A More Beautiful Question – Deborah Meier’s Five Habits of Mind

As I read through Chapter Two of Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, I was struck by the story of educator Deborah Meier and her five habits of mind. Deborah Meier is known for her work opening schools that were question-driven. Her teaching style and educational philosophies were both effective and engaging. One statistic in the book that really stood out to me to support this claim was that while the other schools in the same city had dropout rates of 40 to 60 percent, her school only had one percent of students not finishing high school (Berger, 2014). Her philosophy was that schools should not “just push information at kids,” but instead, “teach them how to make sense of what they were being told so they would know what to make of it and what to do with it.” (Berger, 2014) Reading this jumped out at me and made me think “Yes! Absolutely! What was her plan? How did she accomplish that goal? How was she able to reach so many children?” The chapter then led into a discussion of her “habits of mind” which helped me to begin to uncover what made her successful. I have included an infographic that I created below outlining the five habits and the corresponding questions as they appeared in A More Beautiful Question.

These five habits of mind speak to many of the critically important thinking moves that are necessary for students to develop to be able to think through problems down the road. I certainly agree with the idea that educators should be shifting the focus from memorizing facts to teaching strategies that allow the students to approach big questions and develop thinking skills. It is mentioned in the chapter that Meier was faced with critics that viewed her philosophies as too unstructured, but she made the point that when the students have more freedom, they are actually easier to control. This instantly connected with me as I have experienced this same reaction from other teachers in the school when discussing instructional strategies and flexible seating options. Many teachers that I have spoken with have a hard time wrapping their head around what seems like a pretty scary release of control within their classroom. Not for a lack of caring or wanting to try it, but simply because it is something new to them and, in many case, opposite of what they are familiar with. I have had my ups and downs as I have tried out new things, like flexible seating, in my room, but I have found that giving freedom- with an established classroom culture and clear expectations- will more often than not, pay off in a big way!

As an educator, it is always nice to see philosophies and strategies connect and that is exactly what happened when I read Meier’s five habits. I am in a school district that has been working on developing a culture of thinking within our schools. With the guidance of Ron Ritchhart’s Cultures of Thinking resources, we have explored how best to change our instructional approaches in order to dig deeper into out students’ thinking. The core ideas in Deborah Meier’s are embedded in many of the thinking routines that we have learned about from Richhart’s books and trainings. For example, the thinking routine “Circle of Viewpoints” brings the habit “viewpoints” to life in the classroom. Claim-Evidence-Reasoning obviously connections with using “evidence” to support stated claims and drive investigations, but the relevance piece and making connections are also closely related. Developing thinking skills versus memorizing facts is definitely a huge goal for my district as a whole.

Another connection that stood out to me was how closely connected these five habits of mind are to the NGSS crosscutting concepts.

The poster included above is available from Illinois’ Project Neuron. Click here to download them for yourself!

Of course, it is nice to hear that many of the things that are going on in your classroom are supported by research and current trends in education, but it is just the beginning of the journey for me. I am lucky enough to work with a grade-level peer that is like-minded in regards to making big changes and she is also excited about working together to re-envision our curriculum design, instructional techniques, and incorporating technology as well. I am excited to bring the ideas that I have explored so far in this book to our planning sessions and work to use it to guide our planning and help us to develop strategies that will encourage strong questioning among my students as well as shift the focus of our teaching to developing thinking moves that will help our students grow into innovative thinkers.

 

References

Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

Cultures of Thinking Resources. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.ronritchhart.com/ronritchhart.com/COT_Resources.html

N. (n.d.). Crosscutting Concepts. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://ngss.nsta.org/CrosscuttingConceptsFull.aspx

Print-It-Yourself NGSS Classroom Posters. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2016, from https://neuron.illinois.edu/NGSS-posters

Ill-Structured Problem & Tech Solutions

This week, our learning focused on identifying ill-structured problems that we teach in the classroom and how technology can help address the many different learning needs of our students. We spend so much time in the lower grades teaching students strategies for reading, and we expect them to be using comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary strategies as they read. As they reach third grade we are expecting that they will have those strategies in their reader’s toolbox so they can use those reading skills to learn new content. This is certainly a complex set of skills all working at the same time. As I thought through the idea of ill-structured problems in the classroom, specifically reading, I decided to do more research on the specific needs that students with dyslexia have when presented with work that involves reading and responding to their reading.

