Every student reads, writes, thinks, speaks, and produces every day in every class.
This framework for instruction drives the instructional practice and defines common practices that are used consistently from STEM classroom to classroom. These strategies give all students of all skill levels access to the complex information needed to meet state and college-ready standards and engage all students, requiring each to take an active role in their own learning.
Questioning: Questioning challenges both teachers and students to build a climate of intellectual inquiry. Teachers who answer questions with questions encourage investigation, analysis, trial and error, discovery, and engagement. Students who learn to initiate meaningful questions about content, about their own theories, and about the theories of their peers form a foundation for critical thought. Students must learn that they are capable of finding and supporting their own answers, solutions, or supportable theories. Additionally, they must learn that oftentimes the value is in the question and not in an immediate, correct answer. Many students who are accustomed to thinking "just tell me what to write down" or "Just give me the answer" will need scaffolding for this framework piece.
Design Process Thinking: Design Process Thinking strategies teach students a series of problem-solving steps that emphasize the importance of critical analysis, risk-taking, failure, iteration, perseverance, and problem solving. Design Process Thinking encourages critical thinking, creativity, and, frequently, innovation. It is a framework piece in all content areas and applies to The Design Process steps to different content goals and outcomes. Scaffolding will be necessary for many students particularly with the concept of “failing forward.”
In Your Own Brain: In Your Own Brain strategies ask students to balance individual quiet thinking, problem solving, or reflection preceding Collaboration or Classroom Talk and are often non-evaluative and low-stakes. Strategies in this piece of the framework prepare students to come to their team/class more thoughtful and prepared to contribute. Additionally, In Your Own Brain is often important when students need to be reflective about content and about their own metacognition. Finally, In Your Own Brain can also be appropriate when the goal is to have a student produce high stakes, individual results (e.g. a test, a report, a presentation, etc.). Students must develop a comfort level with sustained In Your Own Brain time and must learn the value of slowing down and avoiding multi-tasking in these moments. In the era of 24/7 connection to a device, students may need scaffolding strategies.
Collaboration: Collaboration strategies require students to work together on purposeful, small teams to grapple with content, to solve problems, to reach solutions, and to produce quality work. Lessons using Collaboration must be carefully planned so that the work is challenging and the results are meaningful. Students must learn to individually contribute, to accept the contributions or absence of contributions from others, to agree, and to disagree. Students should sometimes work on teams they self-select and sometimes on teams to which they are assigned by the teacher. Teachers must scaffold for students approaching the task with varied social skills and limited prior knowledge about group dynamics.
Classroom Talk: Classroom Talk strategies require students to practice academic and content-specific communication as well as the etiquette and organization of effective discussion. Teachers planning for Classroom Talk often use Questioning strategies to make opportunities available to students who work in Collaboration groups or within whole-class discussions. Strategies within this part of the framework should be tightly connected to content and often foster the exploration of big ideas. Classroom Talk strategies can be used as a scaffolding strategy in and of themselves (e.g. peer to peer instruction). Effective Classroom Talk eventually results in the teacher becoming a facilitator; with scaffolding, learning through Classroom Talk becomes more and more student-led.
Understanding Through Writing: Understanding Through Writing strategies most often incorporate impromptu, low-stakes and non-evaluative writing that occurs In Your Own Brain or in Collaboration. Understanding Through Writing strategies require students to “write to themselves” to filter their thoughts in order to engage in preliminary thinking, hypothesizing, or comprehending of a concept. It can also be effective after a lesson or unit---requiring students to self-check for content knowledge or to reflect on learning processes. It can be used by a teacher to collect information for scaffolding purposes, but its primary purpose is for students to use for themselves. Additionally, some of the strategies help students concentrate closely on text or problem sets.. Understanding Through Writing allows students to try out their thoughts and ideas before moving on to more high-stakes work. Students may need scaffolding strategies to help them recognize that low-stakes work builds skills to improve high-stakes work.
