Metacognitive Talk in the Classroom

This week's article summary is Metacognitive Talk in the Classroom.

Through the years, I’ve talked about how important metacognition is in helping students (and ourselves) counter unconscious biases they most likely have.

But as you’ll see in the article below, metacognition is simply good pedagogy in the classroom.

Our goal as teachers is to guide our students to be effective problem solvers. Being aware of how we think and how we systematically approach and solve a problem help develop the habit and skills of responsible decision-making.

Metacognition is an intimidating word, yet the classroom strategies below, such as giving students ample time to work with other students, asking open-end questions, having students find multiple ways to a solution, and having kids reflect on how their learning processes are tools most of us use in the classroom to help our students better understand how they learn.

Joe

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Psychologists have long advocated the idea of metacognitive talk. Jean Piaget believed that children benefited from being active participants in the construction of knowledge, and Lev S. Vygotsky introduced the idea that students can co-construct knowledge through social interactions. Talking with their peers, asking questions, and debating best approaches to problem-solving help students develop more complex thinking and reasoning skills. Conversations can create productive conflict that helps students develop multiple perspectives, leading to deeper learning.

If students are given clear directions and guidelines for their discussions, interacting with peers can be more effective than working only independently and as effective as working one-on-one with an adult.

However, popular techniques like “turn and talk” to your neighbor may not be structured enough to be effective at co-creating knowledge. During discussions students need to do the following:

• Examine their thinking process and the approach they used in order to identify different ways of solving a particular problem
• Explore diverse strategies or varying viewpoints
• Use active listening strategies to take in and then test out ideas and methods that are different from their own
• Debate or negotiate to reach a consensus in their discussions before presenting to the group.

In practice, this often looks like the teacher talking for a short time at the beginning of the lesson, with students working independently to decide on a strategy and try a skill on their own and then spending the majority of learning time engaged in discussion.

Here are some strategies for encouraging metacognitive talk:

Limiting teacher talk time: The teacher should talk to model the thought process necessary for a new skill or to provide direct instruction, but most of the thinking and reasoning work should be left to the students.

Use open-ended questions and encourage problem-solving: Many times we ask questions that have a correct answer, which means that only students who have already learned the information are likely to talk. Instead, we can try to ask more questions that are open-ended and encourage students to find the answer on their own or explore the process to find the answer collaboratively. Closed questions tend to test recall of specific information, such as “What is the capital of North Carolina?” whereas open-ended questions require students to use what they have learned to demonstrate deeper understanding, apply, analyze, evaluate, or create.

Explaining the steps or outlining the process: Similarly, when they are working independently, students need to get in the habit of focusing on explaining their thinking process and how to arrive at an answer. There are a variety of ways to do this:

• Students can be prompted to focus on process by using an already-solved example problem to explain in words how to get from one step to the next. Similarly, students could correct an incorrectly solved problem, identify the mistake, and explain the process for arriving at the correct solution.
• Students can describe problem-solving steps in words next to a visual representation. They can also create thought bubbles next to a text or the steps of a problem to show their thinking process and make it easier to convey to a partner during discussion.
• Students can compare and contrast their process for solving a problem with their partner’s strategy.

Generating knowledge and new examples: Have students create their own unique examples and then collaborate with a partner to compare and contrast what they came up with and check each other’s work. This will help them test out new ideas, strengthen recall of learned information, and deepen their understanding. Students can create and solve their own math problems, make their own practice test questions and quiz each other to see what they remember from the lesson, assemble a model to demonstrate or try out something they learned, or write their own examples of a particular type of literary work or device. Teachers can also have students generate knowledge after listening to direct instruction or a video. Students can do a free recall where they write down or draw a thinking map of everything they can remember. Then pair them up to compare, check, and sort through what they came up with.

 Taking on a specific role in the critical thinking process: Talk can be used as a scaffold that allows students to engage in assignments with increased rigor. Students can be taught strategies to use, like reciprocal teaching where students work in groups to analyze a complex fiction or nonfiction text or sort through a math word problem, each taking on a specific thinking role in order to practice making predictions, asking questions, clarifying, and summarizing. Partnering on note-taking helps students work through specific reading skills and questions as a group.

Talking to produce thought, or metacognitive talk, is one of the most effective learning methods. By working together, students collectively develop their language, thinking process, and reasoning skills. They monitor, evaluate, and revise their approach to problem-solving in order to become more strategic learners.

