Episode 62: Building Thinking Classrooms. A Conversation with Peter Liljedahl.

Engaging students in meaningful thinking and learning is essential for effective education. We explore the principles of creating a thinking classroom with Dr. Peter Liljeddahl, emphasizing the importance of collaboration, purposeful tasks, and a supportive learning environment.

What we'll cover...
- Discussion of non-thinking behaviors observed in traditional classrooms  
- Introduction to the 14 key practices for building thinking classrooms  
- Importance of random group formations for collaborative learning  
- Strategies for implementing thinking tasks into classroom routines  
- The role of teacher-student dynamics in fostering engagement  
- Emphasis on valuing mistakes as learning opportunities  
- How to incorporate playful and non-curricular tasks into learning  
- Insights into Dr. Liljedahl's further resources and books

If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe for more insights on transforming education through innovative practices!

About our guest...

Dr. Peter Liljedahl is a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Faculty of Education and an associate member in the Department of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Liljedahl has authored or co-authored 9 books, 26 book chapters, 27 journal articles, and over 50 conference papers. 

His research interests are creativity, insight, and discovery in mathematics teaching and learning and teacher development. He consults regularly with schools, school districts, and ministries of education on issues of teaching and learning, assessment, and numeracy. 

Connect with Peter...

Building Thinking Classrooms - the book!

Building Thinking Classrooms website

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've been working on a project that I call Building
Thinking Classrooms, which is areally close look at what are
the things we have to do in theclassroom to change the
environment so that it becomesmore conducive to getting
students to think, on theprinciple that thinking is a
necessary precursor to learning.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig
into the art and science behindkindling, the motivation,
curiosity and mental well-beingof the young humans in our lives
.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Together, we'll discover practical tools and
strategies you can use to helpkids unlock their full potential
and become the strongestversion of their future selves.
Katie, how do you feel aboutthinking I?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
feel great about it a lot when you're learning well,
yeah, I try, I certainly try.
I won't say that I'm some fancythinker or anything, but yeah,
try.
How do you feel about it?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I feel like there's a lot of times just throughout
the day, I don't know where mykeys are, I don't know where my
phone is, I don't know.
And I'm like, how am I evenlike getting through the day,
because or I'm trying to likework on a task and I'm like
learning something, but I'm notthinking about it and I realized

(01:31):
and we're going to get intothis in today's conversation is
a lot of.
It is how I was educated as achild.
I was, so I was what Peter willtell us and I opened the
conversation with this ismimicking.
A teacher would teach mesomething and then I would just
mimic her behaviors and wasn'treally thinking to learn.

(01:53):
And I'm wondering if that isrelated to me leaving my keys
and my phone and stuff allaround the house.
Maybe not.
Maybe that's just my gutfunction.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
That's funny, yeah.
Well, there's lots of likespots in your life where you can
just kind of turn your brainoff and like autopilot it.
And funny, funny story.
The other day I was driving oneof our one of my son's friends
home and we just moved, so I wasdriving him to his house but I
was driving close to our oldhouse and so I started
automatically just driving to myold house and he was like,

(02:22):
where are we going?
And I was like, oh sorry, I wason autopilot for a minute, like
I'm driving a car, right, likedoing something very serious,
and I'm like we, your brain canget to do a very complicated
thing without actually thinkingmuch.
And I said, oh sorry, I'm onautopilot and I'm just like, you
know, like, as, like a figureof speech, like my brain was on
autopilot.
Obviously humans don't actuallyhave a mechanism like a

(02:44):
spaceship where you can put iton autopilot.
And then he was just quiet fora minute.
And then he he said quietly,does your minivan have autopilot
?
Like as if it was like that'san actual thing in cars now.
So I'm like, oh no, that's justa figure of speech, but you
would never have asked that inthe nineties, uh it was just
really funny.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I was so excited to dive into learning how to really
get kids thinking in school.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yes, totally so.
Today we're going to talk to DrPeter Lilliodahl Lilliodahl,
his last name is Swedish, so I'mpracticing.
He is the author of a bookcalled Building Thinking
Classrooms and he's a professorof mathematics education in the
Faculty of Education and anassociate member of the
Department of Mathematics atSimon Fraser University in

(03:31):
Vancouver, canada.
He has co-authored over ninebooks, 26 book chapters, 27
journal articles and over 50conference papers.
So this guy really knows hisstuff.
I'm so excited to learn fromhim.
His research interests arecreativity, insight and
discovery in mathematics,teaching and learning, as well
as teacher development.
He consults regularly withschools, school districts and
ministries of education onissues of teaching and learning,

(03:53):
assessment and numeracy.
Let's talk to Peter.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Hi, peter, I am so excited to talk to you today on
the Kindled podcast.
Welcome.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Absolutely, I absolutely love your book.
I have all my tabs and all mypost-its, and I'm not even a
teacher.
I'm just so excited to get thisbook into other teachers' hands
.
And so can you just tell us alittle bit about your background
?
Who are you, what is the workthat you do and what is your big
?
Why in the world?

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, okay.
Well, I'm a professor of matheducation at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver, Canada.
I've been there for 20 years.
Prior to that, I was a highschool math, physics and English
composition teacher.
I do research on a wholevariety of things.
My interests have been for thelast 20 years around creativity

(04:50):
in mathematics.
Student and teacher affect.
What are their emotions,beliefs, attitudes within the
doing and learning ofmathematics and the teaching of
mathematics.
But for the last 15 years orlast 20 years, I guess it is now
I've been working on a projectthat I call Building Thinking

(05:12):
Classrooms, which is a reallyclose look at what are the
things we have to do in theclassroom to change the
environment so that it becomesmore conducive to getting
students to think, on theprinciple that thinking is a
necessary precursor to learn.
Yes, so that's kind of who I amand what I do.

(05:33):
My big why, my big why for avery long time and it's becoming
, even of late, more and moreclear is how is it that what we
do as a teacher affects howstudents experience learning?
And it turns out that almosteverything we do as a teacher

(05:53):
affects the way studentsexperience learning good or bad
and it's becoming increasinglyclear that this is a very
sensitive and timely issue foreducation.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Absolutely.
It was really life, or it waseye opening for me right out of
the gate in your book about howI learned and how I was taught
in school, and I was like I justmimicked.
This is why thinking sometimeis really uncomfortable for me,
because I have developed thishabit of mimicking.

