November 22, 2024 • 31 mins
Education enthusiasts and educators alike will find inspiration in our engaging conversation with Garfield Gini-Newman, a veteran educational expert with an illustrious 40-year career. This episode promises to transform your perspective on critical thinking within the classroom. Learn how Garfield, alongside Dr. Roland Case at the Critical Thinking Consortium, has influenced educational practices by integrating critical, creative, and collaborative thinking across the board, urging us to foster rich, sustained inquiry rather than isolated exercises.
Discover the power of "tweaking and fortifying" educational practices without overhauling them entirely. We delve into strategies that utilize well-framed questions to encourage students to engage actively from the get-go. By adding qualifiers to questions and providing intellectual tools, educators can shift simple retrieval tasks into complex thinking exercises, making critical thinking accessible to all students, particularly those who find it challenging. Garfield's insights reveal that small yet impactful adjustments can lead to significant improvements in how students learn and educators teach.
Explore innovative teaching strategies that ignite curiosity and captivate students from the start. We highlight techniques like "learning launches," where intriguing questions and scenarios, akin to escape rooms or video games, set the stage for dynamic learning experiences. By restructuring classroom activities and incorporating hands-on experiences, both students and teachers can benefit from a more engaging and interactive learning environment. This episode celebrates the strengths of the current educational systems and explores the potential for continuous improvement through collaboration and support for educators.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
All right, here we are another episode of Shift Ed
podcast coming to you out ofMontreal today.
Great guest, I'm not reachingthat far.
We're in Canada, staying inCanada, just reaching over the
Quebec-Ontario border.
I have Garfield Ginnie Newmanwith us today.
He's actually been doing somework with us in our system here
(00:38):
in Quebec.
I was so pleased that he tookme up on this offer.
Thanks so much, garfield, forjoining me here today.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You're welcome, delighted to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well, we're going to jump right in, but I kind of
would love to just ask you aquestion of what got you into
education, to start this wholecareer of yours, this amazing
career that you've had.
What were the beginning seedsthat started this growth in the
educational world?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, actually it's interesting you start with that
question because Septembermarked my 40th year in education
and I started when I was youngas a high school teacher in York
region, north of Toronto, andtaught for a number of years
there.
So I guess I just came out ofuniversity thinking teaching is
(01:28):
what I would like to be involvedin and then, probably 15 years
down the road, I'd written anumber of textbooks, done a
number of other things and inthe 90s started to emerge on the
neuroscience of learning andhow the brain learns, and that
intrigued me.
But then I was approached by DrRoland Case, who was actually
originally from Montreal, who'sthe founder of the Critical
(01:48):
Thinking Consortium, and webegan to explore and work
together and at that point Ijoined and became the senior
consultant with the consortiumabout 20 some years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Amazing, well, and the ride continues on um,
doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
it does, then it's uh , uh.
This fall we've been in korea,in china, across canada.
This week alone I'm in montreal, quebec city and brandon,
manitoba.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So wow, it's all right yeah, it's a lot of
jetting around, that's for sure.
And I mean, I imagine that themain or some of your main topics
that you're talking about nowis this critical thinking and
kind of looking through thatlens when you're looking at your
organization, but also yourclassroom as well.
If I were to ask you, like, thefirst question is kind of what
(02:41):
is the thesis behind it?
Like, if you had to kind oflike condense it into a
paragraph or so, the criticalthinking is is, is what?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
well, I'm actually going to broaden because, you
know, in the book on creatingthinking classrooms you'll
notice in the title,interestingly, we don't use the
word critical, and that wasintentional, in that we started
to think about critical,creative and collaborative
thinking and realized thatreally we want to promote high
quality thinking in classrooms.
(03:12):
So that would be, you know, asa intersection of critical
thinking and creativity, thatthey're not separate ways of
thinking.
They both are rigorous and theyboth involve similar
(03:35):
intellectual tools.
So really the thrust of thebook is how do we promote good,
rich thinking which might becritical and or creative and
collaborative?
And so that's kind of thedriver for the book and the
thesis and the work is nurturingthose.
And the other piece I would saythat has grown increasingly
(03:56):
over the years is, aside fromthe rich critical thinking, how
do we do this in a sustainedinquiring approach and that word
sustained is increasinglyimportant so that it's not a
series of one-off prompts tothink critically in isolation,
but it's sustained depth overtime.
(04:17):
Right, interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Interesting and I was particularly attracted towards
your chapter three where it wasthe critical, creative and
collaborative dimensions ofthinking.
Could you kind of explain thecrossroads between like I kind
of saw it as a Venn diagram alittle bit where they do all
intersect.
Could you paint that line forus where those three come
(04:40):
together?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, actually it's interesting those three come
together.
Yeah, actually it's interesting.
We played with the Venn diagramidea for a while.
We began to wonder the problemis with the Venn diagrams it
still leaves part of creativeoutside of critical and critical
outside creative.
And we began thinking aboutthat thinking.
Is there a time when, forexample, creative thought or
(05:04):
critical thought aren'tintersecting?
And we began thinking that isone a subset of the other.
Which one is the subset?
But that line at the core andit might be helpful to define,
and then I can run from there.
Critical thinking has four keydimensions that are important.
One is that there has to be adecision of some kind.
(05:25):
It's an assessment, a judgment,that's an invitation to reach a
decision of some kind.
That decision then, to havethat decision out there, there
have to be options to consider.
There are options that I'mweighing to reach my decision.
That decision is not just basedon a preference, how I feel
about something.
It's based on a set of criteria.
(05:46):
From the root, critical thinkingcomes from the Greek word
meaning criteria thinking, andthen I use evidence Now.
So that's at the core of allcritical thinking.
It's criteria-based thinkingthat has us weigh options to
reach a thoughtful, reasonedjudgment.
But when we looked atcreativity, it's still the same
thing.
The difference is in creativitythere's the fluency and
(06:10):
flexibility of thinking togenerate those options.
So, rather than optionspresented in the creative space,
I have to generate thoseoptions.
But creative activities stillrequire that I decide is this
worth pursuing, do I let it go,do I need to revise it?
And all those arecriteria-based decisions.
So we began to see that whetherI'm nurturing critical, creative
or collaborative, there's stillcriteria guiding us, there's
(06:33):
still a body of evidence.
You need to guide that.
So, at their core, this is whywe said critical, creative and
collaborative are all qualitythinking.
By the way, one other quickpiece collaborative thinking,
you know, properly understood,is not cooperative.
It's not you and I putting ourheads together and having to
reach the same conclusion.
But collaborative is me havingto decide what to take from my
(06:54):
conversation.
That I see value and it makessense for me, and so each of us
are responsible for our ownlearning.
But I benefit from engaging inthat conversation, but at the
end of the day, I need toreconcile that with my
understanding.
So what we began to see is thatcritical, creative and
collaborative are these kind ofthree-dimensional, intersecting
(07:16):
pieces that mutually reinforcein our classrooms.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, interesting.