 

Reading and Math Wars in Education

This week's article summary is The Science of Reading Swept Reforms into Classrooms: What About Math?

As you’ll see from the article, the math wars are just as important as the reading wars, yet for various reasons math continues to get less attention than reading. One reason is because while we all consider ourselves readers, many of us don’t see ourselves as mathematicians.

The reading wars center on the debate between the whole-language approach (kids will naturally learn to read when surrounded by a literature-rich home and school) versus systematic, explicit phonics lessons.

As we now know, while the research has always supported the need for direct phonics instruction, it’s only been over the past few years that whole language has lost the war—although there are still a few hold-out teachers who cling to how they’ve always taught reading.

While the reading wars appears to be over, it doesn’t mean there’s no place for a literature-rich environment. Reading to your kids in the classroom and at home helps excite them about reading, stimulate their imagination, and become more empathetic. Still, the vast majority of kids need explicit instruction to build the foundational skills and concepts to read on their own.

The math wars similarly center on those who believe procedural fluency is paramount versus those who consider conceptual understanding most critical.

Procedural fluency has traditionally been measured via timed assessments to ensure the math facts are stored in long-term memory and can be quickly recalled, thus allowing our short-term, working memory more space to handle higher-level math concepts.

The challenge for the math wars is both sides of the argument have some merit: kids need both procedural fluency and conceptual understanding.

Over the past few years Trinity has seemingly found the magic formula under the premise that procedural fluency emanates from conceptual understanding.

At admissions open houses, I often tell parents that at Trinity the three keys math concepts we develop are number operations, number flexibility, and algebraic reasoning.

Math is a language and much like reading, explicit instruction is needed. But as the article explains, viewing math solely through an algorithmic lens (which is how many schools still teach math) won’t help children develop a foundational conceptual understanding of math. Students need to be able to solve math problems and demonstrate their answers in multiple ways. In this way they begin to truly understanding the ‘why’ of math, not just the ’how.’

The math wars are still being fought in schools across the country, yet Trinity has taken the best of both sides and is making a huge difference in the lives of our students!

Joe

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For much of her teaching career, Carrie Stark relied on math games to engage her students, assuming they would pick up concepts like multiplication by seeing them in action. The kids had fun, but the lessons never stuck.

A few years ago she shifted her approach, turning to more direct explanation after finding a website on a set of evidence-based practices known as the science of math.

“I could see how the game related to multiplication, but the kids weren’t making those connections,” said Stark, a math teacher in Kansas City. “You have to explicitly teach the content.”

As American schools work to turn around math scores that plunged during the pandemic, some researchers are pushing for more attention to a set of research-based practices for teaching math. The movement has passionate backers, but is still in its infancy, especially compared with the phonics-based science of reading that has inspired changes in how classrooms across the country approach literacy.

“I don’t think the movement has caught on yet. I think it’s an idea,” said Matthew Burns, an education professor at the University of Florida who was among researchers who helped create a Science of Math website as a resource for teachers.

There’s a debate over which evidence-based practices belong under the banner of the science of math, but researchers agree on some core ideas.

The foremost principle: Math instruction must be systematic and explicit. Teachers need to give clear and precise instructions and introduce new concepts in small chunks while building on older concepts. This guidance contrasts with exploratory or inquiry-based models of education, where students explore and discover concepts on their own, with the teacher nudging them along.

In some ways, the best practices for math parallel the science of reading, which emphasizes detailed, explicit instruction in phonics, instead of letting kids guess how to read a word based on pictures or context clues.

Margie Howells, an elementary math teacher in Wheeling, West Virginia, first went researching best practices because there weren’t as many resources for dyscalculia, a math learning disability, as there were for dyslexia. After reading about the science of math movement, she became more explicit about things that she assumed students understood, like how the horizontal line in a fraction means the same thing as a division sign.

“I’m doing a lot more instruction in vocabulary and symbol explanations so that the students have that built-in understanding,” said Howells.

Some elements of math instruction emphasize big-picture concepts. Others involve learning how to do calculations. Over the decades, clashes between schools of thought favoring one or another have been labeled the “math wars.” A key principle of the science of math movement is that both are important, and teachers need to foster procedural as well as conceptual understanding.

When Stark demonstrates a long division problem, she writes out the steps for calculating the answer while students use a chart or blocks to understand the problem conceptually.