(06:29):
And okay, especially in math,because I would say that I'm not
a math person or I'm not goodat math.
And why is that?
Because I got A's on all mytests and trigonometry.
I could memorize all of theformulas and get an A, but did I
do any thinking?
No, I was just mimicking thosebehaviors.
So it was really fascinatingfor me to go oh okay, this is

(06:51):
why I struggle with learningsometimes or thinking, and so
now I can make a change.
Even though I'm 40 years old,I'm no longer a student in
school, so thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, and it's what's so interesting about what you
said was that you don't consideryourself a math person.
You got A's right, like there'sa huge separation between
performance and mathematics,which can be achieved through
mimicking, as you have talkedabout, and what your
relationships with mathematicsis, and that's that sort of
closer connection to thelearning, the understanding and

(07:24):
the emotional residue that itleaves inside of you.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, those like limiting beliefs that are
getting laid down in the earlydays of education are so, so
strong and so important.
I have a recent memory where Iwas like I have the same
perception of myself, like not amath person.
I did not get all A's likeAdrian, I was like a solid B
plus kid.
My sister she's 10 years olderthan me, she's student body

(07:50):
present valedictorian never gotto be in her life so I was like
trying to live up to this uh,this example could never do it.
Um, and I think I just kind oflearned that I wasn't a math
person and I think that I'm notan anything person is a really
dangerous framing to startreally early in your life.
Right, you're closing a lot ofdoors to yourself when you

(08:10):
believe that.
And then this was last year Iwas at my brother's house and he
bought the house that I grew upin.
So all my old school stuff wasin the boxes in the attic and
he's like can you get all yourstuff out of here?
So I was going through all myold boxes and I found copies of
my old standardized test scoreslike from the nineties, and I
did good at, I did good in math.
I was like I'm in like the 98thpercentile for math.

(08:32):
I was like I am a math person.
This test score proves that Ihave been a math person this
whole time, and I just didn'tknow that I was a math person.
Um, so I just I just agree withthe sentiment we're laying down
here that it is really, reallyimportant to get to get these
things right and to help kids toreally to think about math and

(08:54):
about all subjects right.
We can, we can build thinkingclassrooms around math.
We can do it around otherthings too.
So take us through the coreprinciples of building thinking
classrooms.
How does it differ from, like,a traditional classroom approach
?

Speaker 1 (09:07):
So, building thinking classrooms is well.
First of all, it's a reactionto this realization that
students are not are spending alot of time in their classrooms
not thinking, and that resultedin, or that led into, a research
project, that, where I lookedat what are the things we need
to do to get students to think,and I looked at 14 core sort of

(09:31):
teaching routines.
Right, um, these are thingsthat every teacher does by and
large, right, like we.
We use tasks.
Every teacher uses tasks.
We got it.
If we want students to think,we got to give them something to
think about.
Uh, we use collaborative groups.
We get students working.
Think we've got to give themsomething to think about.
We use collaborative groups.
We get students workingsomewhere.
They're writing in their bookor they're writing on something.
We answer questions, we givehomework, we have students write

(09:54):
notes, we do formative andsummative assessment.
There's 14 core routines thatevery teacher does by and large.
They do them in ways thatconverges on the institutionally
normative routines that havebeen established in education
for a century and a half, andwhat I did was I treated each of

(10:16):
these sort of core routines asa variable, and what are the
different ways we can enact eachof these Like, for example,
what are the different ways wecan enact collaboration?
Each of these like, for example, what are the different ways we
can enact collaboration?
How can we form groups?
And I would just research allthe varieties, variances and
nuance and nuance and nuance.
These, until what emerged, werea way to initiate this and

(10:40):
enact this routine in such a waythat it maximizes student
thinking.
So, building thinkingclassrooms is a collection of 14
, let's call them optimalroutines teaching practices that
we can use in our classroom toincrease student thinking, and
some of the really core ones arewe have to use thinking tasks.

(11:03):
What is a thinking task?
Well, a thinking task isanything that gets students to
think, and it turns out that ourexisting resources are full of
these types of tasks, right,like, pretty much every single
task in your textbook is athinking task, depending on when
students encounter it and whenthey encounter it vis-a-vis your
teaching of it.

(11:24):
It and when they encounter itvis-a-vis your teaching of it,
right so?
And it's very age dependent,right so, asking a, a
five-year-old what are the threenumbers that come before 17 is
an amazing thinking task, not somuch for a 13 year old.
So they're encountering thistask at a time where this
requires them to think uh,asking students to add fractions

(11:47):
is an amazing thinking taskUntil we teach them how to do it
.
Then it becomes a mimicking task.
So again, it's also not justwhen it intersects with their
development, but it also when itintersects with what you have
done to either set up amimicking or thinking situation.
So thinking tasks are reallyjust tasks that are going to

(12:08):
cause students to think how weform random groups.
It turns out that the optimalway to do it is to do it
randomly, except that wasn'tgood enough.
It had to be visibly random.
The kids had to believe thatyou were randomly forming these
groups.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, and how many are in a group matters too,
right?

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, three in a group was optimal.
Some settings we had to startwith groups of two.
So when we work with very, veryyoung children, we had to start
with groups of two becausethey're still learning to
collaborate.
When we worked with vulnerablepopulations, we had to start
with groups of two becausethey're still learning to trust.

(12:45):
The only exception to groups ofthree was when we worked with
very small class sizes.
So when the numbers got below12 or 15, the students felt like
in groups of three they werealways with the same students
all the time, which is they'renot wrong, right, like if I have

(13:06):
12 students in a class and Imake groups of three, odds are
tomorrow's groups of three aregoing to have significant
overlap with today's groups ofthree, so the kids don't feel
that change.
So in those settings weactually found groups of two
work better.
We need thinking tasks.
We need to get to.
The students need something tothink about.
They need someone to think with.

(13:26):
Those are the collaborativegroups, which were visibly
random.
Groups of three, groups of twoif we have small class sizes,
and the optimal work surface washaving students in their random
groups stand and work at avertical whiteboard except it
doesn't have to be a whiteboard,it just has to be vertical and
erasable.
And those are sort of the corefoundations to building a

(13:52):
thinking classroom.
That's how we start.
There are 11 more practices,but that's where we start.
That sort of radicallytransforms the environment and
the setting in which studentsare used to working and it
causes them to behave verydifferently.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
How did you find all of this out?
Like when you were likestarting to research this, like
why, why did you pick thosethings?
Like what led you to tell usthe story of discovering that?

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Well, the 14 core routines was just from watching
teachers and sort of catalogingwhat are the different things
teachers do in a classroom.
But now how do we start to findthe innovative approaches to
each of these?
A huge part of what I was doingwas taking a close look at how

(14:39):
effective things were to beginwith, a sort of status quo.
So the status quo on grouping,for example, is that teachers
either use strategic groupingswhere they carefully select who
the students are going to workwith, or they let the kids pick
their own group.
So that was sort of the statusquo right.
And when I studied that becauseI always did status quo studies

(15:02):
right, like that, because Ialways did status quo studies
right Like what how's it workingright now?
And the status quo research onthat we surveyed hundreds of
kids asked one question.
The question was if you knewyou were going to work in groups
today to fulfill a task, whatis the likelihood you would
offer an idea?
And 80% of kids and it didn'tmatter whether they were in

(15:26):
strategic groups orself-selected groups 80% of kids
said that they were unlikely orhighly unlikely to offer an
idea.
Wow, can?

