best .practices
Visible Thinking Resources
(Excerpted from the Visible Thinking Web site)
The idea of visible thinking helps to make concrete what a thoughtful classroom might look like... [It] is a broad and flexible framework for enriching classroom learning in the content areas and fostering students' intellectual development at the same time.
Website: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html
Core Routines/Protocols to promote visual thinking: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_CoreRoutines.html
Process Tools Resource:
Tool Time for Education
These process tools are organized via a helpful matrix organized in a similar way to the Cycle of Inquiry that Langford calls the "Plan-Do-Study-Act" improvement cycle, with three matrix categories for each step in the cycle. The matrix also identifies each tool based on its analysis criteria; i.e., focus, prioritize, define, collect data, process data, etc.
Published by:
Langford International, Inc.
12742 Canyon Creek Road, Molt, MT 59057
Phone: 406-628-2227 | Fax: 406-628-228
E-mail: lii@langfordlearning.com
Website: www.langfordlearning.com
Preparing one's self to lead change:
Adopting the right mindset and asking the right questions.
Tony Wagner's article, "Five Habits' of Mind That Count," suggests education leaders adopt a routine of asking essential questions about their school improvement efforts. Branching off the "Five Habits of Mind" idea developed by Deborah Meier and her faculty ay NYC's Central Park East Secondary School, this short article presents five questions intended to help educators move beyond what Wagner refers to as "culturally embedded traits that thwart educators' opportunities to regularly practice problem-solving skills: reaction, compliance, and isolation."
In asking these questions, Wagner believes educators will come to have a deeper understanding of the problems they are facing and will, in turn, identify more effective strategies for overcoming them.
Originally published in Education Week, August 14, 2007, the article can be downloaded in pdf format from the School Change Web site, www.schoolchange.org. Free registration is required.
Note: This article supports WSLA work on creating the theory of action for each district's problem of practice.
