Creating and Sustaining a Culture of
Collaboration and Rigorous
Reasoning in a Project-Based
Classroom
Janet L. Kolodner
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Jackie Gray, Jennifer Holbrook, Barbara Fasse, Mike
Ryan, and a host of other LBD™ pioneers and group
members (teachers and researchers)
Culture of Collaboration and
Rigorous Reasoning
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Awareness, want, and appreciation of the
need to collaborate
Collaboration and communication skills
Awareness, want, and appreciation of the
need for rigor in collecting and using
evidence, using the vocabulary of a domain,
explaining phenomena, and justifying
decisions
Skills to engage in those practices fluently
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Creating and maintaining that culture
is hard!!!
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Because competition for grades is the norm in
school, not collaboration
Because right answers are normally required
rather than deliberation
Because students normally are expected to
follow rules rather than take responsibility for
what they are doing and learning
Because teachers roles are different and evolving
And because it takes time to learn all these things
-- a lot of deliberate repetition and practice
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Our Solution: Foregrounding the
Learning of Important Practices and Skills
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Continuous, frequent, authentic, and reflective
use of targeted practices/skills over a variety of
contexts
A classroom setup in which kids always need
each other’s results and reports
Expectations of rigor set clearly, discussed,
modeled by the teacher, and enforced (gently)
Reflective iteration towards solutions
Public ritualized practice of collaboration,
communication, and science practices (skills)
Scaffolding responsibilities shared by teacher,
paper-and-pencil journals, software, and peers
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And Developmental Sequencing to
Promote Gradual Learning of Practices
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Skills/practices/expectations are introduced
within the context of a “launcher unit” at the
beginning of the year
Then practiced (publicly) over a variety of
units throughout the year
With the teacher beginning as a modeler,
coach, and enforcer and students gradually
taking on those roles
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Learning by Design™
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A project-based inquiry approach to science
education for middle school
Students learn science concepts and
practices together in the context of attempting
to achieve design challenges.
Highly collaborative
Ritualized classroom activities and scaffolding
are embedded in the approach to promote
learning practices and creating culture.
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We began with principles drawn
from the literature on learning ...
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But making it all work in the classroom took
many iterations, working along with our
collaborating teachers and going back to the
literature for advice
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The practices we want students
to learn
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Project practices:
 Understanding a project challenge
 Planning, managing time, ...
 Aiming for solutions together with understanding
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Science practices:
 Investigation with a purpose: identifying what needs to
be investigated and carrying out an investigation well
 Informed decision making, reporting on and justifying
conclusions
 Explaining scientifically
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Collaboration practices:
 Teamwork, collaboration across teams, giving credit
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Our Units
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Physical Science
– Apollo 13 – introduction to practices of design and
science
– Vehicles in Motion – motion and forces
– Machines that Help – simple machines and mechanical
advantage
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Earth Science
– Digging In -- launcher unit
– Managing Erosion – erosion and accretion
– Tunneling through Georgia – geology, rocks and
minerals, rock formations, underground water
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A Sample Unit: Vehicles in
Motion
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Design and build a vehicle that can propel itself
over several hills and beyond; the farther the
better
– Coaster Car Challenge
 Friction and keeping things going
– Balloon Car Challenge
 Getting and keeping things going
– Rubber-band and Falling Weight Challenge
 Comparing different kinds of propulsion
– Put it all together
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Sequencing to Notice
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Iteration towards better solutions provides
opportunities for iteration towards better
understanding.
Sharing experimental results, design ideas, and
design experiences promotes focus on skills building.
Design diary pages and software provide scaffolding
for doing and reflection.
Multiple opportunities for engagement in science
process, communication, collaboration, planning,
reflection, design in the process of learning and
applying science content
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LBD™’s Sequencing
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Pose design
challenge.
"Messing about"
leads to question
posing. (Messing
About)
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Balloon-car challenge
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Investigation
following scientific
methodology. (My
Experiment; SMILE)
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W/balloon engines
– Size of balloons?