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I interject really quick.
I was talking to my son aboutthis on the way to school and I
shared that statistic with himbecause he goes to a hybrid
school.
They already do a lot of thesepractices.
He said last year in math theydid it vertically, they were in
randomized groups.
I don't know how many were in agroup.
And he even said, even thoughthey were still doing this
practice, he had said well, yeah, I'm number two.

(15:57):
There's one person that knowsall the answers and I'll rely on
him, but then I'm the secondone.
But in this subject I'm thenumber one and kids join my
group.
Can I tell them the answer?
So it was really interesting tohear that from a 14 year old.
He's already.
He identifies that that is whathappens in his hybrid, his
progressive school as well.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, and kids.
You know, if kids enter into aworking into a group, already
sort of predetermining for forthemselves that they're not
going to contribute, thenthey're not going to be thinking
, they're going to be very, verypassive.
So the question then is what isthe alternative?
So here comes this contrarianapproach, which is well, if what

(16:41):
we're seeing is working so sobadly, why not try the exact
opposite?
So how do we?
What is the exact opposite of,um, strategic groups or
self-selected groups?
And here comes the randomness,right like let's just if, if
we're, if either the teacher isvery focused on who's going to
work together or the kids arevery focused on who's going to

(17:03):
work together, how do we justtake that away from them?
And then here comes the random.
Likewise with the verticalwhiteboards, right like we were
seeing kids who spent more timesitting and writing in their
notebooks in a 24-hour periodthan they spent sleeping, right,
wow, like the notebook hasbecome this sort of catch-all,
right, right, they write notesduring class.

(17:24):
They do their homework in theirnotebook.
Adrian's guilty.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
I'm writing even as we speak, so maybe I'm not
thinking because I'm writing.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
No, it's not that at all.
It's just that this notebookbecame a place where the
students either sort ofpassively took notes or they
sort of mimic their way throughthings, and notebook had all
these sort of cognitiveassociations for students as a
way of being.
And how do we disrupt that,like what is the exact opposite

(17:58):
of sitting and writing on paper?
So we tried standing andwriting on a whiteboard and it's
sort of and then from there youkind of then nuance and see
what other variations you canmake and what other things you
can learn around that.
So there is this contrarianapproach to it.
I actually summarize my workactually in a different way,

(18:21):
though I say that I do resultsfirst, research, and what I mean
by that is that I'm in pursuitof reproducible results.
So what is something I can do asa teacher that will cause
thinking to happen in ways thatis very robust?

(18:43):
That seems to work in everysetting with a wide variety of
ages of kids.
Getting them up at a whiteboardis a reproducible result.
We see the same resulteverywhere we go.
It's reproducible.
Now let's try to understand whythat is right, like, rather
than the other way around, let's, rather than trying to reason
our way towards, uh, aparticular way of teaching,

(19:06):
let's just try a lot ofdifferent things until we start
to find something that works.
Now, keep working on it untilit becomes reproducible, right
like it's working in everysetting, and now try to
understand.
So I call it results firstresearch.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
So you've been talking a lot about thinking
tasks.
Can you tell us a little?
We mentioned mimicking, butwhat are some other non-thinking
tasks that you saw as you weregoing into all these classrooms?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Oh, I think you mean non-thinking behaviors.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Non-thinking behaviors yes.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Right.
So mimicking was the largest.
About 50% of students wereexhibiting mimicking behaviors
and what we have to understandis that mimicking is not
thinking and mimicking is notlearning in the same way that we
want students to learn in waysthat is going to help them
continue to be successful andproductive in the future and

(20:01):
productive in the future.
Yeah, so it was about thelargest category.
The other behaviors wereslacking, just off-task stalling
.
Stalling is a way of delaying,not working.
So, for example, going to thebathroom, getting a drink of
water, going to your locker,sharpening my pencil, sharpening

(20:22):
all my pencils these are allstalling behaviors.
How is stalling different fromslacking?
Interestingly, slackers don'tcare what the teacher thinks
about them, right?
So they're willing to bevisibly off task in front of the
teacher.
They don't care what theteacher thinks of them.
Stallers care a lot, so theycare what the teacher thinks.

(20:46):
So they hide behind a facade oflegitimate off task behavior.
Right, Like, going to thebathroom is an off task behavior
?
It is, but it's a legitimateoff task behavior.
It's allowed, Whereas playingon my cell phone is not an
allowed off task behavior, right?
So that's a big differencebetween stallers and slackers.
Then we had the fakers.

(21:07):
Fakers are pretending to beworking, but they're not really
working.
They have the outwardappearance of being very engaged
and very busy.
Fakers, like stallers, care alot what the teacher thinks
about them but rather than hidebehind a facade of legitimate
off-task behavior, they hidebehind a facade of on-task

(21:29):
behavior, but it's just a facadeBehind it.
They're just pretending to work, they're not actually doing
anything, and these threecategories together made up
about 30% of the students.
What's interesting is I'm inAustralia right now and I was
working in Brisbane last weekand there was a researcher in

(21:51):
Brisbane who had reproduced thisstudy in classrooms in
Australia where she went in andlooked at what are the behaviors
we call them student behaviorsof students in sort of
traditional or normativeclassroom and her results were
almost identical to mine.

(22:12):
Right, Like my research wasdone in Canada, hers was done in
Australia and the percentageswere like within 3%, on each of
those categories she found 53%of students were mimicking,
whereas I was closer to 50%.
Like it was really remarkableto see how, how close these
behaviors stacked up across verydifferent educational contexts.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
And did you like you're just doing lots of
classroom observations to getthese statistics?
Like is that you're out in thefield?

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, yeah, and how do you are there like how did
you, did you observe a lot?
And then you know you're justlike note-taking, and then you
kind of see the categories, ordo you kind of define the
categories this is like ahypothesis first and then go in
and observe, or how did thatwork?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Well, it depends on where you are in the research.
Right At the outstat, it'sreally just a lot of
observations and documentingbehaviors.
And then you end up in thiswhere you're categorizing I call
it lumping and splitting You'retrying to see which behaviors
are actually the same behaviorand which behaviors that maybe
seemingly are the same ordifferent and, depending on what

(23:23):
you're observing, you're goingto get a different catalog of
behaviors right, like so thisidea of slacking, solving,
faking and mimicking.
This emerged during what wecall now you try one activities.
This is where the teacher hasdone direct instruction and
modeled how to do something anddone examples and now turns to
the students.
They say now you try one.