It's a great chapter, that one.
It was one that I was.
I had to kind of go back andlook at again too.
Um, and do you find that umterms kind of like like we're in
education, there's always termsfor so many different things Um
, and we kind of like get theflavor of the month at times.
(07:42):
You know a feeling where a newidea comes out, or research, and
then a new thing, or udl versusdesign, thinking, versus like.
How do you, how do you approacha book and writing a book where
you want certain concepts todefinitely be at the forefront,
but that that it, it has thislike said, something that
(08:04):
sustains, like something thathas legs to it.
Like, how do you get from thethe, the kind of the macro, to
the micro in the criticalthinking journey?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Chris, that's a really good question, because
there's a danger, I think,always, you know, in in the kind
of work that we do and that youdo, and that how do we not just
get caught up in in, like, I'mafraid, that there are times
when people you'll create a new,a new catch word, and and now
we're a guru because I inventedthat word and so but you know,
(08:36):
um, I'm doing some writing forboth new brunswick right now and
and manitoba government's onassessment, and you know it's an
example of where I'm sayingwe've created all this language.
We stumble over assessment for,of and as formative.
Look, at the end of the day,you're either assessing to guide
kids or you're evaluating.
You know we've created thiscomplexity.
We look at, well, what doesengagement actually mean?
(08:58):
Well, it comes from the Frenchword to commit to and well, it
reminds us, being engaged doesnot mean being more entertained,
it doesn't mean having more fun, it means getting an
intellectual commitment to theprocess of thinking or to
inquire, stripped right back toinquires, to seek answers.
So, an inquirer, I asked youearlier hey, will I see you on
(09:21):
Wednesday?
You said, yeah, well, okay,done, that's an inquiry.
And I got an answer.
So when schools say, oh, weteach through inquiry, well,
that could still be.
You inquired, you found youranswer.
It doesn't mean there's deepthinking.
So we try to return to the rootof words and say, now, let's
work with the root of that wordso we can have some clarity, and
so that's often important.
(09:42):
Now there are some words andthis you know.
We talk about a criticalchallenge or we will talk about
criteria for judgment and thoseare to put a finer point on.
And if I can just very quickly,you know criteria, you know
what.
What are?
Criteria can be either simplydescriptive or they can be
qualitative in nature.
(10:02):
Simply descriptive or they canbe qualitative in nature.
So there we add the word forjudgment to say when people are
using criteria.
I had a gentleman taughtwoodworking and he said my
criteria my kids have to build abox and my criteria is they
have to use a particular one ofthe three types of corners.
I teach some they have to havea lid and it has to be certain
dimensions.
Those are criteria but they'redescriptive.
(10:24):
There's no judgment in that.
They're binary Either you didit or you didn't.
Those criteria for judgmentwould outline the qualities I'm
looking for in that work, youknow there is a thinking behind
it.
So sometimes the words are addedto add clarity to what they're
doing, what we're doing, andsometimes it's a matter of
stripping back those words andreminding ourselves.
(10:44):
You know, I find teachers findit always enlightening when I
remind them that the wordassessment comes from the Latin
word assidere, meaning to sitalongside.
It doesn't mean to sit injudgment, it means to sit in
guidance, to support.
So those are kind of two thingsthat guide us in trying to not.
I often go into places I'mworking, though and say look, if
there's language people aregetting tripped up on, just tell
(11:06):
me the language you're alreadyusing.
We don't need to add morelayers on that.
So if you're using essentialquestions and I'm using a
throughline question then justlet's decide on which one you
want to use, and I'll get caughtup in language absolutely I
like to.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I heard this quote that you had said and it does
kind of simplify things forteachers instead of like another
, you know another research,another word or another
definition, where you said tweakand fortify was a foundation,
that we're not asking you tooverhaul everything and throw
the baby in the bathwater here.
(11:41):
We want you to reflect on whatyou're doing, tweak certain
things and then fortify.
Could you, could you expand onthat thought, because I thought
it was.
It was it kind of like lessenedmy anxiety a little bit when
I'm I'm reading all of thesedifferent kind of like, oh,
trying this and trying that,because we work with all school
boards that learn, so we're, weget bombarded with all the
(12:04):
languages, um, and all thedifferent you know things that
they're doing at their boardsand stuff.
But could you, could youreflect a little bit on that
tweaking and fortifying umstatement that you had made?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
sure, and first I'm going to set that in a context
saying um, and just today,talking to you, I said look,
there are two fundamental shifts.
We should be interested in Twofundamental shifts One, framing
our questions so they invitekids to think.
So number one thing is do myquestions, invite you to make a
thoughtful decision.
Have I invited thinking?
Make the invitation to thinkwhere learning begins, not where
(12:41):
it ends, because so oftenpeople think I have to front-end
load the content first, then Ican ask you that rich question.
I'm saying well, no, actuallyyou can invite kids to think and
then they can change the mindas they learn.
So now that leads me to thetweak in Fortify.
So the tweak is simply sayingcan I, for example, add a single
(13:01):
word that might put a moreclear focus on the thinking
that's being asked and we callthem qualifiers.
So I could say I want you toidentify three arguments the
author makes in their writing.
Or I could ask you what are thethree most compelling arguments
the author makes?
The first one.
(13:22):
I just go in and I find thefirst three and I write them
down.
I found three arguments there.
I'm done the second one.
Well, what do you mean by acompelling argument.
What's the criteria that you'reusing?
And I could say to you well,chris, you picked an interesting
three.
Can you talk to me about whyyou chose those three?
Because someone else picked adifferent three, different three
(13:43):
, and both could be equallysound.
But it's not the first three,it's the most compelling.
You know asking young kids whywould the little red hen not
share her bread?
Well, that's a retrievalquestion, that's not a thinking
test.
Just, I remember in the storywas it fair that she wouldn't
share her bread?
Oh well, I have to think aboutwhat makes something fair.
Now I have to use the detailsfrom the story to support my
(14:03):
decision about whether it wasfair or not.
Those are what we mean bytweaks, and often they'd be
accomplished with simply addingone word to a question best
Instead of what are three wayswe can harvest trees?
We ask what are the best waysto harvest trees?
Well, we pause and say, well,best.
By best we mean it'ssustainable, it's profitable and
it's safe or whatever thecriteria might be.
(14:26):
That's the tweak part, thefortify part.
You know, sometimes we'll betalking with teachers and they
got a really good question.
That's a terrific question.
Some grade three teachers todayin the story where the wild
things are, and the questionthey asked was Max dreaming?
Now we tweak that a little more, just make it a little stronger
, saying what's the mostconvincing evidence that Max was
(14:49):
or was not dreaming in thatstory.
Okay, so now it's not aretrieval, it's not remembering
the story, because they're neveractually saying the story was
he or not?
But is it implied that he was?
What evidence?
Was he or not?
But is it implied that he was?
What evidence?
Now the fortify is adding whatwe call intellectual tools.
