How might we nurture thinking in all classes for all students?
This is a key question at the heart of teaching and learning at Vista Heights School. In our classrooms, we demonstrate thinking, we ask questions, we wonder aloud, we make mistakes (and learn from them), we bring in nature and we are mindful of our feedback, assessment and the words we use in order to foster a growth mindset in students and staff.
In order to help students in “learning to think and thinking to learn”, we create a classroom environment that supports thinking. We create opportunities for thinking. We build students’ capacity to think and we provide guidance to inform thinking. A thinking classroom is one in which students collaborate as a community of learners; where students are creative and critical in how they engage with knowledge. Students learn to think in thinking classrooms, places where students engage with important issues by considering multiple perspectives, developing their own informed opinions, and effectively communicating their opinions to others.
We create opportunities for thinking through the types of questions we ask. Have you ever asked your child, “How was school today”? I’m sure the answers, at times, are barely more than a shrug of the shoulders. By changing the way we ask questions, we foster thinking at a much deeper and engaged level. The following is a list of examples of different ways you could ask your child about their day, while creating an opportunity to think:
- What was the best thing that happened at school today?
- Where is the coolest place at the school?
- How did you help somebody today?
- When were you the happiest today?
- What do you think you do more of at school?
- If you got to be the teacher tomorrow, what would you do?
- Tell me one thing you learned today.
- How did somebody help you today?
Just by simply changing the words we use when asking questions, we can elicit different levels of thinking. As the school year continues to unfold, we look forward to much more thinking and many exciting events such as a drumming residency, karate, a visit to Alberta Ballet, Canadian Pacific Railway musical theatre, Dare to Care anti-bullying, many curricular-based field trips and our collaboration with the Vista Heights community garden—to name just a few!
Michelle Harvey- Principal, Vista Heights School
