rather than using it in the context of a text we were reading, I decided to use it as a "check in" on the affective beliefs of my students as readers...  I wanted to make sure that these kids, with whom I have worked with for 2-3 years, were now truly seeing themselves as readers, and not strugglers... I must admit, it was a little scary for me! What if participating in my groups for so long had actually "damaged" their view of themselves as readers?

Student Thoughts:

I used to think:

"...that I would never be able to read."

"...reading was very hard.  I felt not very smart."

"...reading was super hard and I was not very good at reading.

Now I think:

"...I am one of the best readers in my class!"

"...I am a great reader. I feel great because I can read!"

"...I am so good!  I think I can read 100 chapter books!"

Extend:  Whew!  What I learned from the student responses was REALLY gratifying.  These three really do see themselves as readers!  I love their authentic and honest responses.  This routine helped them to articulate how their view of themselves as readers has altered over time, and that they truly have come so far.  It helped me to see the resilience in young children, and the impact that their fantastic classroom teachers have had upon them. It takes a village, and in this one the kids are enjoying the rewards of hard work and are moving forward in an environment full of support and recognition of success.

Challenge:  I am shocked that such a simple routine could have such an impact upon me!  I am hopeful that it had an impact on the kids in terms of actually thinking about how far they have come and that they are successful.  My challenge is to integrate this routine in to all of my groups so that it can be used as a simple check-in of synthesis, as well as determining importance within text. In terms of using it as an "Affective Check, " I would love to use it in the same manner again with all of my intervention groups.

I used to think, now I think by Kim

Connect:   I thought that this would be an excellent strategy to discover what they had learned and how their thinking had changed. 
 
What I did: Andrea and Deb had told me about the Alma Project.  It is a free service available through DPS to provide multicultural materials for instruction.  Since six out of my seven students are hispanic and six out of seven are female, the LATINAS unit seemed perfect for them.  La Llorona is a famous Mexican folktale.  We were able to read a modern bilingual version (Prietita and the Ghost Woman/Prietita y La Llorona) and listen to Joan Baez's traditional Spanish version of La Llorona, (translated for the student who doesn't speak Spanish).  Another facet of the book that we read was about curanderas (traditional healers).

Extend: They developed familiarity with both concepts. Their discussions included questions and, sometimes disagreements, about whether or not La Llorona:
stole (kidnapped) children to replace the ones she had murdered,
walked/roamed every where or just near water
she was real or invented by people just to scare kids or just a myth
was she mean and horrible or kind and helpful as the book portrayed her
and much more.
The Curanderismo discussion was limited.  I am wondering if, since curanderismo is out of the norm in the predominant culture, they were reluctant to talk about it. It could also be that they don't refer to it as such or they don't have any/much experience with it. Perhaps, it is not an urban experience as much as it may be in rural areas.



Challenge: The challenge was that although it is a famous folktale, about a third had never heard of it. (Throughout this unit, they have become familiar with authors, artists, activists, and singers who they can identify with through language and heritage.) I am reminded daily that I cannot make assumptions about any schema.

I Used to Think/Now I Think...

Connect: The idea of homophones have come up several times in the past few weeks in my 2^nd grade classroom.  I have been working with my students on using two/too/to correctly. Also, on her weekly goal sheet, one of my kiddos wrote she wanted to get better at using our/are/hour correctly in her writing. Also, some levels of the DRA ask students to identify roots of words, and I haven’t taught that at all! Although homophones aren’t a part of the second grade curriculum, I decided to spend a small block of time touching on this concept. I wanted to do it in a way that would allow my students to visually see what they’d learned, so I decided to do a play on the I Used to Think/Now I Think routine. I knew from past experience and from conversations at PLC that young students have a difficult time reflecting back to what they used to know, so I decided to revise the routine.

What I did: I wrote the word “homophone” on the board and gave each student a worksheet. I explained that I only wanted them to do the top portion. They independently filled out the top section and turned them in to me. I was able to quickly assess what they knew about this word… turns out, they didn’t know anything! J Later, I passed their sheets back to them. They took notes in the blank section of their sheets during the lesson. As we discussed that “homo” means same, I realized that they didn’t have any schema for this root. “Phone” was easier for them. They connected it to “telephone,” “iPhone,” “cell phone,” and one student even connected it to “phonograph.” Through discussion, we learned that “phone” means sound, so homophone essentially means “same sound.” After learning more about homophones and brainstorming examples, they students wrote what they now know a homophone is.

Extend: I really liked that the students could reference their own writing to see how their thinking has changed. I am planning on incorporating versions of this routine into more of what we do in my class…I just need to figure out how!

Challenges: I would have loved if more students filled in the “now I know…” section with their own words rather than just copying the definition I had written on the board.

I Used to Think, Now I Think

This month I did the routine called, "I used to think, now I think."  In third and fourth grades, we have been focused on perimeter and area.

I already knew that students have a hard time with perimeter and area.  Mainly, they seem to mix up these two terms.  We spent time exploring perimeter and area in many different ways in my classroom.  We used geoboards on the iPads to build rectangles with a given perimeter and area, we measured them on "hallway polygons" taped down in the hall, we measured the area of Sao Paolo, Brazil to experiment with irregular figures, and we used base-ten blocks to explore the many ways to make a figure with an area of 5 square centimeters.

This routine extended my thinking because it gave me a window into what misconceptions students still had.  It also gave students a way to express in words what math thinking was going on in their minds. Here is a sample of what kids shared:

• I used to think perimeter was by multiplication.  Now I think perimeter is by addition and base times height = area.
• I used to think perimeter and area were hard becaus I did not know what was the inside and what was the outside. Now I know that perimeter is the outside of a shape or polygon and area is the inside of a shape or polygon.
• I used to think area and perimeter were the same thing and would add both together.  Now I think perimeter is the outside of the area.  Area is the squares inside the perimeter.

The fourth graders reflected on Edmodo, which was  great option because I was able to give them some feedback.  A sample of one student's post and our conversation on Edmodo is below.

A challenge or puzzle I have is, would this have been a better activity had I given them the "I used to think" before I taught perimeter and area?  In the past, students in third and fourth grade have been hard pressed to tell me all they know about a topic when they had limited schema.  However, my third graders had a difficult time thinking back to a time when they knew less about this topic than they know now.  Many of them said, "I have always known about perimeter and area."  It helped for them to think of another student, a second grader, coming into our room and thinking about how little they may know about this subject and then to comment on how little they used to know.  The book says to stick with doing both at once at the end of a subject because students can't possibly identify misconceptions and ingrained assumptions until they have been confronted.  This type of reflection can only happen after new learning has occurred.   The book also suggests that students will do better as this is established as a regular routine.  I regularly have students reflect on their learning, but I think that the process has become bogged down, so this was a good way to switch it up on them so they had to reflect in a different way.  I am going to keep this reflection routine in my back pocket and try it again with both classes and see if there is improvement in the depth of their responses.