You've got a great question,but if I don't have the
(15:09):
background knowledge, I can'tanswer your question.
So how do we build thebackground or help kids think
about the criteria or provide athinking organizer when they
gather evidence, do they have away to sort and organize so they
can see the patterns or makethe connections?
And I find, with teachers, thetweak they see oh, this doesn't
(15:30):
mean I have to rewrite my wholeprocess.
It's not a big rewrite, it'soften a small but powerful
little shift.
And the other side of it is, oh, adding that one tool in and,
by the way, I have to say, forour kids who are struggling.
Going back to you asked earlierabout the journey in this work.
I want to tell you, 20 yearsago, when I began, critical
(15:50):
thinking was really what we didfor the gifted program.
It was IB program, and whatwe've found over time is
teaching the intellectual toolsfor thinking is more important
for our kids who struggle.
Our kids who are strong tend tointuitively do some of these
things already.
Critical thinking is actuallymore and most important for our
(16:12):
kids who might struggle.
We give them some structure.
We give them the tools theyneed.
If they have the tools, theycan more likely engage.
So I'll just finish by saying Ialways have to remind teachers
just asking better questionsdoesn't mean you get better
engage.
So I'll just finish by saying Ialways have to remind teachers
just asking better questionsdoesn't mean you get better
answers.
So I tweaked my question, butmy kids still gave disappointing
answers.
Well, if you didn't build thetoolkits, they need the
background knowledge they drawnthe way to see the connections.
(16:35):
You're not going to get betteranswers just because you ask
better questions.
And so that's the floor tofight.
How do we add the tools thatwill help kids be successful?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Right, right, and you've talked about five
intellectual tools.
Right Like, can you, can you,can you ring those off and, kind
of like, add a little color tothem?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, yeah.
So the first two we've kind oftouched on, but the first two
that are really the pillars arebackground knowledge, and we say
background knowledge becauseyou can't think in a vacuum, you
can't think about nothing.
And the second one is criteriafor judgment.
Those are the two pillars, butI have something to think about.
I have some criteria to guideme in that thinking.
I want to loop back to those.
(17:13):
I'll give you the five, thenI'll quickly come back.
The third one is criticalthinking, vocabulary and that
one's looking at the language ofthinking.
And you know, I always have toremind teachers, not the
language of your sitePythagorean theorem is
background knowledge.
You know.
Metamorphosis, that'sbackground knowledge.
Analyze and evaluate isvocabulary of thinking.
(17:35):
And if you don't know thedifference between analyzing and
evaluating, then you just, youknow you write whatever.
Do you know the differencebetween a bias and a perspective
?
If someone says could you forma conjecture?
See, if I don't know theseterms and the sad thing is often
on provincial exams I may gettripped up by the question, not
(17:55):
the content.
I studied, I know the content.
I misunderstood what you'reasking in the question.
It was interesting today howmany when I asked, asked how
many kids don't reallyunderstand what an inference is,
and even high school teacherssaying, yeah, they often don't
really understand that.
Well then, sometimes we need toslow down and unpack.
You know what makes a soundversus weak inference, what
makes a difference betweenobservation and inference.
(18:17):
So there's a lot of language ofthinking that we can get
tripped up on if we're notcareful.
The fourth tool are, I mentioned, thinking strategies and, by
the way, I should mention, as Igo through these, the tools need
to be owned by the learners.
I think teachers often see themas tools that I'm going to use
to teach, but really our goal innurturing agency over time is
(18:41):
that students start to have abank of their own thinking
strategy.
So when they encounter aproblem, they can say, oh, this
is a good time for me to use aVenn diagram to help me this
strategy to be used.
So we want to build studentscomfort with these strategies.
The fifth tool and it'sdifferent than the other four,
are habits of mind.
These are the habits of goodthinkers being curious and
(19:01):
paying attention to detail and,you know, being collaborative in
your thinking.
And so how do we nurture thehabits of good thinkers?
And, to be quite frank, in mostprovinces, unfortunately, we
reference them in our curriculumbut we don't evaluate them very
well, we don't report on themvery well, and yet they're often
one of the most importantpieces if you're going to be
successful.
Perseverance, for example, is ahabit of mind and much of the
(19:25):
research shows it's one of themost important you want to
succeed in life.
Perseverance is going to be oneof the number one things.
I want to just back up for amoment.
Background knowledge Imentioned is an absolute pillar
and it's important in our workthat we don't, when we start
talking about inquiry, thatpeople don't.
You know, when we start talkingabout inquiry, that people
don't think it's discovery,because we are definitely not
(19:45):
about discovery learning.
You know, here's a question goout and explore and you'll
eventually arrive at an answer.
No, they won't.
And so what I'm alwaysimportant to say to teachers
what teachers do really mattersin classrooms because we help
build the background knowledge.
It's also important weunderstand.
As a teacher, I don't teachanswers, I teach the
(20:06):
intellectual tools.
You need to reach your ownanswer, which means I will teach
content, but not to answer thequestion.
That's your job.
The other piece I want to becareful of building background
knowledge doesn't mean park thethinking.
Well, I fill in all the details, then we'll come back to the
thinking.
So one of the challenges is howdo we teach content knowledge?
(20:28):
How do we build contentknowledge, or background
knowledge, in a way that invitesthinking?
How do we ensure that every dayin my class, thinking is what
happens here and it will happeneven as I'm building content
knowledge.
So one of the things I will tryto do in the next day with the
group I'm working with is justoffering here's a dozen ways I
can teach content through athinking approach.
So we want to find a way that Iunderstand, I need to build
(20:53):
your understanding of science,of history, of math concepts and
so on, but I need to engage youin thinking while you learn
about it, because we know fromlots of research that if you're
engaged in thinking when you'relearning, you're more likely to
retain what you were learning.
It's harder to to transfer intolong-term memory information.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I merely tried to memorize, so that's that's the
real challenge backgroundknowledge built through a
thinking approach great and Imean I, I love the, the word it
it rang true to my ears is thatengagement part, and I think
that we see that more as as kidsmove up in their schooling,
right from elementary to highschool, we know that engagement
decreases quite a bit.
(21:32):
How do you, how do you activatethat thinking in the higher
level high schools, when you arefaced with you have to cover
these things so that they passthis, they get their mark on the
test.
How can that mindset shift alittle bit so that there is more
engagement?
Or I feel like I can bring moreengagement in if I do these
(21:57):
certain strategies or thesecriterias.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
So first of all, one of thethings we need to keep in mind,
and I'll give you an example ofthis in a second it is an
inherently more interesting wayto learn to be invited to think
than it is to simply memorize.
And my best proof of that whenI ask people have you ever been
to an escape room?
And you know, two thirds of myaudience put that yeah, I, I'm
(22:21):
in an escape room.
I said so.
You paid money to be locked ina room.
You have to think your way outof it.
That doesn't prove that thehuman brain likes to solve
puzzles.
We like to be invited to think,and yet often in schools, we
don't invite the thinking untilthe end.
