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Scoop.it!
"I recently visited Thetford Academy in Vermont (one of the few and interesting public-private academies in New England) where they have a formal and explicit commitment to “experiential learning.” So, the leaders of the school asked me to visit classes that were doing experiential learning and to talk with staff at day’s end about it."
Beth Dichter's insight:
In this post Grant Wiggins discusses that experiential learning does not equal minds on learning. One can learn from their hands, but not engage their mind. He notes (and this is quoted from the post): Many projects, problems, situations, and field trips do not yield lasting and transferable learning because too little attention is given to the meta-cognitive and idea-building work that turns a single experience into insight and later application. How can we help our students engage their minds? Wiggins provides three examples of a series of questions that may help you come up with questions that you could use with your students. Below is the set of questions that he asks students when he visits classrooms:
For the back story on these questions (and to see the others) click through to the post. 
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Over the last few months I have worked with a number of high schools and middle schools where the grading and assessment practices simply do not work in a world of standards. The schools are not ma...
Beth Dichter's insight:
As many schools move to Common Core the question of rigor is a key issue. States that have tested with Common Core have seen significant drops in scores. Why? The Common Core tests are more difficult than most local tests. Grant Wiggins states "to significantly raise local standards of performance seems to mean we have to lower student grades." Most schools do not want to do this (and certainly most parents do not want to see lower grades). He continues to explore this issue looking at rigor, and noting that rigor is currently defined by 3 elements:
However, he notes that many schools/districts do not get past #1. Why? "The problem of fair/normed grading!" Wiggins then goes on to the final section of this post, called "Solution: avoid thoughtless calculations based on false equivalencies." However, there is one more section that provides two helpful pieces of information that may help you create better assessments. It includes Webb's Depth of Knowledge Wheel as well as audit matrix that looks at the Assessment Format (Task Complexity and Context) and Cognitive Demand (Depth and Fluency of Thinking). (See image above). Additionally, he has included an appendix that has text from Webb for levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 for Math, Reading and Writing. These are great resources to share with teachers in your district as we move to Common Core.
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Beth Dichter's insight:
This post from Grant Wiggins explores how Essential Questions are used in classrooms, and provides strategies to help teachers use them so that they become part of student work. Wiggins states "the aim is to use the question to frame specific activities, to provide perspective and focus, to prioritize the course, and to signal to students that, eventually, THEY must – on their own – pose this and other key questions." A number of examples are provided as is a more detailed description of an essential question. This description states that an essential question has seven parts. The shorthand version is below. 1. Open ended 2. Thought provoking and intellectually challengine 3. Higher order thinking 4. Important, transferable ideas 5. Raises additional questions 6. Requires support and justification 7. Recurs over time If you are using essential questions, or plan to in the future this post is a great resource!
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In September 2012 Grant Wiggins had an article published 'Educational Leadership' (which is posted in this Scoop.it). That article was widely read and this article goes one step further, provide 13 detailed examples of how to provide better feedback for learning. The examples range from a welding class with a performance task, to a 6th grade teacher working with students on peer review and self-assessment to 1st graders working on a map of the school. An additional 10 examples are provided. This post not only provides examples but will probably spark you to look at how you provide feedback and come up with some new ideas to use with your students.
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"Advice, evaluation, grades—none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback—and how can it improve learning?" According to Grant Wiggins, feedback "is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal." After providing this definition and a number of examples the reader will see that two types of feedback have been shown. He uses this information to show that the type of feedback provided is critical and then proceeds to give "feedback essentials" with a description and information on each essential. These include: goal-referenced, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing, and consistent. Additional information is also provided as well as a look at Feedback vs. Advice and Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades. With the new school year starting this article will give you much to think about when it comes to providing feedback for your students.
Lisl Trowbridge's curator insight,
October 15, 2014 1:23 PM
Wiggins provides 7 key elements of feedback. 
Tony Palmeri's curator insight,
October 4, 2015 7:27 PM
Feedback and advice are not synonymous!
Great suggestions on providing effective feedback. Giving feedback that is actionable is important when providing instructional supervision and support. 
Erin Ryan's curator insight,
October 19, 2015 8:15 PM
Feedback is information given to help us understand how we are doing when working to achieve a goal. Feedback should be goal-referenced meaning the information we provide gives the person information as to whether they are on track. It should be tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing and consistent. Specific examples of what was right and what needs work are very important to the receiver. As administrators, we need to be continuously providing our teachers feedback both formally and informally through meetings (face to face), discussions, emails.