– Length of straw?
– Diameter of straw?
– Double balloon?
– Double engine?
Each group chooses a
question and designs
and runs an
experiment
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From Group Work to Class Discussion;
From Activity to Reflection
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Sharing results
(Poster Session)
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Drawing out design
rules of thumb (My
Rules of Thumb);
Drawing out scientific
methodology
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Why were the results
of that run so
different?
Maybe you didn't blow
up the balloons the
same every time.
Two engines are
better than one
When designing an
experiment, make
sure to ...
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Getting to the Science
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Design planning
(SMILE)
Pin-up Session (Pinup Notes)
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Let's use two engines
and double the
balloons in each
because …
Construction and
testing (Testing my
Design)
Gallery Walk (SMILE;
Gallery Walk Notes)
Need for science (My
Rules of Thumb)
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When we did that, the
wheels spun out. …
We don't know why.
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Read pages about
Newton’s 2nd law,
refine rules of thumb
with explanations,
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demos, ...
Classroom
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Iteration, Summary, Pulling it All
Together
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Iterative refinement
Final gallery walk
Product history
(SMILE)
Application problems
and scenarios
Lessons learned
(SMILE)
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Individual and group
writeups
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About science,
science practice,
collaboration, ...
Back to Vehicles’ big
challenge
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Results
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Kids “talk” science
– Use vocabulary of forces
– Explain
– Justify and persuade
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Kids “do” science
– Control variables, design procedures, measure, observe,
record, interpret, apply, …
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Kids require each other to be “rigorous”
They collaborate willingly
They learn content
All gets better and better throughout the year
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Making it Work; Getting to the
Culture
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Foregrounding of practices
– Pushes kids to focus on how they are doing things, what
works well, what doesn’t
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Introduction through “launcher”
– Helps kids understand the importance of practices and when
each is used
– Gives a first chance at using them and learning about them
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Repeated public and reflective practice
– Helps them debug the way they do things
– Provides opportunities to see how well they are performing
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Shifting roles of teacher, shifting locus of
initiative
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Foregrounding the Practices:
LBD™’s Community Rituals
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Provide a systematic way of carrying out
some important skill set that
– systematizes practices to make them methodical;
promotes habits
– situates practices in several contexts; promoting
adaptability
– engages students in public practice as
collaborators; affording noticing, asking,
discussion, productive reflection
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Three Presentation Rituals
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Poster sessions (investigation, interpreting,
reporting results; done after investigations)
 Pin-up sessions (making decisions, justifying
them; done after planning or designing a first
solution)
 Gallery walks (testing solutions, explaining results;
done after trials)
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Each tied to a set of science skills/practices
Ritualized public ways of participating in those
practices
Well-articulated expectations
Repeatedly practiced and publicly discussed
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Making the Rituals Work
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Introduction and identification of expectations
Reminders before group work
Paper-and-pencil scaffolding during group
work; also teacher help from time to time
Preparation for presentations (with software
or paper-and-pencil scaffolding)
Public presentations of results with discussion
of “how to’s”
A chance to try again (iteration)
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Introducing Community Rituals
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Gallery Walk:
– Introduced at a time when they want to report to each other about
what they’ve done
– We tell them what will be useful for their peers
– We prompt listeners on what they might ask
– They experience the help peers can provide
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Poster Session:
– Introduced before they design and run their first experiment
– We remind them that their peers will need their results and will
need to trust results
– We prompt them with what they should pay attention to (but without
much detail)
– They experience the trustworthiness and lack of it in different
experimental designs and procedures; that becomes grist for
discussion and setting of expectations
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Community Rituals: Getting to
Expectations
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Kids can identify expectations after their first
experience; then make them better over time
Gallery walks:
– To make their solutions the best they can, they’ll need to test the solutions
they’ve come up with and make decisions about what to do next; requires
making predictions, running several trials, recording results, noticing
patterns, comparing results to expectations, explaining discrepancies, ...