For one fifth grader who was struggling with fractions, she explicitly re-taught equivalent fractions from third grade — why two-fourths are the same as one-half, for instance. He had been working with her for three years, but this was the first time she heard him say, “I totally get it now!”

Still, skeptics of the science of math question the emphasis placed on learning algorithms, the step-by-step procedures for calculation. Proponents say they are necessary along with memorization of math facts (basic operations like 3×5 or 7+9) and regular timed practice — approaches often associated with mind-numbing drills and worksheets.

Math is “a creative, artistic, playful, reasoning-rich activity. And it’s very different than algorithms,” said Nick Wasserman, a professor of math education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Supporters argue mastering math facts unlocks creative problem-solving by freeing up working memory — and that inquiry, creativity and collaboration are still all crucial to student success.

“When we have this dichotomy, it creates an unnecessary divide and it creates a dangerous divide,” said Elizabeth Hughes, an education professor at Penn State and a leader in the science of math movement. People feel the need to choose sides between “Team Algorithms” and “Team Exploratory,” but “we really need both.”

Best practices are one thing. But some disagree such a thing as a “science of math” exists in the way it does for reading. There just isn’t the same volume of research, education researcher Tom Loveless said.

The Holistic Nature of Restorative Discipline

This week's article summary is The Holistic Nature of Restorative Discipline, and it's a follow-up to last week's summary, Gentle Parenting.

As I wrote last week, the preferred type of parenting and teaching is authoritative: firm but fair.

This week’s summary provides an overview of what consequences (the firm part) need to be mindful of (the fair part) when a child misbehaves and/or acts up/out.

I don’t really like the term ‘Gentle Parenting’ because it seems to overemphasize fair over firm. Also, I don’t like how similar Authoritative (high warmth and discipline) and Authoritarian (high discipline, low warmth) sound. One is considered ideal while the other is damaging to a child. Restorative Discipline is equally misnamed in my opinion; the word ‘restorative’ like ‘gentle’ just seems too squishy and lenient. 

Still, we need to be able to look past the word choice and focus on the goals, which is to help children develop their character (strong sense of self and sincere care and concern for others) by being firm but fair with them.

This week’s summary is a little longer than usual but take the time to read and reflect on the recommendations for what consequences should be based on and how they not only solve the issue in the moment but help a child learn from his/her missteps.

Joe

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As schools move to replace punitive discipline policies with a restorative approach, educators often express concern about what the consequences will be for students who misbehave. They worry that restorative discipline is “soft,” or, worse, that there are no consequences for problematic or harmful behavior. 

Consequences for behavior are important—they help reinforce a community’s high expectations for behavior throughout the school day. A restorative approach to discipline calls into question the logic of a system that resorts to quick “fixes” without considering the underlying reasons—the context—or what lasting, long-term benefits could look like. Instead, a restorative approach starts from the premise that behavior is a means to an end.

According to American psychiatrist William Glasser, human behavior is driven by the desire to satisfy five basic human needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun. Students meet these needs the best way they know how. This is important to keep in mind as we discuss different approaches to school discipline.

Within a punitive framework, the word “consequence” is used as a euphemism for punishment: Breaking “x” rule results in “y” consequence, intended to dissuade students from problematic and harmful behaviors. And though a punitive consequence may send a message to students not to do this again, it doesn’t tell them why not to do it again, let alone how not to do it again. The goal is to deter, not to educate or repair.

Restorative discipline encourages us as educators to do the opposite: to build and maintain relationships and to keep students in school where learning can happen—both on an academic and a behavioral level. This requires a mindset shift that doesn’t simply seek to replace a punitive consequence with a restorative one. Instead, it requires us to look at restorative practices holistically, with restorative consequences as supports and reinforcement. This allows educators to send a different, powerful message: “We want you here and we care.” 

At their best, restorative consequences are:

Consistent: Our consequences must draw on a shared set of values and beliefs that guide our work with young people. These principles include recognizing relationships as central to community, taking responsibility for everyone’s well-being, honoring all voices, and seeking to maintain people’s dignity at all times.

Layered: Punitive consequences are often used as a one-off disincentive. The goal is to stop the misbehavior, “or else.” Restorative consequences go much deeper. The starting point is having a relationship with each other, which requires upfront investment. This allows us, as educators, to understand our students, consider their needs, and support behavior as needed.

Ongoing: Even with extremely effective instruction, people tend to forget part of their learning from one day to the next, especially with the high levels of stress and trauma many of our students have been exposed to. The same is true for behavior. We need to be patient and approach discipline as a process that supports behavior over time. 