(23:44):
So the catalog of behaviors isvery different when we observe
students doing homework like howare they behaving during that
time?
And the catalog of behaviors isvery different when the
students are doing the I write,you write notes, right?
So it depends on what phase ofa lesson or what the activity is
is going to bring out adifferent catalog of behaviors

(24:05):
and we call them studentbehaviors.
Studenting is what students doin a learning situation.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I like that term it's like parenting, but for
students and the environment hasreally created a lot of those
student behaviors of the desksand rows.
I think that's interesting too.
How you talk about the actualenvironment of the classroom is
really important.
And when you said adisorganized environment, I had
a visceral reaction because Iwas like, wait, but not too

(24:33):
disorganized.
So I was like, okay, but that'sreally interesting that you
discovered that, because withour micro schools, most of them
are in homes, so the kids are oncouches and tables are always,
so it's very, it's orderly, butit's not perfectly in rows with
chairs, hard chairs, underfluorescent lights.
So I'm sure that helps ourstudents in micro schools think

(24:57):
more, which leads to morelearning.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
This was actually aninteresting study for me because
it wasn't one of the variablesto begin with.
This idea that how we arrangethe furniture in the room makes
a difference.
Right, that was something thatemerged by looking at outliers
in the data, where we werehaving these great successes in
most settings, but every once ina while we were really

(25:21):
struggling to get students tothink, using practices that have
been very successful indifferent settings, and what was
variant between those was howthe rooms were set up.
And what we found was that theseuber-organized, these
Pinterest-ready classrooms wereactually creating barriers to
thinking and, at a psychologicallevel, what it was doing was

(25:42):
projecting up perception, that x, that, uh, perfection was
important, and this created anunsafe learning space.
Right, like for for themajority of students, when they
feel they're under themicroscope of perfection, it
becomes really debilitating tothem.
They, because thinking is messy, it requires you to take risks
and make mistakes, and and so onand so forth, and when the

(26:07):
environment is screaming thatyou've got to be perfect and
always perfect, that wascreating this barrier room.
Can a room without students init still be a thinking classroom
or a non-thinking classroom?
And I started to think actuallyon my experiences going into

(26:29):
workshops or professionaldevelopment, and I started to
realize that when you walk intoa room where you're going to be
the learner, when you walk intoa room, how the room is set up
immediately tells you how you'regoing to behave that day.
So if you walk into a room andall the chairs are sitting in

(26:52):
these endless wide rows,everything is fronted towards a
podium, you know what you're infor that day and you adjust your
behavior immediately, right.
Whereas if you walk in and it'sround tables and there's chairs
all the way around the tablesand there's um, there doesn't
seem to be a projector screenlike you, you're like okay, this

(27:14):
is going to be a different typeof setting and I'm going to
behave differently in here.
So the room says a lot to thelearner about who they should be
that day, and what we found wasthat we needed to like you're
right, adrian, that it needs abit of chaos, but not too much.
And one of the easiest ways tocreate that just right amount of

(27:35):
chaos is to sort of defront theroom, to sort of have students
sitting facing every which wayand to sort to sort of take that
that teacher centeredness, outof the space.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I love that word you just coined you need to defront
the room.
I've never heard that before.
I love it.
What kind of tasks aretypically given in a thinking
classroom?
Right, we have tasks that we'regiving as teachers.
We have student behavior.
So like how does it lookdifferent to give students a
task If I'm a teacher in athinking classroom?
Right, we have tasks that we'regiving as teachers.
We have student behavior.
So like how does it lookdifferent to give students a
task If I'm a teacher in athinking classroom?

(28:07):
We're trying to create thatenvironment.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
And what about curriculum and our thinking
tasks?
I would like to kind of talkabout that too.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
So it depends on where you are in your
development of a thinkingclassroom, right?
So when you're first startingto build a thinking classroom,
right, like these, it's calledbuilding thinking classrooms,
it's not called Shazam.
You have a thinking classroom,you have to build it.
So when you're first in thoseearly days of building it.

(28:36):
Right, you have to.
You're building the environment, but you're also building the
habits among the students, thatculture of thinking.
So in those early days, thosefirst four to six days, we use
what we call non-curriculartasks and by and large they
would also be deemed to be rich.
They're clearly mathematical innature but they're playful.

(29:02):
They feel like we're not tryingto hit a learning outcome here,
we're just playing with math.
And the kids are more likely togive themselves to those tasks
in the early days, becauseasking students to think
suddenly is a big change forthem, right?
We got them in random groups,we got them up at the
whiteboards and we're using thisplayful task.
And about 10% of the time in athinking classroom and that's
just a rough estimate we wouldbe doing those types of tasks,

(29:25):
right, like four or five days atthe beginning, and then every
time they come back from springbreak or a long weekend or the
Christmas break, like we do aday or two of those again just
to reinvigorate that culture ofthinking in the room.
But the rest of the time we'redoing content like straight up
out of the curriculum.
And what can that look like?

(29:47):
It can.
Well, in the last two yearsI've taught or co-taught 160
lessons in K-12 classrooms allover North America, right?
So, by and large, we're doingwhat every other teacher is
doing.
We're just doing it differently, right?

(30:07):
Like so we could be teachingadding fractions or factoring
quadratics or solving systems oflinear equations, adding
two-digit numbers, orderingdecimals, like, and we're just
taking stuff right out of thetextbook.
It's, but it's how we do it,right?
So it's a very quick launch.
We're not pre-teaching how todo it, we're just giving enough

(30:28):
that they can get going.
And then it's a carefullysequenced set of tasks that get
progressively harder, right?
So, for example, the firstadding fraction question that
they're going to encounter on aday could be one fifth plus
three fifths.
Right Like, it's really verysimple going something very

(30:49):
complex, but we're just doingcontent.
There's nothing special aboutthose tasks other than that

(31:10):
they're carefully sequenced sothat they're very incrementally
getting more and morechallenging.
But they're right, they'retasks that you would open up any
textbook and you would see.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think that is really powerful for two reasons.
One, you're not asking atraditional teacher to
completely upend the learningsystem that they have to exist
within no right.
So and I think that that a lotof I mean our solution does.
So I'm like, oh, that's good,um, so that's really cool, and I

(31:39):
also am loving the idea.
I like having these non um,what did you call Non-academic
tasks or non-curricular tasks?
Right, they're still academic,but, yeah, not necessarily in
that learning sequence.
This is more playful.