– For others to trust how well their solution works and appreciate how well
they did, they will need to explain why they did what they did and why it
works the way it does
– Peers can help; this requires making all the above clear to peers and
identifying where they need help
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Poster sessions:
– One experiments in order to get to results others can trust and use; this
requires planning well so that variables are controlled well, measuring
accurately, running enough trials, recording data, noticing patterns, …
– All of this must be communicated well to peers
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Design Diaries: Paper-and-Pencil
Scaffolding while Doing
Helps kids know what
to do
Helps them know what
to report
Helps teacher know
what to emphasize
when helping a group
or leading a wholeclass discussion
Very sketchy
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SMILE: Software scaffolding to
prepare for presentations
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Design discussions
– Investigation planning and presentation
(poster session)
– Design plans and decisions (pin-up session)
– Design experiences (gallery walks)
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Summary authoring
– Goals, plans, results, science used
– Two most important iterations
– Lessons learned and how they might be used
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SMILE: Our Experiment
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Your question
Your hypothesis
How you tested it
Your procedure
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– structuring with a
leading question or
topic
– hints
– examples
– Variable you varied
– Values you gave it
– Properties you held
constant
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Data/results
Interpretation of
results
Rule of thumb
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Scaffolding is of three
kinds
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Helps both students
and teacher
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Public Presentation
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Student groups present
Teacher and peers ask questions, make recommendations
For each presentation, teacher attempts to restate student
statements using scientific terminology and explanations;
asks for evidence to justify decisions and interpretations;
…
After full set, teacher helps students compare and contrast
over the set and abstract out what’s most important
(depending on the type of presentation) -- new design rules
of thumb might be derived, new principles for designing
and running experiments, new principles for reporting
results, new phenomena noticed, old principles questioned
and refined, new questions raised, …
After discussion, class decides what to do next
Students eventually take more initiative
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The Full Set of Rituals in LBD™
– Gallery walk -- explanation
– Pin-up session -- decision making and
justification
– Poster session -- investigation and data
interpretation
– Design rules of thumb generation-- data
interpretation and connecting science
principles to observed phenomena
– Messing About and Whiteboarding -observation, inquiry
– Product History -- summarizing, abstraction
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Community Rituals as Learning
Devices
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Continuous, frequent, authentic, and reflective
use
In public
Kids need each other’s results and reports
Rigor discussed, modeled by teacher (and
eventually by other students), and enforced
Chances to try again (iteration)
Scaffolding distributed between teacher, paperand-pencil journal pages, software, peers
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Summary: Affording and Sustaining
the Culture
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Foregrounding of practices
– Pushes kids to focus on how they are doing things, what
works well, what doesn’t
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Repeated public and reflective practice
– Helps them debug the way they do things
– Provides opportunities to see how well they are performing
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By comparing performance to peers
By experiencing the degree to which peers understand and
trust what they report
Shifting roles of teacher, shifting locus of
initiative
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Creating the Culture
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Learning by Design™ uses “Launcher Units”
Over a 3 to 6-week period:
Community rituals are gradually introduced
– As ways to introduce science, project, and
collaboration practices
– In the context of short, engaging, and authentic
challenges that require only simple content
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They are gradually interleaved with each
other
Students experience adults engaging in the
same practices
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Apollo 13: The Launcher Unit
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Introduces collaboration,
design, gallery walk
The movie -- Apollo 13
(2 - 3 days)
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Scientists and engineers
engage in collaboration,
design, and science
practices
The Oreo Cookie
Challenge (2 days)
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Replicating procedures,
controlling variables,
collecting data, knowing if
your solution is in the right
ballpark
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The Book Support
Challenge (2 days)
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Apollo 13 (continued)
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Which tape shall we
use? (4 days)
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The Parachute
Challenge (6 days)
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Ideo Corp. video
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Fair testing (measuring,
observing, managing
variables, replicating
procedures), informed
decision making (justifying
with evidence, explaining),
poster session, pin-up
session
Putting it all together,
messing about,
whiteboarding
Adults do it all too
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The Book Support Challenge
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Our goals: Help the class
– come to appreciate collaborative learning
– begin becoming proficient at vocabulary and
practices of design
– learn about the gallery walk
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Design and build a structure that will hold up
a large textbook 3 inches above a desk using
only index cards, paper clips, and rubber
bands.