Integrated: Rather than a relay approach to discipline, in which one adult (e.g., the teacher) passes the disciplinary baton to another (e.g., the dean), disciplinary supports for behavior are shared throughout the school day. Responsibility for discipline does not reside with a select group of adults. It requires a more integrated approach in which the adults as a team provide supportive consequences that gradually, repeatedly reinforce behaviors that work in school. 

Collaborative: Young people and adults should be partners in creating and maintaining a welcoming, supportive, culturally sustaining, and respectful school environment. This means working to create an environment where students feel that they belong, have voice, and are cared for (even if we don’t always care for their behavior). When problematic behavior arises, we connect and talk with young people to explore the needs underlying their behavior. Together, we look for ways to address those needs with behaviors that are aligned with our shared community values. 

Supportive: Students should be encouraged and supported to be their best selves. When young people veer off track, we need to connect, de- escalate, and provide reminders and redirection so they can refocus on school expectations, rules, and values. Most importantly, the support must continue when students misbehave, disrupt, or inflict harm. We set high expectations for all our students and provide them with the help they need to meet those expectations, even—and especially—when the going gets tough.

Instructional: As educators, we need to teach practices and skills so that our students can meet their own needs without negatively impacting themselves and others. This means making time for mindful awareness practice and social and emotional learning. It also means that as adults, we model the skills and practices ourselves and use teachable moments to deepen student understanding in real-time. 

Relevant: Consequences need to be related to the behavior that triggered them, so that the student can learn about cause and effect. For instance, a time-out can help a student de- escalate so that they’re able to wrap their mind around what happened and the impact of their actions. This provides an opportunity not only for restoration and healing but also for reflection to develop strategies that can prevent these situations from recurring. 

Realistic: Just like the importance of setting realistic high expectations and rules to guide behavior, a consequence should be something the teacher, student, and community can realistically implement. Empty promises or threats risk damaging trust. As teachers, we need to follow through on promises to build and maintain our integrity; without this credibility, our ability to lead is vastly diminished. Relational trust promotes collaboration, communication, and facilitates the kind of challenging conversations needed to address problematic behaviors. 

Differentiated: Consequences must take into account a student’s need, skill level, and the context of the behavior. Like in the academic classroom, students come to us with varying levels of aptitude and skill in social and emotional learning. We also know that some students are exposed to high levels of stress, distraction and even trauma, which make learning of any kind more difficult. Keeping this in mind, we tailor our consequences so that, over time, students can become self-disciplined and choose appropriate behaviors, whether or not an adult is around to guide them. 

Reflective: Everyone in the school community should be encouraged to reflect on their behavior and the impact of that behavior on others. This allows us to gain insight, promote understanding, and build empathy. Instead of telling students what to do or not to do, we are better off creating opportunities for students to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions about what choices to make and why. 

Restorative: We need to provide opportunities for those who have caused harm to (re)connect with those affected by their behavior, and work to repair the damage they caused. This means involving the people affected by what happened and giving them a say in how to best resolve or repair things. A well-prepared and facilitated restorative intervention allows the person who caused the harm to rebuild relationships and meet some of the needs of those they harmed.

The Latin root of the word discipline means to teach and to learn. Restorative consequences help us to return discipline to it roots and fulfill our role in teaching students about themselves, their behavior, and community expectations. 

Gentle Parenting

This week's article summary is What is Gentle Parenting.

Parenting at home and Classroom Management at school go hand in hand. 

As most of you know, there are four main types of parenting/classroom management that revolve around the intersection of warmth and discipline:

1. Neglectful: low warmth, low discipline

2. Permissive: high warmth, low discipline

3. Authoritarian: low warmth, high discipline

4. Authoritative: high warmth, high discipline

Parenting and classroom management experts recommend the fourth type, Authoritative, as the most effective.

Being authoritative basically comes down to being ‘firm but fair’: firm in establishing and enforcing consistent boundaries, expectations, and routines and fair in being compassionate, flexible, and committed to learning, improvement, and growth.

As I mentioned in a previous summary, the Social Emotional Learning Tile on the My Trinity page of our website has a lot of information and guidance regarding how to develop and sustain a ‘firm but fair’ classroom culture to maximize student learning.