(32:00):
We're doing a lot ofcollaboration, like if that is
unlocking a lot of connectionfor those kids and letting them
like find that rest in theirnervous system, like come into
their prefrontal cortex andreally be able to problem solve
and to think, instead of liketrying to keep themselves safely
inside the box of perfection.
They're really allowed to kindof come out and and be

(32:21):
themselves.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
So um, and there's a number of reasons for that.
One is that nobody in the groupknows what the answer is.
Right, like, like it's if oneof the worst places for a
student to be is in a settingwhere it feels like they're the
only one who doesn't understandit, like I'm not getting it and
I feel like I'm the only onewho's not getting it.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
It levels the playing field.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, and here we have this setting where it's
like nobody knows what theanswer is.
We're all just playing withthis, we're all trying to figure
it out, and it becomes a reallysafe environment that way.
But it's not just safe for thestudents, it's also safe for the
teacher.
You've got to remember that.
They're also in this buildingthinking classroom mode right
it's not like they knoweverything and now they're going
to enact the thinking classroom.

(33:02):
They're learning to bedifferent in this space.
So by doing it as anon-curricular, it also takes
that pressure off of the teacherand allows them to be more safe
in a space where they're tryingto figure out new pedagogies,
where they're trying to findtheir role in this place and
learn alongside of the kids.

(33:23):
So it's this we encouragenon-curricular tasks not just
when students need to getoriented towards thinking, but
also anytime the teacher isgoing to play with a new
pedagogy.
And I think that goes beyondbuilding thinking classrooms.
If a teacher is going toexperiment with a new pedagogy,
take the curricular pressure off, pick a task that has nothing

(33:46):
to do with the curriculum anduse and try that, just so that
you can really focus on yourpedagogy without having to also
think about the outcomes.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
That's beautiful.
I something.
What did you say that I wantedto pull out?
That no one knows the rightanswer.
Like that the kids don't, youknow.
It's not like Adrian in yourexample.
It's like, oh, in this classI'm the person with all the
answers and so everyone wants tobe in my group and like that's
the culture of most classrooms.
And I just had a good friendwho is always micro-schooled

(34:20):
with Brenda, her.
He's in sixth grade now, areally good school.
Like I would send my kids tothis school.
Like really, really strong, um,and he was like she's trying to
to learn how to operate in atraditional classroom where
there is a little bit morepressure, a little bit more
judgment.
And he was having a hard timeknowing what to do.
When he didn't know what to doand his mom was telling him like

(34:42):
you're you asked the teacher,like that's her job.
And he he just said if I ask aquestion, all the kids will
think I'm stupid.
And just nobody.
Nobody sat him down and saylook, said, look, kid, this is
how it works in here.
You don't know the answers,everyone's going to think you're
stupid, right, he could justlike absorb that.
He knew that.
Like it was very counter to howhe'd like been, you know,

(35:04):
educated in Prenda up until thispoint.
But it's just this visceralvibe that like unless you're
you're you're like reallyworking hard to.
I guess what I'm saying is likeyou're going against the
current here and you need to bereally intentional about how
you're building that culture.
And it's hard to do and I lovethat you're giving teachers

(35:25):
permission to set that cultureand that vibe in a
non-curricular way so you'relike relieving some of that,
that pressure.
But because that's a lot to askof a teacher it is, and you
know it's.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Coming back to this experience of this young student
who is sitting in a classroomand feeling like, if they ask a
question, people are are goingto judge them, and the reality
is they're probably not alone.
There's probably other studentsin the class who are also
feeling the exact same way, andthis is one of the beautiful
things that happens withcollaboration.
In collaboration, we don't justlearn from each other, but we

(35:57):
get to learn that we're not allperfect, and what that does is
it builds community, and withcommunity comes empathy, and
that we start to care for eachother.
And it's now about the processof learning, much more so than
the products of learning thatare important.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Absolutely, and I love that.
So at the end of all yourchapters you have these little
like notebooks with a macro movethat you can have in a micro
move, and the one that I'mpulling up is from chapter four,
I believe, um, or chapter three, where students work in a
thinking classroom.
But as you were talking, itmade me think of talk to the

(36:37):
students, about valuing wrongideas and not erasing others'
work.
I thought that was.
I was like, oh, that's so good,because if no one knows the
answer and they're all trying tofigure it out, I think that
really builds a culture, likeyou said, and then creates
community, which creates empathy.
And so not only are theythinking and they're learning,

(36:57):
but they're learning so muchmore than just the academic
skills, which is what we want inany environment that we're
sending our kid to, especiallyif they're in a classroom for
eight hours a day.
We want them to be learningmore than just the academic
skills.
So can we dive a little bitmore into collaboration?
And why is collaborationimportant?

(37:18):
And then also, how does abuilding thinking classroom
balance individual thinking withyou know, collaborative work
and thinking together in a group?

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Okay.
So collaboration is importantfor a number of different
reasons.
One is that collaboration is ameaning making space right, like
it doesn't matter how much youcare for your kids.
This is a beautiful KathyFosnode quote it doesn't matter
how much you care for your kids,you can't understand for them,

(37:52):
right, like I cannot understandfor you.
The only thing I can do iscreate a space in which
understanding can start tohappen, and then I can help you
connect the dots.
Right, but I can't understandfor you.
So collaboration is a greatmeaning making space.
Now, why is it so great?
So there's two reasons why it'sso great.
One is it's incrediblymetacognitive.

(38:15):
Right, so I was.
I remember when metacognitionwas sort of the in thing.
Right, Like this idea ofthinking about thinking and how
the research showed that if wecan get students thinking about
their thinking, that theirlearning improves and all of
these different things, right.
Here's the problem it's almostimpossible to get students to

(38:35):
think about their thinking.
It is such a hard thing to tryto get them to do, to slow down
and not just focus on process.
Right, like?
They want to focus on theanswer.
They want to focus on theproduct.
We want them to focus on theprocess.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
But is this more, but is it more in a normative
classroom or are you finding itin more of a progressive?

Speaker 1 (38:55):
it doesn't matter, just in general you're just
going way back in the years hereto this idea of metacognition.
Right, we've been trying to getkids to focus on process.
They want to focus on theproduct, but metacognition is
focusing on the process of theprocess, right, like it's about.
It's not just being in themoment, it's about stopping
yourself in the moment andreflecting on what's happening

(39:18):
in this moment and what you'regoing to do next.
Right, like it's incrediblydifficult to teach kids how to
do it.
However, it turns out that theexternalization of thought is an
easily achievable form ofmetacognition.
So I think every teacher who'slistening to this has had this
experience where the studentputs up their hand and you walk

(39:40):
over to them and by the time youget there, they go yeah, never
mind.
Or they pick up their binderand they walk over to you and
they get all the way up to youand then they turn around and
they walk back up to you andthen they turn around and they
walk back and what's happenedthere is that in the process of
of walking to you or having youwalk to them, they're preparing