This framework for instruction drives the instructional practice and defines common practices that are used consistently from STEM classroom to classroom. These strategies give all students of all skill levels access to the complex information needed to meet state and college-ready standards and engage all students, requiring each to take an active role in their own learning.
Questioning: Questioning challenges both teachers and students to build a climate of intellectual inquiry. Teachers who answer questions with questions encourage investigation, analysis, trial and error, discovery, and engagement. Students who learn to initiate meaningful questions about content, about their own theories, and about the theories of their peers form a foundation for critical thought. Students must learn that they are capable of finding and supporting their own answers, solutions, or supportable theories. Additionally, they must learn that oftentimes the value is in the question and not in an immediate, correct answer. Many students who are accustomed to thinking "just tell me what to write down" or "Just give me the answer" will need scaffolding for this framework piece.
Design Process Thinking: Design Process Thinking strategies teach students a series of problem-solving steps that emphasize the importance of critical analysis, risk-taking, failure, iteration, perseverance, and problem solving. Design Process Thinking encourages critical thinking, creativity, and, frequently, innovation. It is a framework piece in all content areas and applies to The Design Process steps to different content goals and outcomes. Scaffolding will be necessary for many students particularly with the concept of “failing forward.”
In Your Own Brain: In Your Own Brain strategies ask students to balance individual quiet thinking, problem solving, or reflection preceding Collaboration or Classroom Talk and are often non-evaluative and low-stakes. Strategies in this piece of the framework prepare students to come to their team/class more thoughtful and prepared to contribute. Additionally, In Your Own Brain is often important when students need to be reflective about content and about their own metacognition. Finally, In Your Own Brain can also be appropriate when the goal is to have a student produce high stakes, individual results (e.g. a test, a report, a presentation, etc.). Students must develop a comfort level with sustained In Your Own Brain time and must learn the value of slowing down and avoiding multi-tasking in these moments. In the era of 24/7 connection to a device, students may need scaffolding strategies.
Collaboration: Collaboration strategies require students to work together on purposeful, small teams to grapple with content, to solve problems, to reach solutions, and to produce quality work. Lessons using Collaboration must be carefully planned so that the work is challenging and the results are meaningful. Students must learn to individually contribute, to accept the contributions or absence of contributions from others, to agree, and to disagree. Students should sometimes work on teams they self-select and sometimes on teams to which they are assigned by the teacher. Teachers must scaffold for students approaching the task with varied social skills and limited prior knowledge about group dynamics.
Classroom Talk: Classroom Talk strategies require students to practice academic and content-specific communication as well as the etiquette and organization of effective discussion. Teachers planning for Classroom Talk often use Questioning strategies to make opportunities available to students who work in Collaboration groups or within whole-class discussions. Strategies within this part of the framework should be tightly connected to content and often foster the exploration of big ideas. Classroom Talk strategies can be used as a scaffolding strategy in and of themselves (e.g. peer to peer instruction). Effective Classroom Talk eventually results in the teacher becoming a facilitator; with scaffolding, learning through Classroom Talk becomes more and more student-led.
Understanding Through Writing: Understanding Through Writing strategies most often incorporate impromptu, low-stakes and non-evaluative writing that occurs In Your Own Brain or in Collaboration. Understanding Through Writing strategies require students to “write to themselves” to filter their thoughts in order to engage in preliminary thinking, hypothesizing, or comprehending of a concept. It can also be effective after a lesson or unit---requiring students to self-check for content knowledge or to reflect on learning processes. It can be used by a teacher to collect information for scaffolding purposes, but its primary purpose is for students to use for themselves. Additionally, some of the strategies help students concentrate closely on text or problem sets.. Understanding Through Writing allows students to try out their thoughts and ideas before moving on to more high-stakes work. Students may need scaffolding strategies to help them recognize that low-stakes work builds skills to improve high-stakes work.