Computational Thinking Graphic
I have learned a lot recently about a lot of awesome ideas, and have been trying to figure out how I can use as many of those awesome ideas as possible, without overwhelming myself and my students in the midst of implementation. I decided that one of the best things I can do is create simple graphics that capture the ideas and provide those graphics for reference in my classroom. However, I know that my students are likely to read them once and forget they exist, or never read them at all, so I had to figure out how I could intertwine them into my teaching practice in a way that make them powerful for both my teaching and my students’ learning.
Here’s what I came up with, please comment on this post if you have any great ideas for how to adjust my ideas or things that need to be added to maximize the amazing thinking that my students will get to do next year. I am going to make an area on the wall above each table called “thinking tools,” in which I will place the three links above, the top two of which are my own personal creations, and the third of which is a creation from a friend that I work with in my county. I will also probably include the IBM Design Thinking graphics about “the principles that guide [them]” and “the loop that drives [them],” and the mathematical practices posters from NCTM, but since I don’t have permission to share those with anyone, I am not going to be posting them here. (I bet that you can find them on their website under the design thinking professional development.) Then, I will implement the “three before me” strategy, in which I require my students to utilize at least three resources available to them: their group mates, their physical tools (calculator, ruler, tracing paper, compass, phone, etc.), and their thinking tools (what I have linked above), before they are allowed to ask me questions. Now, the only way this will actually work is if, EVERY TIME, I refuse to answer a question before they show me what they have done to try to figure it out, and confirmed that they did indeed use three different resources to try to solve the problem. I am looking forward to seeing how this strategy and reference tools transform the learning in my classroom.
I also plan on using the thinking tools as a guide for how to push them further along in their thinking. If they are able to recognize that they are at a certain stage in the “ways of knowing,” for instance, then I will be able to help use the graphic to push them to find ways to know better or with more evidence. If I can get them to a point of recognizing where they are in the design process or the problem solving process that is described by computational thinking, then I will be more likely to be able to teach them how to think metacognitively, which should lead them to be more self-motivated and self-monitored. This should also help with their self-reflections of their learning and self-monitoring of which standards they still need help with, which they will be doing each unit on a “Unit Overview Sheet,” which can be found in the book, Creating a Culture of Feedback, by Paul Cancellieri and William Ferriter.
This is probably the easiest and least involved way of utilizing these ideas, and I might evolve in the future to using them in a more involved way, but I am excited to at least start using them in a small way and see how my students’ learning changes because of it! Please comment below, tweet me at @mrsbordenmath, or email me at mborden@wcpss.net if you have any ideas for making this implementation better or smoother! (Remember, I am looking for the easiest, most manageable method right now, so I know I can actually commit to it!)