(40:01):
the question they're going toask.
Right, they're preparing theirinner thoughts for
externalization and in thatprocess, they connect the dots
and they don't need you anymore,because that externalization of
thought, or preparation forexternalization of thought, is
incredibly metacognitive.
So getting kids to talk to eachother is a metacognitive

(40:24):
process, and that's it increaseslearning.
So that's reason number one.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Real quick.
Can I interject there?
This is something that we trainall of our micro school guides
to do.
When a kid answers a question,the first thing you do is ask
like, what have you triedalready?
Like, bring me up to speed.
And 90% of the time, just invocalizing that, they're like oh
, now I see Like.
And it is that cognitive load,that work of like trying to take
the abstract concepts that arelike floating around in their

(40:49):
problem space and collectingthat into words and expressing
it.
That process helps them seetheir thinking, which is a
metacognitive skill.
And I was just talking to myhusband the other day and he's a
software developer and we weretalking about metacognition,
because that's what we talkabout at our dinner table who
doesn't?
And he said that in theprogramming world it's a very
common practice for developersto have a rubber duck right by

(41:13):
their desk and if they'restruggling with a coding problem
, they will explain the problemto the duck.
And it's like if you're workingon a really big problem, you go
around your office and youcollect everyone's ducks and you
have a conference of ducks andyou have to explain it to all of
these rubber ducks.
And in just the process of likeexternalizing you're thinking
like that you find the answer.
So, yes, this is.

(41:34):
I love this concept.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Okay, so that was the first reason.
So that's one reason we wantkids talking to each other
because, like, because talkingto yourself is not as effective
as talking to someone else.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Nor ducks.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Nor ducks.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
The second reason is this so I'm going to say I'm
going to make two statements.
Now, okay, you tell me whichone is more inviting for you to
want to contribute to here'sstatement number one.
So this is what I did.
Okay, that's statement one.
Statement two is I'm wondering,if we tried this, what would

(42:14):
happen?

Speaker 2 (42:16):
The second one.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Which one is more inviting?
The second one, yes.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Number two.
Number two Am I the winner?

Speaker 1 (42:22):
So what we have found is that there's a difference
between what I call tentativelanguage and absolute language.
So absolute language is sort ofthis is what I did.
This is how to do it, right.
Tentative language is full ofhedging.
I wonder what would happen if,I'm wondering.
Could it be what, if Right?

(42:42):
So what's interesting is whenkids talk to each other, they
talk with tentative language.
Right, there's all of thishedging, and what that hedging
does is it invites them torespond and to contribute their
own ideas, and it's sort of thiswonderful space where it
becomes really safe andconducive to add on to

(43:06):
conversation.
Right?
And you've all been at a dinnerparty where you're like you're
trying to connect with someone,you're trying to talk to them,
and all they do is give you sortof these absolute answers,
right, and you're like there'retrying to connect with someone,
you're trying to talk to them,and all they do is give you sort
of these absolute answers,right, and you're like there's
nothing to hold on to, there'snothing to sort of extend the
conversation from, but then youtalk to the other person who's
full of wonder and ponder andhedging, and it's like so easy

(43:28):
to get in conversation with them.
Right, it's the same thing inclassrooms, right, when kids are
working together, they usetentative language and it
invites them to keep stayingengaged.
Who uses absolute language inthe classroom?

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Teachers Right.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
And which is not as inviting.
It's smooth, it doesn't have alot of handholds.
It doesn't invite us to engagewith it in the same way.
So I think there's, like I said, two reasons why collaboration
is so important.
One is a metacognitive natureand the other one is that it's
full of this tentative languagethat just keeps a conversation
going.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
What are some practical tools that you use in
collaboration?
Some of the things that come tomind is like one marker in the
group, not erasing.
So are there some otherpractical tools that a teacher
listening to this can startimplementing whenever they have
groups working together?

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Right.
So well, first of all, you'vegot to give them something to
talk about, right, and this is aform of a thinking test, and we
don't need an icebreaker Right.
So well, first of all, you'vegot to give them something to
talk about, right, and this isthe form of a thinking test.
And this we don't need anicebreaker Right.
Icebreakers are for settingswhere they're, where we don't
want to talk to each other.
Give them something to talkabout, give them a thinking task
, culture of a thinkingclassroom.

(44:56):
They'll start every lesson withsomething that makes kids want
to talk to each other.
So, would you rather?
A would you rather task is agreat example of that.
Right Like would you ratherchew on tinfoil or shave your
head with a cheese grater?

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh gosh, tough choice .
But I'm thinking now You'regoing to have something to say
about it.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
And you're going to want to talk to each other about
it, right?
Like waffles or pancakes.
Right, everyone's got anopinion.
They're going to want to talkabout it.
Right, it's pie or cake, it's.
They want to talk.
Give them something to talkabout so that they can start
talking.
Thinking tasks are things thatthey can talk about, not knowing

(45:36):
tasks, right.
Knowing tasks is where oneperson comes in with their
absolute knowledge and they'rekind of like oh, this is how we
do it.
No, a thinking task putseveryone in that space where
they have to enter into atentative discourse.
One marker, as you said, right,and we're going to share that
marker.
We're going to move that marker.
We're going to move that marker.
It's got to move on a regularbasis.

(45:56):
We can also set other practices, like whoever has the marker is
not allowed to write any oftheir own ideas.
So now you have to listen toeach other, because you've got,
you're acting as a scribe, andif you have an idea, you've got
to pass the marker and thenarticulate and we're getting
into that metacognitive.
That's genius.
It also makes it really safefor students to hold the marker,

(46:17):
because if they don't have tocontribute an idea, holding the
marker becomes a really safespace to be.
So it's a great way to featherin kids who are sort of
tentative or unsure aboutthemselves.
Some teachers will use sentencestems at the beginning, um,
when they're first learning to,to collaborate together.

(46:39):
Having some sentence stems,sort of like, just like three or
four things that you can starta statement with, and they'll
have those up on the whiteboard,and I've seen teachers use
those very effectively.
Um, and this idea of let's noterase work so easily, let's,
let's just find other space towork, let's just keep going,

(47:00):
because we may want to come backto that, but it's also honors
that tentative space of I'mwilling to try something, and it
doesn't have to be perfect yeahit makes me think of.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
there's this picture from the early days of Prenda of
a big whiteboard and they weretrying to come up with all the
core values and nothing waserased.
It was just all these ideas,and it's so cool because even to
this day, it gets shared oftenand we revisit that.
So, even though that was done,however many years ago, it's
really cool how it sparks us tokeep thinking and keep moving

(47:34):
forward.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah, totally.
I have a son who is I will sayhe's maybe like math allergic.
Right now he's like having anallergic reaction to math
temporarily, hopefully and hewe've, over the last like two
years, had a lot of like veryemotional times about getting
the math done, figuring thingsout.
Who are we as learners learners, how do you know?