First, I have to fill your headwith content.
Think about video games.
Video games you start playingand you figure it out as you go.
(22:43):
You think your way through andif you get stuck, you go find
and you come back.
If school were a video game,nobody would want to play
because we'd say no, no, no, youcan't.
You can't try the game untilyou finish reading the manual.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
No starting over either, right?
No retries, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Hit, yeah, exactly Hit that reset button and away
you go.
So how do we do that inclassrooms, like, how do we
seize on what we see as modelsthat are, you know gaming, you
know they're brilliant.
I mean, you start with amanageable place for people to
get into the game.
And then Brandon at the end ofthe week and he said heads up, a
lot of our high school teachersbelieve that kids can't think
until you first fill their headwith information and you need to
help us try to change that.
So we call this a learninglaunch and it's not a minds on.
(23:35):
It's more than that.
I'll give you a quick example.
Grade seven science teacher wasabout to start learning.
Kids were going to startlearning about the organ systems
in the human body.
So our learning launch was toask is Groot from Guardians of
the Galaxy, is Groot more plantor animal?
And we gave kids a dashboard.
(23:56):
So it's not a binary.
The question wasn't is he aplant or is he an animal?
That doesn't get me where Iwant.
Is he more plant or animal?
Because he't get me where Iwant.
Is he more plant or animal?
Because he's got a bit of both.
Is he way more plant, somewhatmore plant, somewhat more animal
, way more animal, kids took aposition.
Why do you think that?
Okay, let's explore therespiratory system.
And they learned about it.
Okay, does Groot have arespiratory system?
Well, yeah, he's got a voiceand he needs a voice box, so
(24:20):
we're teaching the content.
Well, let me tell you a bitmore about our digestive system.
We talk about it.
Okay, does Groot have one?
By the way, the engagement ofthe kids and we gave them that
space to go back and forth inthat dashboard.
They debated like they werehooked.
So, if we can find a way to getthe excitement going first and
say, well, what if I told youthis?
(24:41):
A way to get the excitementgoing first and say, well, what
if I told you this, would thatchange your mind?
What if you learned this?
So, using a learning launchthat's a shift we're really
working on with teachers to saythat interesting, provocative
question ask it first, don'tsave it, and be okay with kids
saying you don't know right now.
That's okay, because we'regoing to get into this.
(25:01):
Another example of that where doteachers tend to put their
field trips in a unit and I cantell you, the vast majority at
the end of the unit like somekind of reward.
You know you behave.
I'll take you on a field trip.
That should be the first thing.
Go and ask questions, you know.
Get out there and wonder andcome on back and we'll explore
together.
So I think there are ways wecan raise engagement by not
(25:26):
making the most interesting partof a unit towards the end.
Use it as the hook, get kidsinto it and we see pretty
consistently when we invertthings.
By the way, that's anotherlittle tweak.
Sometimes I see teachers youhave a fascinating task but
you've saved it for the end.
What if we made it the beginning?
Quick example math teacher hadkids at the end of a linear
(25:49):
relations unit, grade 9 or solvea murder mystery.
We said what if that was thestart?
And so we wrote this up.
The first, you know, 20 minuteskids are introduced.
At 6.20 this morning a body wasfound.
We have three suspects.
We need you to figure out thetime of day and which suspect
most likely committed, based onyou know a little bit.
(26:11):
Then the kids were told well,the liver temperature when the
body was found was this here'sthe data set around the decline
in liver temperature after deathUsing linear relations,
calculate the likely time ofdeath.
Then they looked at eyepressure.
The kids had this ongoingdebate about the time of death
and he probably committed themurder applying the math.
(26:32):
They were so engaged in it.
I want you to note normallynormally or in the past that
same activity was at the end ofthe unit, not the beginning, and
the impact it had by moving itup front.
So sometimes with teachersthat's a an easy little tweak.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Can you make challenge the start, not the end
, and you got kids hooked yeah,I like that idea of hook,
hooking them um and and related,letting their experience kind
of sing a little bit as they'restruggling with the thinking
process and at least they havesomething they can hem it on to,
rather than like you know,textbook stuff where it's like,
(27:09):
yeah, whatever it's words off apage to me, but you actually
bring their lives into play.
You know, like every kid seenGroot and thought about you know
probably thought of you know hegrows like a tree, but he's
kind of human and like yeah,that's really cool example.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Well, I want to use I want to flip this just for a
moment if you don't mind yeah,so there are the benefits for
the kids, there's no question.
We see their engagement is up,the depth of their learning is
enhanced because they'rethinking about it.
But I think we shouldn't losesight of and I just made the
teacher's job easier, because ifyou save everything until the
end and I've got a week left inthis unit and I'm supposed to
(27:46):
give feedback and help kidslearn, I'm trying now to give
feedback to the 30 kids in myclass all in the same week.
I only have so much time.
Well, imagine if I put thatquestion up front.
We've got a month in this unit.
Every time I teach a lesson I'mchecking in.
How are you applying that?
I have way more time.
It's a lot calmer for me.
(28:06):
A lot of this will happen in myclass, in the lesson itself.
It's not happening at mykitchen table anymore, it's now.
The assessment is built into mylesson and what we find and
this is coming from teacherstheir kids are more engaged,
their learning is deeper.
And the teachers will say andmy life's easier, I'm able to
give more meaningful feedback ina more timely way without
taking it all home, and theyoften will say you know, this
(28:29):
was good for me and I think,that's another important piece,
that it's good for kids, butit's also good for teachers.
It's a more efficient way forthem to provide the kind of
guidance that we should beproviding kids.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Absolutely Fascinating, fascinating.
I'm so happy that we're goingto keep this conversation going
on Wednesday because we'll beseeing you.
I love it.
I mean, I love that idea too ofcoming kind of kind of back to
it a bit, of just those tweaksand and and little tweaks, like
just move that in the forefrontand use that question as your
(29:06):
guide as you go through.
Such a powerful idea anyteacher could do it, but it's
like believing that it is goingto have an effect on the kids.
And oftentimes, you know, whenI go into classrooms and I work
with teachers coaching them,they always are amazed that
seeing their kids in a differentway or seeing them where they
didn't anticipate they would go,because they've always just
(29:29):
kind of gone there down theiralley, you know, like they just
stay on there instead of doingthose small little tweaks that
can have a profound effect onkids.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I also think it's respectful to teachers that
there's a lot of good stuffgoing on in our classrooms and I
think sometimes, you know, whenI get outside of Canada and I'm
working with schoolsinternationally, you know you're
reminded like we have a verygood education system.
There's a lot of good stuffhappening.
You know.
Can we get better?
Absolutely.
But I think being respectful toteachers, like, let's build on
(30:00):
top of the good work you'redoing, don't this isn't to
displace the work you're doing.
You began the conversationsaying, you know, like how do we
make sure that we're honoringthe work that teachers are
already doing and and adding toit and not displacing it?