Joe

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 Gentle parenting is an evidence-based approach to raising happy, confident children. This parenting style is composed of four main elements: empathy, respect, understanding, and boundaries.

Gentle parenting focuses on fostering the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries. 

Unlike some more lenient parenting methods, gentle parenting also encourages discipline, but in an age-appropriate way. Discipline methods focus on teaching valuable life lessons rather than focusing on punishments

Those who practice gentle parenting encourage working together as a family to teach their children to express their feelings, but in a socially acceptable, age-appropriate manner. Gentle parenting is viewed as a beneficial method for raising happy, independent, and confident children.

Gentle parenting focuses on a child's cognitive state to establish certain guidelines and boundaries that are age-appropriate and beneficial to their development. Because this approach to parenting is meant to foster positive traits in children, gentle parents model their own behavior around their children based on what they expect to see from them.

While gentle parents discipline their children, the goal is to teach the child rather than punish them for their behavior. "When we show gentleness, especially during stressful times, we model frustration tolerance, and we model flexibility. Staying calm and being gentle and firm sets the tone for positive growth and development," says Allison Andrews, owner and primary clinician at Child Development Partners in Boston, MA.

Unlike overly rigid or lax parenting styles, gentle parenting seems to have very few drawbacks and rarely has a negative impact on children's mental health. Instead, the compassionate, understanding elements of gentle parenting foster positive traits that help kids develop socially while also establishing appropriate guidelines to encourage positive behavior.

Meanwhile, those who practice more rigid parenting styles, such as tiger parenting, may view gentle parenting as too lenient. However, it's important to note gentle parenting is different  permissive parenting, which is classified as having low expectations of a child. Permissive parents often opt out of disciplining a child altogether due to their age, while gentle parents discipline using age-appropriate tactics.

Children of tiger parents have been shown to suffer negative consequences due to the high expectations they're expected to meet. These include anxiety, depression, and poor academic performance.

On the other end of the spectrum, permissive parents have an overall more positive bond with their children. Still, they often struggle with situations that require rule-following and structure. Gentle parenting strikes a balance between these styles, offering guidance and support while also clearly defining boundaries.

It's quite simple to apply the ethos of gentle parenting to your daily life, and it all starts with respecting your child's feelings and development.

Babies and toddlers can be trying, with their inability to regulate their emotions and behavior, making it seemingly impossible to create any structure. By recognizing why they are behaving a certain way, you can tailor your response to your child accordingly, keeping in mind their cognitive ability to understand your reaction.

For example, comforting your crying baby rather than getting upset with them may seem obvious, but in terms of gentle parenting, it also means you're teaching your child empathy from an early age.

Most often, this means adjusting their expectations of how they think children should behave to reflect a more realistic standard. For example, while it may be frustrating that a toddler doesn't sleep through the night, gentle parents understand that they are not acting naughty. By comforting instead of punishing the child, the parent models empathy, which is a positive trait they want to enforce.

That said, rules and boundaries are important aspects of gentle parenting. By establishing clear guidelines about what is and is not appropriate, children have the consistent structure they require. This means a child will feel assured enough to explore new environments while also knowing they're being protected. In the end, this encourages confidence.

With older children, keep their age in mind before reacting to their behavior. Doing so will help you better understand their mindset to help them through their feelings in an appropriate way.

As is the case with any parenting style, gentle parenting methods do pose potential challenges. Unlike permissive parenting, gentle parenting is not based on a lack of discipline for children, which is sometimes misinterpreted. Instead, gentle parenting means understanding a child's feelings at the moment and responding accordingly in a way that is beneficial to the child's emotional well-being.

It can be challenging for parents who are new to this method to implement it effectively because gentle parenting requires patience and empathy. Ask yourself whether you're truly able to step back and practice self-control instead of responding reactively to your child's behavior. As with any parenting method, consistency is key in gentle parenting's success.

Each family benefits from different methods of parenting. Still, gentle parenting has been recognized as one of the ideal styles for fostering a positive relationship with your children while still enforcing boundaries.

To get in the mindset to begin gentle parenting, bear in mind that the goals of this method may not come to fruition immediately. The idea of molding your child into someone with positive traits is a continual process, and you may not see the results of gentle parenting overnight. However, remember the goal is to set your child up with the tools to succeed through gentle guidance and compassion.

At the end of the day, children will behave age-appropriately. The reward of gentle parenting comes later on when you see your children applying the attributes you've modeled for them throughout their upbringing on their own as they grow older.