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This is a continuation of the 'Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong. Really' that I scooped yesterday. (Both by Grant Wiggins) In this post he continues to look at "an explosion of educational innovation" (which began in the 1930s). Along with Ralph Tyler (whom he brought up in his first post) he also presents work from Harold Fawcett, Hollis Caswell, and John Dewey. This post looks at the concepts of curriculum scope and sequence, with a focus on sequence, and if it is 'logical' or 'psychological'.
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Scoop.it!
"Essential questions are, ask Grant Wiggins defines, “‘essential’ in the sense of signaling genuine, important and necessarily-ongoing inquiries.” These are grapple-worthy, substantive questions that not only require wrestling with, but are worth wrestling with–that could lead students to some critical insight in a 40/40/40-rule sense of the term."
Beth Dichter's insight:
If you are looking for a long list of essential questions this post may be just what you are looking for. There are over 100 essential questions divided into 20 categories. Some of the categories include: * Social Justice * Culture: Values, Beliefs & Rituals * Constructing Identities * Heroes and "She-roes" * Nature in the Balance * Our View of the World and Ourselves Have fun exploring this extensive list. Be aware that the focus is Humanities and the Arts. If you find it useful and would like to see more that promote STEM inquiry make sure to leave a message in the comment section at te@chthought.
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"What does it mean to read? What does it mean to think? What does it mean to solve problems? What should you be doing in your head when you translate the Spanish? In sum, what is meant to be going on inside that black box called the mind and what is actually going on in their minds? These are our Essential Questions as teachers. It is the continual addressing of these questions that moves us from the ranks of the naïve and ok teachers to skilled professionals. We move from being “teachers” to coaches of learning."
Beth Dichter's insight:
If one goal of essential questions is to get our students to think a question we must ask is how do we go about teaching them do this. This post by Grant Wiggins explores ways to help students learn the necessary skills. Examples are provided and he also shares a book, "When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do" that provides resources.
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Grant Wiggins discusses how he has "become a big believer in the power of crowd-sourcing ideas via social medium..." He starts this post by sharing an twitter experience, where he asked "Who has a great essential question that works really well with kids?" and proceeds to share approximately 15 questions that were shared. Wiggins continues to share some additional experiences in this post as well as a link to a video.
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What does it mean when we say students need to be able to "tranfer" their learning? Grant Wiggins explores this in the post with a look at what it means to "know" something as opposed to "understand" and/or "apply" a specific piece of knowledge. Using the Pythagoreum Theorum as the example he walks us through these concepts and how they require students "to realize which specific prior learning is called for and apply it." He also states "If you can only recall and state something you don't really understand it...(you need) a Meaning Goal...and...(a) Transfer..."
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A while back I scooped two posts from Grant Wiggins, "Everything You Know About Curriculum May Be Wrong. Really." and "Rethinking Curriculum Writing, Part 2." This post is Wiggin's response to replies he received on the two posts mentioned above. A variety of issues are raised and addressed. He discusses Problem Based Learning (PBL) stating "many PBL courses are quite weak in the sequencing of problems and the lack of focus on transfer. Similarly, Project-based learning is often haphazard and poorly-designed: it often is just a bunch of random projects in no particular sequence..." He also brings up the Understanding by Design and describes how you can take diverse subject matter and create amazing results. If you read the first of this series I would urge you to read this post, and if you have not, search on Grant Wiggins and you can find his first two essays on Curriculum.
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Grant Wiggins asks us to question what we know about curriculum in this piece...what would happen if we made a significan shift in how we look at curriculum? "What if the earth moves and the sun is at rest? What if gravity is just a special case of space-time? Following both counter-intuitive premises revolutionized science and ushered in the modern world. Could a similar counter-intuitive thought experiment advance education from where I believe we are currently stuck? I believe so."
Shafeeq Husain's curator insight,
September 26, 2015 11:06 PM
What else could a curriculum be, other than parcelling out learning in clear and logically-sequenced elements. |
For sure when using the experiential method of teaching and learning, the teacher must emphasize what areas of the teaching/learning process the learners must master and transfer or otherwise the learners might simply take the learning for granted.
We must link learning to student passions to make hands on minds on.