Because if I go in and say toteachers, you know, basically,
scrap everything you're doing.
A, it's offensive and B, theworkload just went through the
(30:22):
roof and they're not going tobuy in.
So I think this approach oftweak and fortify, add these
small pieces, is saying buildoff the good work you're doing,
let's find ways to make it evenbetter Amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Let's leave it at that.
What a way to end.
Awesome, awesome statement.
Well, this has been fascinating.
I'm going to go head back intothat book after this to look at
a few more of the ideas behindit, but I really really
appreciate your time today,garfield, and sharing some of
your ideas and, again, I reallylook forward to our continued
(30:57):
collaboration.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Thanks so much, Chris .
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Thank you.
All right, here we are another episode of Shift Ed
podcast coming to you out ofMontreal today.
Great guest, I'm not reachingthat far.
We're in Canada, staying inCanada, just reaching over the
Quebec-Ontario border.
I have Garfield Ginnie Newmanwith us today.
He's actually been doing somework with us in our system here
(00:38):
in Quebec.
I was so pleased that he tookme up on this offer.
Thanks so much, garfield, forjoining me here today.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You're welcome, delighted to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well, we're going to jump right in, but I kind of
would love to just ask you aquestion of what got you into
education, to start this wholecareer of yours, this amazing
career that you've had.
What were the beginning seedsthat started this growth in the
educational world?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, actually it's interesting you start with that
question because Septembermarked my 40th year in education
and I started when I was youngas a high school teacher in York
region, north of Toronto, andtaught for a number of years
there.
So I guess I just came out ofuniversity thinking teaching is
(01:28):
what I would like to be involvedin and then, probably 15 years
down the road, I'd written anumber of textbooks, done a
number of other things and inthe 90s started to emerge on the
neuroscience of learning andhow the brain learns, and that
intrigued me.
But then I was approached by DrRoland Case, who was actually
originally from Montreal, who'sthe founder of the Critical
(01:48):
Thinking Consortium, and webegan to explore and work
together and at that point Ijoined and became the senior
consultant with the consortiumabout 20 some years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Amazing, well, and the ride continues on um,
doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
it does, then it's uh , uh.
This fall we've been in korea,in china, across canada.
This week alone I'm in montreal, quebec city and brandon,
manitoba.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So wow, it's all right yeah, it's a lot of
jetting around, that's for sure.
And I mean, I imagine that themain or some of your main topics
that you're talking about nowis this critical thinking and
kind of looking through thatlens when you're looking at your
organization, but also yourclassroom as well.
If I were to ask you, like, thefirst question is kind of what
(02:41):
is the thesis behind it?
Like, if you had to kind oflike condense it into a
paragraph or so, the criticalthinking is is, is what?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
well, I'm actually going to broaden because, you
know, in the book on creatingthinking classrooms you'll
notice in the title,interestingly, we don't use the
word critical, and that wasintentional, in that we started
to think about critical,creative and collaborative
thinking and realized thatreally we want to promote high
quality thinking in classrooms.
(03:12):
So that would be, you know, asa intersection of critical
thinking and creativity, thatthey're not separate ways of
thinking.
They both are rigorous and theyboth involve similar
(03:35):
intellectual tools.
So really the thrust of thebook is how do we promote good,
rich thinking which might becritical and or creative and
collaborative?
And so that's kind of thedriver for the book and the
thesis and the work is nurturingthose.
And the other piece I would saythat has grown increasingly
(03:56):
over the years is, aside fromthe rich critical thinking, how
do we do this in a sustainedinquiring approach and that word
sustained is increasinglyimportant so that it's not a
series of one-off prompts tothink critically in isolation,
but it's sustained depth overtime.
(04:17):
Right, interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Interesting and I was particularly attracted towards
your chapter three where it wasthe critical, creative and
collaborative dimensions ofthinking.
Could you kind of explain thecrossroads between like I kind
of saw it as a Venn diagram alittle bit where they do all
intersect.
Could you paint that line forus where those three come
(04:40):
together?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, actually it's interesting those three come
together.
Yeah, actually it's interesting.
We played with the Venn diagramidea for a while.
We began to wonder the problemis with the Venn diagrams it
still leaves part of creativeoutside of critical and critical
outside creative.
And we began thinking aboutthat thinking.
Is there a time when, forexample, creative thought or
(05:04):
critical thought aren'tintersecting?
And we began thinking that isone a subset of the other.
Which one is the subset?
But that line at the core andit might be helpful to define,
and then I can run from there.
Critical thinking has four keydimensions that are important.
One is that there has to be adecision of some kind.
(05:25):
It's an assessment, a judgment,that's an invitation to reach a
decision of some kind.
That decision then, to havethat decision out there, there
have to be options to consider.
There are options that I'mweighing to reach my decision.
That decision is not just basedon a preference, how I feel
about something.
It's based on a set of criteria.
(05:46):
From the root, critical thinkingcomes from the Greek word
meaning criteria thinking, andthen I use evidence Now.
So that's at the core of allcritical thinking.
It's criteria-based thinkingthat has us weigh options to
reach a thoughtful, reasonedjudgment.
But when we looked atcreativity, it's still the same
thing.
The difference is in creativitythere's the fluency and
(06:10):
flexibility of thinking togenerate those options.
So, rather than optionspresented in the creative space,
I have to generate thoseoptions.
But creative activities stillrequire that I decide is this
worth pursuing, do I let it go,do I need to revise it?
And all those arecriteria-based decisions.
So we began to see that whetherI'm nurturing critical, creative
or collaborative, there's stillcriteria guiding us, there's
(06:33):
still a body of evidence.
You need to guide that.
So, at their core, this is whywe said critical, creative and
collaborative are all qualitythinking.
By the way, one other quickpiece collaborative thinking,
you know, properly understood,is not cooperative.
It's not you and I putting ourheads together and having to
reach the same conclusion.
But collaborative is me havingto decide what to take from my
(06:54):
conversation.
That I see value and it makessense for me, and so each of us
are responsible for our ownlearning.
But I benefit from engaging inthat conversation, but at the
end of the day, I need toreconcile that with my
understanding.
So what we began to see is thatcritical, creative and
collaborative are these kind ofthree-dimensional, intersecting
(07:16):
pieces that mutually reinforcein our classrooms.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, interesting.
It's a great chapter, that one.
It was one that I was.
I had to kind of go back andlook at again too.
Um, and do you find that umterms kind of like like we're in
education, there's always termsfor so many different things Um
, and we kind of like get theflavor of the month at times.
(07:42):
You know a feeling where a newidea comes out, or research, and
then a new thing, or udl versusdesign, thinking, versus like.
How do you, how do you approacha book and writing a book where
you want certain concepts todefinitely be at the forefront,
but that that it, it has thislike said, something that
(08:04):
sustains, like something thathas legs to it.
