Class 62 and The Thinking Matrix

I owe a debt of gratitude to the teachers from St. Catherine of Siena who developed  The Thinking Matrix and shared it with the world. (I am adding this link that was sent to me by @MrDHill on twitter, http://www.cpco.on.ca/News/PrincipalConnections/PastIssues/Vol14/Issue1/PL.pdf )

What is it? A way to:

1. guide learners from lower level thinking to higher level thinking.

2. help learners  recognize what kind of questions they are asking and where they fit with regard to higher order thinking.

3. recognize what is being asked and how to craft a thoughtful response WITHOUT RELYING ON FORMULAS. Sorry I had to shout that, because so much of what we've been doing over the past few years has involved teaching learners a formula for answering standardized test questions.

Here is an early sample of what is posted in all of our junior and middle school classrooms.

It begins with Retell or Summary which requires the lowest levels of thinking, but being able to demonstrate understanding by retelling the main points of a text is the foundation of all other skills. Thus we start our year by learning to write good summaries.

We begin learning Retell with a question. In this case we have been reading Hana's Suitcase and learning about the rise of the Nazis.  The question students were asked was: Who Were the Nazis?

First we tear apart the question.

(by main details, they meant, not to include anything but the main details)

We next looked at 4 different responses to that question and discussed the merits of each.

The students were able to identify the best response and from that we developed Success Criteria - reasons why the last response is the best.

Based on that, students began writing their own responses to that question. Depending on the strength of the students, this might be a modeled, or paired activity, but I have a strong group of  writers this year so we went directly to independent work.

Students referred to charts in the classroom, vocabulary lists and the internet in order to make sure their facts were accurate and that they were using an elevated vocabulary.

Once finished, they were typed on the computer and saved.  When some students were finished or almost finished we revisited the Success Criteria and developed an anchor chart. All suggestions are student generated.

We also looked at the language of grading.

Finally, with these tools in hand learners were given two copies of two retells from students in the class. They worked with a partner to assess them based on our Success Criteria.

As a class we discussed our assessments.  It was as if a group of teachers were assessing together. We had an intense discussion of  how and why they assessed, beginning with problems in the writing.  I have to say, they were demanding of their peers, and did not hesitate to justify why they considered parts of the writing to be poor, this included imprecise vocabulary and events being out of sequence.

We finished by focusing on the positive. We always want to leave people feeling good!
Finally, students reflected on the assessment process in their language notebooks.

Finally, we went to the computer lab to finish writing and editing our responses to the original question. Learners had to have a peer review their work, before calling me over for final editing assistance.
While most were doing this, Megan, one of the students in 62,  took our original student-created chart and formalized it.

Now that students know how to write a summary, they will begin working on the next skill in The Thinking Matrix, Relate and Reflect

More info on the Thinking Matrix: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CNpvaJeAfxQLQrl_nmuBKun98QnAxFbRGuINH6oL3R0/edit

And one very excellent tool for teaching critical thinking.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/ctmodel/logic-model1.htm

@datadiva made this suggestion for flipping the rubric. http://qualityrubrics.pbworks.com/w/page/33787201/Low%20to%20High%20versus%20High%20to%20Low