A student with dyslexia by definition is one has a “learning disability that inhibits the learning process in spelling, reading and/or writing” (Badilo-Dean, 2010). Students with dyslexia are unique and can experience difficulties in many different areas which could be totally different than another student with dyslexia. Of course, each teacher will use what they know about their specific student to tailor instruction that fits their needs. For this example though we will look to the focus of the research study, The Effect of Print Size on Reading Speed in Dyslexia, done by Beth O’Brien, et. al, in 2005. This study found that students with dyslexia had a “maximum reading speed.. slower than that of non-dyslexic readers even though they were older and with control for word identification skill. Also, their critical print sizes were larger than those of the controls, indicating that they needed larger print to support maximum reading rates.” In the classroom, our textbooks and novels are not always available in digital formats and thus we are left with two options: leave the text as is and provide support as best we can to our learners with special needs or use technology to assist in making the text support the learner without the need of direct teacher assistance. While discussing the social and emotional impact dyslexia can have on students, Badilo-Dean (2010) notes that researchers (Orton, 1937) found that students, “emotional problems begin to manifest when their reading instruction does not correspond with their learning  style.”

In order to avoid compounding the negative attitude toward reading that a child with dyslexia may have developed, our choice becomes very clear: adapt to support the child without creating another situation in which the child feels as though they are not smart enough to do what everyone else can do easily. Enter: Notability. Notability offers a variety of features that can assist the students with learning disabilities in your classroom while also being a valuable tool for the other students in the class. This app allows teachers to import a picture of a page from a book, magazine, website, etc. and record themselves reading the text fluently for their students and then share the file with their students that also have Notability installed on their devices. This allows the students to hear a fluent reader read the text as they follow along. This instantly reduces frustration and puts the focus back on the thinking that is desired in the assignment. The child also has the option of zooming in on the text to increase the font size and thereby increase their reading rate. Highlighting as they read can also be a helpful tool to increase contrast between the text.

When it comes time to respond to the text, the student can record their thinking with the assistance of the microphone. This allows the teacher to see beyond the written responses, which very well may have reduced the quality of their response, and get to the heart of the student’s understanding of the text. But wait there’s more! The voice-to-text feature will allow the student to transcribe their ideas quickly and the word suggestion feature on iPads will also help them with their word-finding and/or spelling issues.

The Notability app provides the student with a number of options to tailor their text to their needs and preferences. This app can help to level the playing field and shift the focus to what the student is capable of doing within the classroom rather than having to jump over language hurdles throughout the day. I gave an example of how a teacher could create this document and share it out, but a student with the app on their iPad could easily import a picture of the reading they are working on to take advantage of these features. The suggestions in this blog post are just a few of the possible ways that Notability could be used and helpful in the classroom. Of course, these features will help a student with dyslexia succeed, but they will also be valuable to every other student in the classroom as well and the ability to quickly email or AirDrop the file to students makes it a quick accommodation for all!

Click on the image below to view a quick video showing off some of Notability’s features discussed in this post!

(Oops! I forgot to mention the most important part in the video! Make sure that you share the file you created with your kiddos so they can enjoy all of the benefits! You can email the file or AirDrop it to the kiddo(s) you want to share it with.)

*Video made with the help of Reflector 2, Jing, and Screencast.com*

Click the icon below to download  Notability from iTunes! Enjoy exploring this amazing classroom resource!

 

References

O’Brien, B. A., Mansfield, S. J., & Legge, G. E. (2005). The effect of print size on reading speed in dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading, 28(3), 332-349. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/62141786?accountid=12598

 

Balido-Dean, L. (2010). Dyslexia: An analysis of dyslexic students at the elementary level (Order No. 3483015). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: Social Sciences. (902033275). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/902033275?accountid=12598