Like, how do you get from thethe, the kind of the macro, to
the micro in the criticalthinking journey?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Chris, that's a really good question, because
there's a danger, I think,always, you know, in in the kind
of work that we do and that youdo, and that how do we not just
get caught up in in, like, I'mafraid, that there are times
when people you'll create a new,a new catch word, and and now
we're a guru because I inventedthat word and so but you know,
(08:36):
um, I'm doing some writing forboth new brunswick right now and
and manitoba government's onassessment, and you know it's an
example of where I'm sayingwe've created all this language.
We stumble over assessment for,of and as formative.
Look, at the end of the day,you're either assessing to guide
kids or you're evaluating.
You know we've created thiscomplexity.
We look at, well, what doesengagement actually mean?
(08:58):
Well, it comes from the Frenchword to commit to and well, it
reminds us, being engaged doesnot mean being more entertained,
it doesn't mean having more fun, it means getting an
intellectual commitment to theprocess of thinking or to
inquire, stripped right back toinquires, to seek answers.
So, an inquirer, I asked youearlier hey, will I see you on
(09:21):
Wednesday?
You said, yeah, well, okay,done, that's an inquiry.
And I got an answer.
So when schools say, oh, weteach through inquiry, well,
that could still be.
You inquired, you found youranswer.
It doesn't mean there's deepthinking.
So we try to return to the rootof words and say, now, let's
work with the root of that wordso we can have some clarity, and
so that's often important.
(09:42):
Now there are some words andthis you know.
We talk about a criticalchallenge or we will talk about
criteria for judgment and thoseare to put a finer point on.
And if I can just very quickly,you know criteria, you know
what.
What are?
Criteria can be either simplydescriptive or they can be
qualitative in nature.
(10:02):
Simply descriptive or they canbe qualitative in nature.
So there we add the word forjudgment to say when people are
using criteria.
I had a gentleman taughtwoodworking and he said my
criteria my kids have to build abox and my criteria is they
have to use a particular one ofthe three types of corners.
I teach some they have to havea lid and it has to be certain
dimensions.
Those are criteria but they'redescriptive.
(10:24):
There's no judgment in that.
They're binary Either you didit or you didn't.
Those criteria for judgmentwould outline the qualities I'm
looking for in that work, youknow there is a thinking behind
it.
So sometimes the words are addedto add clarity to what they're
doing, what we're doing, andsometimes it's a matter of
stripping back those words andreminding ourselves.
(10:44):
You know, I find teachers findit always enlightening when I
remind them that the wordassessment comes from the Latin
word assidere, meaning to sitalongside.
It doesn't mean to sit injudgment, it means to sit in
guidance, to support.
So those are kind of two thingsthat guide us in trying to not.
I often go into places I'mworking, though and say look, if
there's language people aregetting tripped up on, just tell
(11:06):
me the language you're alreadyusing.
We don't need to add morelayers on that.
So if you're using essentialquestions and I'm using a
throughline question then justlet's decide on which one you
want to use, and I'll get caughtup in language absolutely I
like to.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I heard this quote that you had said and it does
kind of simplify things forteachers instead of like another
, you know another research,another word or another
definition, where you said tweakand fortify was a foundation,
that we're not asking you tooverhaul everything and throw
the baby in the bathwater here.
(11:41):
We want you to reflect on whatyou're doing, tweak certain
things and then fortify.
Could you, could you expand onthat thought, because I thought
it was.
It was it kind of like lessenedmy anxiety a little bit when
I'm I'm reading all of thesedifferent kind of like, oh,
trying this and trying that,because we work with all school
boards that learn, so we're, weget bombarded with all the
(12:04):
languages, um, and all thedifferent you know things that
they're doing at their boardsand stuff.
But could you, could youreflect a little bit on that
tweaking and fortifying umstatement that you had made?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
sure, and first I'm going to set that in a context
saying um, and just today,talking to you, I said look,
there are two fundamental shifts.
We should be interested in Twofundamental shifts One, framing
our questions so they invitekids to think.
So number one thing is do myquestions, invite you to make a
thoughtful decision.
Have I invited thinking?
Make the invitation to thinkwhere learning begins, not where
(12:41):
it ends, because so oftenpeople think I have to front-end
load the content first, then Ican ask you that rich question.
I'm saying well, no, actuallyyou can invite kids to think and
then they can change the mindas they learn.
So now that leads me to thetweak in Fortify.
So the tweak is simply sayingcan I, for example, add a single
(13:01):
word that might put a moreclear focus on the thinking
that's being asked and we callthem qualifiers.
So I could say I want you toidentify three arguments the
author makes in their writing.
Or I could ask you what are thethree most compelling arguments
the author makes?
The first one.
(13:22):
I just go in and I find thefirst three and I write them
down.
I found three arguments there.
I'm done the second one.
Well, what do you mean by acompelling argument.
What's the criteria that you'reusing?
And I could say to you well,chris, you picked an interesting
three.
Can you talk to me about whyyou chose those three?
Because someone else picked adifferent three, different three
(13:43):
, and both could be equallysound.
But it's not the first three,it's the most compelling.
You know asking young kids whywould the little red hen not
share her bread?
Well, that's a retrievalquestion, that's not a thinking
test.
Just, I remember in the storywas it fair that she wouldn't
share her bread?
Oh well, I have to think aboutwhat makes something fair.
Now I have to use the detailsfrom the story to support my
(14:03):
decision about whether it wasfair or not.
Those are what we mean bytweaks, and often they'd be
accomplished with simply addingone word to a question best
Instead of what are three wayswe can harvest trees?
We ask what are the best waysto harvest trees?
Well, we pause and say, well,best.
By best we mean it'ssustainable, it's profitable and
it's safe or whatever thecriteria might be.
(14:26):
That's the tweak part, thefortify part.
You know, sometimes we'll betalking with teachers and they
got a really good question.
That's a terrific question.
Some grade three teachers todayin the story where the wild
things are, and the questionthey asked was Max dreaming?
Now we tweak that a little more, just make it a little stronger
, saying what's the mostconvincing evidence that Max was
(14:49):
or was not dreaming in thatstory.
Okay, so now it's not aretrieval, it's not remembering
the story, because they're neveractually saying the story was
he or not?
But is it implied that he was?
What evidence?
Was he or not?
But is it implied that he was?
What evidence?
Now the fortify is adding whatwe call intellectual tools.
You've got a great question,but if I don't have the
(15:09):
background knowledge, I can'tanswer your question.
So how do we build thebackground or help kids think
about the criteria or provide athinking organizer when they
gather evidence, do they have away to sort and organize so they
can see the patterns or makethe connections?
And I find, with teachers, thetweak they see oh, this doesn't
(15:30):
mean I have to rewrite my wholeprocess.
It's not a big rewrite, it'soften a small but powerful
little shift.
And the other side of it is, oh, adding that one tool in and,
by the way, I have to say, forour kids who are struggling.
Going back to you asked earlierabout the journey in this work.
I want to tell you, 20 yearsago, when I began, critical
(15:50):
thinking was really what we didfor the gifted program.
