Habits and Mindsets
Students reference their teacher’s guidance in organization, study habits, character traits and values (like persistence, striving for accuracy, etc.). They have internalized these traits beyond just talking about them which has led to personal growth on the part of the student.
Thinking About
Thinking
Costa and Kallick (2000) tell us “intelligent people plan for, reflect on, and evaluate the quality of their own thinking skills and strategies”. Children under the age of 5 are just beginning to develop their “inner language”, or the awareness of their own steps and application of strategies during the problem solving process. My goal in developing this habit of mind is to cause students to begin the reflection and self-evaluation process. I want my students to wonder and understand why they are doing what they’re doing.
Metacognition is a vertical, school-wide strategy on our campus, and as teachers, we receive professional development through “new learning” in order to implement this strategy cycle. The skill is broken up into smaller “chunks”, and adjusted for rigor based on grade-level and content areas. For pre-Kindergarten, students are exposed to the concept of reflecting and evaluating one’s own thought process, using developmentally appropriate language and accompanying visuals, in order to build an awareness of one’s actions. Students mentally rehearse this process prior to instruction, and after performance.
Explicit Teaching
When introducing this complex skill to my students, I also incorporate the strategy of questioning and thinking aloud in order to better map my thinking and language model the process of "thinking about my thinking". Additionally, students are introduced to visual posters that they can associate with this metacognitive process with particular images and colors. Those images are also included in the anchor charts for other explicit skills, in order to reinforce the habit continually.
To give my students' background knowledge of the skill, as well as rationale, I created and presented the below Powerpoint about malleable intelligence and metacognition to provide my young learners context and concrete understanding about how their brains work.
Reinforcement: Writing
One major area in which thinking about thinking is reinforced is in writing. Students know that writing is one of our critical areas of learning, as it is a skill that requires longevity and allows them to communicate their unique thoughts and feelings. In particular for my students with exceptionalities and nonverbal learners, writing is a focus, for it allows them to participate more inclusively.
Below, a student explains her writing in response to the text Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise, using developing one-to-one correspondence, and self-correction skills. According to the scale on the accompanying anchor chart, student mastered the prompt for the literary portion, using initial sounds to represent the whole word.
Here, another student works with close adult support from a paraprofessional to self-assess and indicate her level on the writing skills progression. Student moves her marker up one level based on her most recent writing piece, putting her between "first sounds" and "early spelling".
Reinforcement: Literacy Circle
In an effort to give my children an opportunity to practice the “thinking about our thinking” skill independently, and the chance to take on “new roles” such as facilitator (Fletcher, 2011). I implemented a student-led literacy block. During these short literacy blocks, students took turns leading the book discussion for the rest of the class. These literacy circles used a familiar anchor text so students felt confident posing questions and utilizing language from the story. To prepare students for their turn as independent facilitator, I first planned small group and pair book shares, using texts of the students’ choosing, and scaffolded up until each student had an opportunity to pose questions, push their peers to "think" and give them feedback.
(Above): A student discuss her book selection and practices providing her peers with personal feedback around the "thinking about thinking" skill.
(Above): A student prepares for his role as lead facilitator by walking through his selected text, and practices his use of oral language.
(Above): A student leads a literacy circle using the text The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The student repeatedly instructs her peers to "Think about your answer", and "Pretend your hand is a thinking stick".
References
Fletcher, A. (2011). New roles for young people throughout society. Retrieved from http://treasure.over-blog.com/2015/12/new-roles-for-young-people-throughout-society.html