(47:56):
Like lots of good conversations, but a lot of like me
struggling to just like staycalm because I, growing up with
the I'm not a math person likehave a lot of tenderness around.
Like he's asking about math andI'm like I want to show up for
him in this moment.
I want to be able to besupportive, um, but I also don't
know the answer, and so it's,in one sense, like good for him,

(48:16):
like he also, it gives himpermission to not know the
answer, and then I'm likeactually modeling, figuring it
out with him, Right, but thetime that I lost my patience the
most with him this is last year.
He had done a lot of good workand then he put his answer into
our like online curriculum andit was wrong and he'd erased all
of his work.
And then he put his answer intoour online curriculum and it
was wrong and he'd erased all ofhis work.

(48:36):
And I came over and I was like,buddy, please don't erase your
work.
I didn't react to this as Ishould have, but something died
in me when I saw it.
I was like, oh, you did all ofthat and we could have learned.
We could go back and we couldlearn, we could figure out where
you're at.
All of your mistakes areactually forward steps and we

(48:58):
want to be able to see thoselike look back on our stepping
stools to see like, okay, we're,we're closer to the right
answer now, which is animportant destination.
But we want to be able to lookback and see where we've come
and to not like make thosemistakes in shame, right?

Speaker 1 (49:09):
well, but you're, you're swimming against the
current here, and the reason isthis All right, so students
don't listen to what we say,they listen to what we do.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Yes, we know that.
But it's hard.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
So it doesn't matter how much you say that the work
is important.
What are they being asked toput into the system?

Speaker 2 (49:33):
The right answer the right answer.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
The right answer yeah , it doesn't matter what we say,
it matters what we do.
We're not that.
The program's not asking him toput their work into the system
right right right and to put theanswer into the system, and I
understand the logistics of thatbecause the that feedback can
be provided on answers in areally easy way.
It's harder to do that on work,but the reality is that's what

(49:59):
he's hearing, right?
He's hearing the answer isimportant, that the work is not
important and it doesn't matterhow many times you say that
verbally.
How are you going to show that?
Yeah, so if you're working sideby side with a student, if you
want to show that the work isimportant, give them the answer.
Say the answer is 17.
Now let's see the work.
Yeah, now what we're saying isthe answer is not important.

(50:22):
It's so not important that Igave it to you already.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
So there's one example of that, right?
So this idea that studentsdon't listen to what we say,
they listen to what we do.
Now I want to come back toanother thing about this stress
because I have three kids, right, they're all grown.
But like, sitting at thatkitchen counter working through
hours of homework, and it's likethe and knowing this is just
not fair, because I know there'skids in this class who finished

(50:48):
these questions before the belleven rang and here we're
dedicating an hour and a half toit at home, right?
So one of the really coreprinciples of building thinking
classrooms that has emerged inour work is that in a thinking
classroom, everybody works forthe same amount of time.
They get through differentamounts of work.

(51:11):
Now, what if you were sitting atthe table with your child and
it wasn't based on how manyquestions they got through?
But we're going to work for afixed amount of time, right,
like we're going to work on thisfor 20 minutes.
It doesn't matter how much weget through, and it's 20 minutes
for everybody and we're allgoing to, and it doesn't matter
how much.
We're all going to get throughdifferent amounts.

(51:33):
But think about how equalizingthat is right and it's it's a
really important principlebecause it disincentivizes speed
, it emphasizes process, itemphasizes being present, all of
these different things thatit's about.

(51:54):
We're working for the sameamount of time, rather than
doing the same amount of workand taking different amounts of
time.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
So many classrooms yeah, stillhave timed tests.
My son, when he was in atraditional environment he's now
homeschooled, His teacher'sactually here working with him
he took it was his very firsttime test in first grade, so
he's six taking a time test andthe teacher and he finished it

(52:24):
in time.
He was so stressed out and theteacher wrote on the top next
time, this is what a nine lookslike.
This is what a four looks like.
Next time you will get everysingle one of these wrong.
He didn't want to go back toschool because of that one thing
.
So I'm curious about tests.
We brought it up.
Katie said she found her tostandardized test scores and now

(52:45):
, oh, I am a math person becauseof my scores.
I'm really curious aboutassessment and tests and test
scores.
And how do we know that they'reactually learning if we're not
assessing?
Like, how does that all fitinto building thinking
classrooms?

Speaker 1 (53:01):
well, building thinking.
Classroom still has assessmentin it, and whether, if you, if
you do tests, that's.
I think test is still anincredibly efficient way to
gather a huge amount of dataabout your students, so testing
is still part of this.
It's what about grades like yeah, it's what we do with the data.
That is different, right?

(53:22):
So building what we found was,if you really want to enact all
the things in a thinkingclassroom and then start to
value it, you're going to haveto shift to a standards based
assessment strategy, and I don'tthink we need to talk about
that because that would takethree podcasts on its own.
But assessment is still a partof this and grading.

(53:43):
The difference is this See, byand large, the system doesn't
care what you do in yourclassroom.
When it comes to your teachingpractice, right, like how you
deliver content, how you teachin the room, there's a lot less
stakeholders involved in thatthan there is assessment.

(54:04):
The minute you start talkingabout testing and assessment,
the number of stakeholdersmultiply.
Right now, we got we gotcolleagues and administrators
who are either constraining orjudging.
We got the system itself rightat the state level who that is

(54:24):
telling you that certain thingshave to happen or is sort of
judging if you're not doingcertain things?
We got parents right.
Everybody has eyes on when itcomes to testing and assessment.
And you got to really have yourducks in a row when you enter
into shifts in assessmentpractice, because there's more
eyes on Whether or not you'redoing cards or popsicle sticks

(54:50):
for randomizing your groups.
Like nobody cares cares whetheror not you have kids writing on
a whiteboard or a vinyl picnictable cover that is erasable
nobody cares.
Right like it's.
But when you start doing grouptests versus individual tests or
group tests in addition toindividual tests, a lot of
people care, right so it's likemake so.

(55:12):
One of the things I always sayabout assessment is like I never
talk about assessment on afirst date.
Right like it's.
Like let's work on ourpractices first.
And when our practices, when itfeels like our assessment
practice is not in alignmentwith our teaching practice,
that's when we start to thinkabout what testing should look
like.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
And I want to mention , too, that you have another
book that goes along with theorange book, so this is really
good because we're more in thespace of it's, more
homeschoolish, you know, and sowe're already having these
environments that are set up inways that are conducive to

(55:54):
thinking, and so this can youexplain a little bit, like if
someone is listening to this andthey're like oh well, I'm not a
classroom teacher, so thisdoesn't really apply to me.
Or you know, how can weimplement these ideas in any
kind of educational environment?