It was IB program, and whatwe've found over time is
teaching the intellectual toolsfor thinking is more important
for our kids who struggle.
Our kids who are strong tend tointuitively do some of these
things already.
Critical thinking is actuallymore and most important for our
(16:12):
kids who might struggle.
We give them some structure.
We give them the tools theyneed.
If they have the tools, theycan more likely engage.
So I'll just finish by saying Ialways have to remind teachers
just asking better questionsdoesn't mean you get better
engage.
So I'll just finish by saying Ialways have to remind teachers
just asking better questionsdoesn't mean you get better
answers.
So I tweaked my question, butmy kids still gave disappointing
answers.
Well, if you didn't build thetoolkits, they need the
background knowledge they drawnthe way to see the connections.
(16:35):
You're not going to get betteranswers just because you ask
better questions.
And so that's the floor tofight.
How do we add the tools thatwill help kids be successful?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Right, right, and you've talked about five
intellectual tools.
Right Like, can you, can you,can you ring those off and, kind
of like, add a little color tothem?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, yeah.
So the first two we've kind oftouched on, but the first two
that are really the pillars arebackground knowledge, and we say
background knowledge becauseyou can't think in a vacuum, you
can't think about nothing.
And the second one is criteriafor judgment.
Those are the two pillars, butI have something to think about.
I have some criteria to guideme in that thinking.
I want to loop back to those.
(17:13):
I'll give you the five, thenI'll quickly come back.
The third one is criticalthinking, vocabulary and that
one's looking at the language ofthinking.
And you know, I always have toremind teachers, not the
language of your sitePythagorean theorem is
background knowledge.
You know.
Metamorphosis, that'sbackground knowledge.
Analyze and evaluate isvocabulary of thinking.
(17:35):
And if you don't know thedifference between analyzing and
evaluating, then you just, youknow you write whatever.
Do you know the differencebetween a bias and a perspective
?
If someone says could you forma conjecture?
See, if I don't know theseterms and the sad thing is often
on provincial exams I may gettripped up by the question, not
(17:55):
the content.
I studied, I know the content.
I misunderstood what you'reasking in the question.
It was interesting today howmany when I asked, asked how
many kids don't reallyunderstand what an inference is,
and even high school teacherssaying, yeah, they often don't
really understand that.
Well then, sometimes we need toslow down and unpack.
You know what makes a soundversus weak inference, what
makes a difference betweenobservation and inference.
(18:17):
So there's a lot of language ofthinking that we can get
tripped up on if we're notcareful.
The fourth tool are, I mentioned, thinking strategies and, by
the way, I should mention, as Igo through these, the tools need
to be owned by the learners.
I think teachers often see themas tools that I'm going to use
to teach, but really our goal innurturing agency over time is
(18:41):
that students start to have abank of their own thinking
strategy.
So when they encounter aproblem, they can say, oh, this
is a good time for me to use aVenn diagram to help me this
strategy to be used.
So we want to build studentscomfort with these strategies.
The fifth tool and it'sdifferent than the other four,
are habits of mind.
These are the habits of goodthinkers being curious and
(19:01):
paying attention to detail and,you know, being collaborative in
your thinking.
And so how do we nurture thehabits of good thinkers?
And, to be quite frank, in mostprovinces, unfortunately, we
reference them in our curriculumbut we don't evaluate them very
well, we don't report on themvery well, and yet they're often
one of the most importantpieces if you're going to be
successful.
Perseverance, for example, is ahabit of mind and much of the
(19:25):
research shows it's one of themost important you want to
succeed in life.
Perseverance is going to be oneof the number one things.
I want to just back up for amoment.
Background knowledge Imentioned is an absolute pillar
and it's important in our workthat we don't, when we start
talking about inquiry, thatpeople don't.
You know, when we start talkingabout inquiry, that people
don't think it's discovery,because we are definitely not
(19:45):
about discovery learning.
You know, here's a question goout and explore and you'll
eventually arrive at an answer.
No, they won't.
And so what I'm alwaysimportant to say to teachers
what teachers do really mattersin classrooms because we help
build the background knowledge.
It's also important weunderstand.
As a teacher, I don't teachanswers, I teach the
(20:06):
intellectual tools.
You need to reach your ownanswer, which means I will teach
content, but not to answer thequestion.
That's your job.
The other piece I want to becareful of building background
knowledge doesn't mean park thethinking.
Well, I fill in all the details, then we'll come back to the
thinking.
So one of the challenges is howdo we teach content knowledge?
(20:28):
How do we build contentknowledge, or background
knowledge, in a way that invitesthinking?
How do we ensure that every dayin my class, thinking is what
happens here and it will happeneven as I'm building content
knowledge.
So one of the things I will tryto do in the next day with the
group I'm working with is justoffering here's a dozen ways I
can teach content through athinking approach.
So we want to find a way that Iunderstand, I need to build
(20:53):
your understanding of science,of history, of math concepts and
so on, but I need to engage youin thinking while you learn
about it, because we know fromlots of research that if you're
engaged in thinking when you'relearning, you're more likely to
retain what you were learning.
It's harder to to transfer intolong-term memory information.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I merely tried to memorize, so that's that's the
real challenge backgroundknowledge built through a
thinking approach great and Imean I, I love the, the word it
it rang true to my ears is thatengagement part, and I think
that we see that more as as kidsmove up in their schooling,
right from elementary to highschool, we know that engagement
decreases quite a bit.
(21:32):
How do you, how do you activatethat thinking in the higher
level high schools, when you arefaced with you have to cover
these things so that they passthis, they get their mark on the
test.
How can that mindset shift alittle bit so that there is more
engagement?
Or I feel like I can bring moreengagement in if I do these
(21:57):
certain strategies or thesecriterias.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
So first of all, one of thethings we need to keep in mind,
and I'll give you an example ofthis in a second it is an
inherently more interesting wayto learn to be invited to think
than it is to simply memorize.
And my best proof of that whenI ask people have you ever been
to an escape room?
And you know, two thirds of myaudience put that yeah, I, I'm
(22:21):
in an escape room.
I said so.
You paid money to be locked ina room.
You have to think your way outof it.
That doesn't prove that thehuman brain likes to solve
puzzles.
We like to be invited to think,and yet often in schools, we
don't invite the thinking untilthe end.
First, I have to fill your headwith content.
Think about video games.
Video games you start playingand you figure it out as you go.
(22:43):
You think your way through andif you get stuck, you go find
and you come back.
If school were a video game,nobody would want to play
because we'd say no, no, no, youcan't.
You can't try the game untilyou finish reading the manual.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
No starting over either, right?
No retries, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Hit, yeah, exactly Hit that reset button and away
you go.
So how do we do that inclassrooms, like, how do we
seize on what we see as modelsthat are, you know gaming, you
know they're brilliant.
I mean, you start with amanageable place for people to
get into the game.
