Hello everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying your week and the beautiful weather we’ve had the past few days! For my blog post today, I’ve been thinking about some of the content from Chapter 3 of Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12 : Designing Student Learning for Conceptual Understanding by Hattie, John, et al.. In the chapter they list and explore tools teachers can use to promote deep learning. These tools were:
- Graphic Organizers and Concept Maps
- Class Discussions
- Close Reading
- Metacognitive Strategies
- Reciprocal Teaching
- Feedback to the Learner
I’m wondering if you have a certain tool that either you like to use in your own classroom, or hope to use in your future classroom? In addition, which of these tools have you not used, and after reading about them are you intrigued by? I also wonder how these specific tools can assist the teaching of primary sources in the classroom? I personally hope to use graphic organizers in my classroom as I’ve used them often in my Education classes here at Richmond, and seeing how they’ve helped me organize my thoughts make me more inclined to one day use them. I thought the metacognitive strategies described in the reading were something I had never thought about before, and a tool I hope to learn more about so I can include it in my teaching. I look forward to hearing your responses! -Cecilia
Hi Cecilia,
I retain the most information when I use graphic organizers or concept maps. I feel as though it organizes my thoughts well, and I can see all the information laid out in front of me, so I make connections within the content as well. I have also found that they are the most engaging and work well with how my brain sees information.
In Chapter 3 page 81, it states, “Used well, concept maps and graphic organizers afford students the chance to take real ownership with texts and concepts because they equip them with a tool for succinct summarization and visualization.” (Hattie, John, et al. Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12 : Designing Student Learning for Conceptual Understanding, Corwin Press, 2020.) This shows concept maps and graphic organizers can be a useful tool in the classroom.
The Frayer Model, as we saw in class, is a great example of a graphic organizer. I found each graphic organizer can be different and beneficial depending on the topic or what you are studying. I have used the Frayer Model when learning new vocabulary words, and I found it helpful to have images where I can connect the word to an image.
I have also done class discussions and close reading, but I have not done metacognitive strategies or reciprocal teaching. These are two tools I would love to implement in the classroom and see how they engage students. I am intrigued to see how the students respond to using these tools. I think using these tools to teach primary sources can lead to a well-rounded lesson that includes individual, class, and group work. I think it would be good to use a variety of tools when teaching this topic. One tool may register better with one student than another. I think using different methods to teach can create a more immersive and engaging lesson.
Thank you so much for this post
– Ryleigh
A certain tool from this list that I would definitely like to use in my future classroom would be class discussions. This is likely because I have experienced their benefits firsthand from elementary school through college. I have found that class discussions provide a less stressful and more easily understandable way to engage with content compared to more heavily teacher-led lectures. I feel that they allow students to process information in a more interactive and engaging manner, making topics easier to understand. I believe that both small-group discussions among students and whole-class discussions with the teacher are beneficial in different ways. I believe small-group discussions can encourage students to share ideas, help each other with misunderstandings, and build confidence in expressing their thoughts. Whole-class discussions, on the other hand, provide opportunities for students to hear other perspectives to learn from each other, and engage directly with the teacher. One tool that I have not yet had the opportunity to use or experience is metacognitive strategies, but I recognize their value in helping students reflect on their thinking and learning processes. I think many of these tools, including class discussions, could be useful for teaching primary sources in the classroom. For example, close reading can help students analyze historical documents in detail, while class discussions can encourage them to think about different perspectives and interpretations. Graphic organizers and concept maps could also help students visually organize the information from primary sources, making it easier to understand and connect ideas.
Hi there. Thank you for your post. In my classroom(kindergarten) we do classroom discussions daily as well as turn and talks. I also like metacognitive learning, I have taught my kids that if we are in a group setting and someone is struggling to answer that they remain quiet and allow them to work the problem out. I have them talk their way through it so I can guide them the right way if they get off track. I often model my thinking process so they can see how I got the answer. Graphic organizers is something I have not tried but I want to use them in independent writing so they can put their ideas in pictures and then create sentences.
