Teachers learn how to make thinking visible

Education is often a top issue for parents and policy makers.  Today in Frankenmuth, a new approach to education takes (took) center stage. It’s called the “Cultures of Thinking”  collaborative. It’s aimed at taking students beyond reading, writing and arithmetic into the world of “Think, see and wonder”.
    
(let’s focus our thinking on things we know we need to make electricity happen…) 

Jan Zimba is taking a room full of energetic 4th graders, sitting them in a circle, and teaching them about electricity.

(teaher) If we had no protons or electrons… (student) we wouldn’t have electricity.  (teacher) we’d be out of luck…)

This is not your dust-off-the-text-book- and-read-two-chapters kind of education. Zimba is trying to take the kids’ thinking and make it visible.She asks questions and lets the students figure out their own individual answers.

This approach is called the Circle of Viewpoints. Zimba says the new teaching strategies she’s learned through the “Cultures of Thinking Collaborative” have benefited all of her students. Even the ones who try to lay low.

“I actually have five special education students in my classroom right now, and you can’t tell that they’re here.  They’re all included with everyone else, and their sharing is equal. So it’s a pretty unique thing, because it levels the playing field.” 

Zimba’s students -all of them- do seem eager to jump into the discussion.   Little Kayla Smith told me, this is just a good way to learn.

“It helps us learn so like we can be more smarter when we get in college and middle school and high school…”

“Kids are a lot smarter than we might think”

That’s Dr. David Perkins of Harvard University.

His “Project Zero” initiative was the launching point for this Cultures of Thinking Collaborative.

He wanted to find a way to engage students more and to challenge them.   And he admits, when the program began, like a lot of grown ups, he was really underestimating the kids.

“Our original conception of this work, and I remember saying this several years ago, is well we imagine teachers could start this kind of thing around the 4th grade, the 5th grade, you know.  We were wrong. (laughs)  We were wrong, and teachers taught us what could be done.”

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Now the program is being used in kindergarten class rooms and even pre schools all the way up through grad school.

So how does one go about making thinking visible?  It involves asking the students  questions.  Not times tables and parts of speech, but rather things like “what did you used to think”  And “what do you think now”?

Another approach is called “See, Think, Wonder.”   A student sees a robin on the lawn, he thinks “cool it’s spring”.  Now this program would encourage him to go a step further… to wonder; maybe where the bird spent the wnter?  Or when it’s hungry, what kind of bugs it like best?  But Dr. Perkins says never fear, this new approach to learning does not ignore the basics.
   
“You can’t think without facts.  It’s not that facts are bad.  It’s not that information is bad.  It’s not that basic skills are bad.  Of course you need that stuff.  The question is, is it enough?  And the answer is actually pretty easy.  It’s nowhere near enough.”

Dr. Perkins say this approach taps into higher level thinking. It encourages students to take classroom information and show they have an understanding of it… how one concept connects to another.  How classroom lessons connect to real life.
More than 150 educators from more than 25 schools turned out for this conference on the Cultures of Thinking collaborative.They learned the strategies and watched them in action in the classroom.

Luana Pruit teaches alternative education in the Buena Vista High School.  She says this teaching approach taps into something that’s sometimes missing in the classroom.   

“Many times we’re so bogged down with lesson plans and what we need to do with curriculum that we forget that learning still has to be engaging and fun. We want to keep the rigor in it.  And I believe that the routines we learn here, help us as, I know it’s helped me as a teacher to do just that.” 

Right now the Cultures of Thinking approach is being used in schools as widespread as Miami, New York City and Australia.  Frankenmuth schools is part of the Tri-county Collaborative. They’ve been using the program for two-years.
(sound)
In classrooms like Jan Zimba’s as students answer the thinking questions, educators can find answers about ways education can change.

Student run credit union teaches money management skills

The economic downturn is making many people suddenly aware of how much they don’t know about finances.   Everyday brings financial problems… and terminology… that we haven’t heard before.  This week may help.  It’s Money-Smart week in Michigan.
    Our Amy Robinson visited one school to learn about their unique program and how they hope to use it to educate students.

It’s 10:15 on a Monday morning.   The Student run credit union at Mt Pleasant High School is open for business. (student transaction/ ” I need your signature.  Here ya’ go”)

Junior Alex Haymaker has been working in the school credit union for about six-months.
Under the watchful eye of a grey mangy-looking stuffed toy rat.

(alex) “Herbert Stanley Stewart Alex, and we call it Ping for short.”  (Amy) Ping is incredibly ugly.  (Alex) Laughs-  “That was the name of the guy that gave it to me.”

In a room about the size of a walk-in closet, with Ping perched overhead… this doesn’t look like any other credit union you’d find.  But students stopping by the window can open an account, make deposits and withdrawals, even pick up student loan applications.

Alex says its convenient for students.  She says there are teens who need a handy means of practicing money management skills – if they’ll try it.

I do know people that for college, they have nothing saved.  They will save a couple quarters (laughs) but it really doesn’t get them very far, and they don’t have an account at all.” 

Of course, it’s not just Ping who oversees things in this credit union cubicle.  Cristina Delorenzo is the supervisor who comes in three days from the Isabella Community Credit Union.

“This is definitely hands-on education”

She’s been managing this program for four-years.  She calls this the credit union’s third branch.

“Well we have goals for our coop students, so about 40 new accounts a year we’re looking at and they’re reaching those goals.”

The work here is good experience for Alex and for Senior Justin Foote who also helps out.  This is a co-op class. And it looks good on a resume. This facility follows banking laws…in many ways you look at it, it runs like any other credit union.  And it faces the same challenges that other banks and credit unions do…

(amy) “ok, am I imagining things, or have been here for less then half an hour and you’ve already lost two pens”? (students/supervisor) – laughs –  “you know in school we have kids always getting pens. That’s ok, that’s good advertisement for the credit union.”

This student-run credit union is open three-days a week, during lunch hour.  
Students, faculty and staff can bank here.

Delorenzo says this is a good education for Justin and Alex, but also for the rest of the student body.  She says the sooner they begin to learn money management skills, the better.

“When they start going for loan requests, we want them to have good credit history.  And we see a lot coming through our office that it was abused, because no one ever taught them that this is going to follow you through life, so we want them to learn right from the get go.”

The Mt Pleasant student run Credit Union operates throughout the school year.  But this week, it’s being included as part of a larger national effort called “Money Smart Week”.
The week is aimed at educating consumers about a laundry list of financial issues: banking, retirement, and entrepreneurship among others.
   
Sheila McKean is the Senior Outreach Manager for the Federal Reserve in Detroit.

“The federal reserve hosts MoneySmart week for a variety of reasons, but in theory if consumers are better decision-makers, we’re all better off.  Because resources are allocated more efficiently and more effectively throughout the economy.”

This year’s Money Smart week boasts more than 300 classes statewide.  McKean says there was an up-tick in interest this year.

She’s hoping some of the Money Smart offerings will help people weather the economic downturn.

(hallway sound)
Back in Mt Pleasant, the adults hope that while students hit the school’s credit union… withdrawing money for snacks and for this weekend’s prom, they’re also learning real world lessons in becoming Money Smart.