And then Brandon at the end ofthe week and he said heads up, a
lot of our high school teachersbelieve that kids can't think
until you first fill their headwith information and you need to
help us try to change that.
So we call this a learninglaunch and it's not a minds on.
(23:35):
It's more than that.
I'll give you a quick example.
Grade seven science teacher wasabout to start learning.
Kids were going to startlearning about the organ systems
in the human body.
So our learning launch was toask is Groot from Guardians of
the Galaxy, is Groot more plantor animal?
And we gave kids a dashboard.
(23:56):
So it's not a binary.
The question wasn't is he aplant or is he an animal?
That doesn't get me where Iwant.
Is he more plant or animal?
Because he't get me where Iwant.
Is he more plant or animal?
Because he's got a bit of both.
Is he way more plant, somewhatmore plant, somewhat more animal
, way more animal, kids took aposition.
Why do you think that?
Okay, let's explore therespiratory system.
And they learned about it.
Okay, does Groot have arespiratory system?
Well, yeah, he's got a voiceand he needs a voice box, so
(24:20):
we're teaching the content.
Well, let me tell you a bitmore about our digestive system.
We talk about it.
Okay, does Groot have one?
By the way, the engagement ofthe kids and we gave them that
space to go back and forth inthat dashboard.
They debated like they werehooked.
So, if we can find a way to getthe excitement going first and
say, well, what if I told youthis?
(24:41):
A way to get the excitementgoing first and say, well, what
if I told you this, would thatchange your mind?
What if you learned this?
So, using a learning launchthat's a shift we're really
working on with teachers to saythat interesting, provocative
question ask it first, don'tsave it, and be okay with kids
saying you don't know right now.
That's okay, because we'regoing to get into this.
(25:01):
Another example of that where doteachers tend to put their
field trips in a unit and I cantell you, the vast majority at
the end of the unit like somekind of reward.
You know you behave.
I'll take you on a field trip.
That should be the first thing.
Go and ask questions, you know.
Get out there and wonder andcome on back and we'll explore
together.
So I think there are ways wecan raise engagement by not
(25:26):
making the most interesting partof a unit towards the end.
Use it as the hook, get kidsinto it and we see pretty
consistently when we invertthings.
By the way, that's anotherlittle tweak.
Sometimes I see teachers youhave a fascinating task but
you've saved it for the end.
What if we made it the beginning?
Quick example math teacher hadkids at the end of a linear
(25:49):
relations unit, grade 9 or solvea murder mystery.
We said what if that was thestart?
And so we wrote this up.
The first, you know, 20 minuteskids are introduced.
At 6.20 this morning a body wasfound.
We have three suspects.
We need you to figure out thetime of day and which suspect
most likely committed, based onyou know a little bit.
(26:11):
Then the kids were told well,the liver temperature when the
body was found was this here'sthe data set around the decline
in liver temperature after deathUsing linear relations,
calculate the likely time ofdeath.
Then they looked at eyepressure.
The kids had this ongoingdebate about the time of death
and he probably committed themurder applying the math.
(26:32):
They were so engaged in it.
I want you to note normallynormally or in the past that
same activity was at the end ofthe unit, not the beginning, and
the impact it had by moving itup front.
So sometimes with teachersthat's a an easy little tweak.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Can you make challenge the start, not the end
, and you got kids hooked yeah,I like that idea of hook,
hooking them um and and related,letting their experience kind
of sing a little bit as they'restruggling with the thinking
process and at least they havesomething they can hem it on to,
rather than like you know,textbook stuff where it's like,
(27:09):
yeah, whatever it's words off apage to me, but you actually
bring their lives into play.
You know, like every kid seenGroot and thought about you know
probably thought of you know hegrows like a tree, but he's
kind of human and like yeah,that's really cool example.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Well, I want to use I want to flip this just for a
moment if you don't mind yeah,so there are the benefits for
the kids, there's no question.
We see their engagement is up,the depth of their learning is
enhanced because they'rethinking about it.
But I think we shouldn't losesight of and I just made the
teacher's job easier, because ifyou save everything until the
end and I've got a week left inthis unit and I'm supposed to
(27:46):
give feedback and help kidslearn, I'm trying now to give
feedback to the 30 kids in myclass all in the same week.
I only have so much time.
Well, imagine if I put thatquestion up front.
We've got a month in this unit.
Every time I teach a lesson I'mchecking in.
How are you applying that?
I have way more time.
It's a lot calmer for me.
(28:06):
A lot of this will happen in myclass, in the lesson itself.
It's not happening at mykitchen table anymore, it's now.
The assessment is built into mylesson and what we find and
this is coming from teacherstheir kids are more engaged,
their learning is deeper.
And the teachers will say andmy life's easier, I'm able to
give more meaningful feedback ina more timely way without
taking it all home, and theyoften will say you know, this
(28:29):
was good for me and I think,that's another important piece,
that it's good for kids, butit's also good for teachers.
It's a more efficient way forthem to provide the kind of
guidance that we should beproviding kids.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Absolutely Fascinating, fascinating.
I'm so happy that we're goingto keep this conversation going
on Wednesday because we'll beseeing you.
I love it.
I mean, I love that idea too ofcoming kind of kind of back to
it a bit, of just those tweaksand and and little tweaks, like
just move that in the forefrontand use that question as your
(29:06):
guide as you go through.
Such a powerful idea anyteacher could do it, but it's
like believing that it is goingto have an effect on the kids.
And oftentimes, you know, whenI go into classrooms and I work
with teachers coaching them,they always are amazed that
seeing their kids in a differentway or seeing them where they
didn't anticipate they would go,because they've always just
(29:29):
kind of gone there down theiralley, you know, like they just
stay on there instead of doingthose small little tweaks that
can have a profound effect onkids.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I also think it's respectful to teachers that
there's a lot of good stuffgoing on in our classrooms and I
think sometimes, you know, whenI get outside of Canada and I'm
working with schoolsinternationally, you know you're
reminded like we have a verygood education system.
There's a lot of good stuffhappening.
You know.
Can we get better?
Absolutely.
But I think being respectful toteachers, like, let's build on
(30:00):
top of the good work you'redoing, don't this isn't to
displace the work you're doing.
You began the conversationsaying, you know, like how do we
make sure that we're honoringthe work that teachers are
already doing and and adding toit and not displacing it?
Because if I go in and say toteachers, you know, basically,
scrap everything you're doing.
A, it's offensive and B, theworkload just went through the
(30:22):
roof and they're not going tobuy in.
So I think this approach oftweak and fortify, add these
small pieces, is saying buildoff the good work you're doing,
let's find ways to make it evenbetter Amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Let's leave it at that.
What a way to end.
Awesome, awesome statement.
Well, this has been fascinating.
I'm going to go head back intothat book after this to look at
a few more of the ideas behindit, but I really really
appreciate your time today,garfield, and sharing some of
your ideas and, again, I reallylook forward to our continued
(30:57):
collaboration.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Thanks so much, Chris .
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Thank you.
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