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The Book Support Challenge:
Orchestration
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Students work in groups for 10 - 15 minutes to
achieve the challenge.
The class reads about "gallery walks" together.
Each group presents their design; there's some
discussion about each.
Teacher asks students if they want to try again.
Students try again.
They hold another gallery walk.
They accuse each other of copying.
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Book Support Orchestration (cont.)
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The teacher introduces them to the notion of building
on the work of others, patents, citations, …
They read about collaborative learning and its
benefits and requirements (e.g., giving credit)
They talk about designing -- what did they do when
they designed; how did they know if they were getting
to a good solution -- the vocabulary of “criteria” and
“constraints” is introduced; how their peers’ ideas
helped.
They revisit the notion of the gallery walk and update
their notion of what’s needed.
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Book Support: The Sequel
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Make your bookstand appealing to buyers but not too
expensive to produce.
Now questions arise about support structures and
forces.
Students read a bit to answer their questions.
They identify criteria and constraints.
They attempt solutions.
Gallery walk, comparisons, discussion of support,
iteration (this time giving credit), …
When done, revisit design and collaboration and LBD
(the role design might play in learning)
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Results
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When students work on other challenges, they use
the practices they've experienced and talked about in
the launcher.
Some begin to use the words collaboration, credit,
iteration, variable, trial, ...; others follow suit over
time.
Students get better at practices, some adopt early,
others follow.
Students and teacher refer to these experiences later
as anchors to make points about designing,
collaboration, science practices, and project
practices.
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Take-Away Point 1: Once is not
enough!!!
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Participating masterfully in project-based
learning requires repeated use of projects
and repeated reflective, rigorous, and
scaffolded use of project practices.
Students will get better at the practices of
science, collaboration, and projects over time.
Students will probably learn the content better
in later projects than in earlier ones; start the
year with relatively simple content and
introductions to practices.
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Take-Away Point 2: Much
Scaffolding is Needed; Distribute It
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Kids need help participating in science, collaboration, and
project practices
Paper-and-pencil diary pages can provide reminders and
help them manage an activity
Teacher needs to provide more specific help to small
groups as they are working
Software can get more detailed than paper by providing
reminders, hints, and examples, but not as individualized as
the teacher
Public performance aimed at peers allows peers to model
for and scaffold each other
Teacher modeling of rigor is essential early on
Discussion based on presentations can helps kids notice
good practices and important phenomena
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Take-Away Point 3: Create the
Culture Early and with Rigor
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Activities that introduce need for targeted
practices/skills
Activities that introduce need for learning content
and using it well
Activities that allow students to experience ins
and outs of targeted practices/skills
Teacher coaches and models for rigor
Discussion following allows kids to identify what
good practice is
List guidelines for practice on the wall, revisit and
revise them often
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Take-Away Point 4: Public Participation in
Skills and Practices is a Charm
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Take time early in the year to do it; it’s worth
it.
Students get to see others doing things they
need to learn.
Students get to see if others can understand
and use what they are providing.
Students gain confidence and empathy.
The teacher gets to identify student strengths,
weaknesses, conceptions, misconceptions
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Take-Away Point 5: Distributing
Investigative Needs Around the Class is a
Charm too.
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Kids listen to each other if they need each
others’ results, ideas, or experiences.
As a result, they question each other, gain
appreciation for each other’s skills, and want
to help each other (because they want help
too).
Listening provides them with many more
experiences to abstract from than simply their
own.
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