Speaker 1 (56:10):
So the blue book was called Modifying Thinking
Classrooms, was written as asupplement to the orange book.
So you can't read the blue bookon its own.
It will not make sense.
You have to read the orangebook.
And then the blue book is abunch of chapters on how to
adapt the things that you havelearned in the orange book for
sort of nonstandard settings.
So what if I'm homeschooling?

(56:30):
What if I work in a resourcecenter where everyone's working
on self-paced?
What if I'm teaching online?
What if I'm just working withsmall groups?
What if I'm working one-on-one?
So these are sort of how do weenact these principles of
building thinking classrooms inthese sorts of atypical settings

(56:50):
?
But there's a third book aswell, so the green book which
just came out.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
I didn't get the green book.
I only have the orange and theblue book.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
So the green book is co-authored with Megan Giroux
and it's called Math Task forthe Thinking Classroom, k-5.
And it's all of the researchthat has happened since the
orange book was published,because it was published in 2020
.
So there's been developments.
So it's got the new stuff inthere, but it's also it's

(57:21):
organized around how to what alesson looks like.
So it's got 20 non curriculartasks and 30 curricular task
sequences and it's got theentire sort of lesson plan.
So it's like how do I launchthis?
What's the actual script forlaunching?
Here's the sequence of tasks.
Here are the extensions.
How do I differentiate this?
How do I consolidate this?
What does notes and check yourunderstanding questions look

(57:44):
like in this task?
So it's entirely organizedaround that.
The 6 to 12 book is beingwritten right now.
It should be out in 2025.
So it's um.
It's also a really goodresource for a teacher who wants
the real sort of resources toactually launch and and sustain

(58:08):
that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
We're on this topic.
How can people find out moreabout your work?
Obviously, these books I'massuming they're all on Amazon.
How else can people exploreyour work?

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Go to buildingthinkingclassroomscom.
Everything is there.
There's a resource page.
You can pursue Lots ofdifferent things.
You'll find all the podcastsare listed there, including this
.
One will be listed there there,including this one will be
listed there.
Um, every everything that'sbeen published all the research,
the all the social mediacommunities that exist, right.

(58:41):
So, there's over 50 Facebookgroups that are dedicated to
building thinking classrooms.
Uh, the main one has over60,000 teachers in it.
There's a primary one, there'sintermediate, there's there's
ones that are linked toparticular curricula.
There's ones that are linked toparticular curricula.
There's ones that are linked toother subjects.
Um, I don't think there's onefor let's call it homeschooling

(59:01):
right now.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
But I'll go start it community that's building
thinking micro schools.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
Yes, because micro schools are like popping up
everywhere all over the country,even just with Brenda.
So, katie, you're on tosomething, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
And all of these communities are started with by
teachers who just want to havelike minded individuals to to
communicate with.
They're incredibly nurturing.
People ask questions, they getanswers.
It's, it's.
These are really amazing placesto be.
You know, the journey intomaking changes in a classroom
can be lonely, and it's great ifthe person next door is someone

(59:41):
who's doing it as well, but ifnext door is 20 miles away, then
maybe having these sort ofvirtual communities is a real
benefit for them.
So there's lots of stuff outthere on social media, but
buildingthinkingclassroomscomwill give you access to
everything we've pretty muchtalked about here today.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Love it Awesome, and I love that this doesn't just
have to be applied to math.
You can really do a lot ofthese concepts in any subjects,
and so maybe in the future youcan write a book about that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Well, it will be written.
It's on the docket.
It's just going to be calledBuilding Thinking Classrooms.
No subtitle there is, yeah, andwe're implementing it in every
subject in every grade, so it's.
What really changes is whatconstitutes a thinking task?
Right, like so what does athinking task look like in
language arts?
And it's a little differentthan it looks like in math, but

(01:00:35):
your resources still have them.
It's just again.
How do we intersect with thatquestion vis-a-vis their
developmental readiness and ourpre-teaching of it?

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Absolutely.
I just love how thorough youhave been in your research and,
like Katie mentioned earlier, Iasked you like, did you go and
observe classrooms?
It's like, yeah, you were in alot of classrooms across so many
different socioeconomic sizes,sizes you know, like all that.
You did it like across thegamut, which is amazing.

(01:01:07):
And so I'm wondering and weasked this question to all of
our guests is who is someonewho's kindled your love of
learning, curiosity, motivationor passion, like, who has, like,
sparked this in you to even,you know, dive into this work?

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
So to a large extent I would say my kids have kindled
this in me.
You know my kids school washard for them but you know my
kids' school was hard for themand they struggled with school
and the normative structures ofschool and I really I think part

(01:01:50):
of my journey has been abouttrying to create environments
that would have been better forthem and so I think that is a
source of motivation and, to alarge extent, all students that
I encounter like I said, I'vebeen in 160 classrooms in the
last two years there's veryparticular students I remember
from those encounters and howcan I make a difference for them
today?
And what if?
What if this continued?
Could that make a differencefor them in their life?

(01:02:10):
Right, so that's so.
Students are a huge source ofmotivation for me.
I want students to have goodexperiences in school.
Another source of motivation is, of course, teachers.
Teaching like teachers don'tget paid enough to do this just
for the money.
It's too hard a job.
There has to be satisfaction inthis endeavor, and the number

(01:02:34):
of teachers who have shared withme that building thinking
classrooms has extended theircareer, has revitalized their
career, has reignited theirpassion for teaching, is almost
endless.
The number of people I hearfrom around this so it's how can
I help a teacher also reallyenjoy their work?
We entered into teachingbecause of a calling, and it's

(01:02:59):
really easy to becomedisenfranchised from that
because the weight of what'sexpected of us just increases
all the time.
So how can we find somesatisfaction in the work we do?
And I think building thinkingclassrooms is helping teachers
do that too.
So whenever I hear from ateacher, or a teacher talks to
me about how they have thispassion for teaching, again

(01:03:21):
that's a huge source ofmotivation for me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Love it.
Thank you so much for your timetoday and for coming on the
Kindle podcast, Peter.
We've really enjoyed thisconversation.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Oh, my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
Yes, thank you.
So that is it for for today.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode of the kindled podcast.
If it was helpful to you,please like, subscribe and
follow us on social at prendalearn.
If you have a question youwould like katie to address, you
just need the email podcast atprendacom.
You can also go to our websiteand sign up for our weekly
newsletter, the sunday spark.
The kindle podcast is broughtto you by prenda prendacom.
You can also go to our websiteand sign up for our weekly
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Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Sunday spark, the Kindle podcast is brought to you
by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy for you tostart and run an amazing micro
school built on all of the ideasthat we talk about here on the
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If you want more informationabout becoming a Prenda guide,
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Thanks for listening andremember to keep kindling.