Hi Cecilia. Thank you for your post and your questions. I like reciprocal teaching, but I have mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it makes the reading process a bit arduous and repetetive. I like using it with small groups or modeling for a whole class. I do think it forces students to use metacognitive strategies as they read, so that’s a good thing. I think like any strategy, we must teach students the process and how to use it. Students shouldn’t use it for every reading passage, but it can make difficult passages easier to review and understand. We’ll definitely give it a try this semester!
Cecelia,
Thank you for your thoughts on the reading! I agree that the use of graphic designers by students of all grades is a helpful way for them to retain information, as it guides them to think about what they have learned in a more complex way. Similarly, I think that close reading allows students to dig deeper into the content they are studying, as it prompts them to consider connections and formulate a more clear understanding of the text. Rather than merely breezing through the words on a page, close reading gives students something to focus on, giving a sense of meaning to the in-class activity or homework. While close reading is typically an activity that is taught and encouraged in upper elementary and middle school grades, I believe that close reading is something that students as young as 1st grade can start engaging with. Even by just asking them to circle words they do not know or make notes of questions, you are asking students to be active members of the learning process and not just focus on reading the words themselves. Instead, you are encouraging students to analyze, comprehend, and analyze. It is worthy of note, however, that younger students will need a lot of preliminary guidance and should not be critiqued for the “quality” of their close reading.
Hi, Cecilia! Thanks for posting!
As a science teacher, I use class discussions almost every day. It’s really important for my students to talk about their observations and questions after learning new material and completing labs. Class discussions allow my students to think deeply about what they are learning while also learning from each other.
I want to use graphic organizers and concept maps in my classroom. In Chapter 3 of Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12: Designing Student Learning for Conceptual Understanding by Hattie, John, et al.., the author discusses how graphic organizers and concept maps help students work with and understand complex problems. I want to try implementing some of these strategies in my classroom for more complex topics like water and earth properties. This strategy would be interesting because I could see more clearly how my students think.
Graphic organizers and concept maps would also help students learn about primary sources. These tools allow students to record and connect their thoughts while evaluating primary sources. I want to learn more about how this tool could be used in a social studies classroom.
Thank you again, Cecilia, for posting. This gave me time to reflect on the classroom strategies and tools I would like to implement in my classroom.
Hey Cecilia!
Thank you for the blog post! This topic is very interesting! Although I have not taught as a teacher in an academic classroom, I have had many similar experiences in which I have used some of the skills outlined in Chapter 3 of “Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12: Designing Student Learning for Conceptual Understanding.” I have been a sleep-away counselor for four years, and I volunteer at Overby-Sheppard Elementary School. At the sleep-away camp, I was the Department Head of Arts & Crafts and started a Theater Department which I was Head of as well. In these departments, I find reciprocal teaching and feedback to learner strategies are the best way to encourage participation, positive attitudes, and mutual respect in the activity setting of camp. Reciprocal teaching and “getting on their level” has proved to inspire campers to trust, respect, and enjoy the activity more than others. Feedback to learner strategies has been very helpful with the “problem campers.” More often than not, the first instinct of other counselors is to yell when those campers are engaging in bad behavior, but giving kind yet constructive feedback has been more effective because the campers are spoken to like people and given an explanation of the problems and solutions for that designated behavior.
Furthermore, in my future classroom, I hope to integrate all of these tools in some way or another. Every student is different and learns differently so I want to be able to embrace these tools as much as possible so I can be an adaptive teacher to the circumstances of each student and thus improve their learning experience as a result.
I am most intrigued by Metacognitive strategies because I have not heard of them before this reading. For assistance in teaching primary sources, I think you can do nothing wrong when it comes to the use of graphic organizers and concept maps. Yesterday we used this in a fifth-grade class at Overby Sheppard Elementary to explore primary sources about Jackie Robinson, and it proved to be a very effective way for the students to organize their thoughts and connect ideas so that they may write a summary paragraph.
Once again, thank you, Cecilia!
Thank you for this thoughtful post Cecilia. In my opinion, task specific feedback to students is key to achieving learning goals, assessing performance, and helping to move the student forward in their learning. I am not full time teaching yet, but I’ve seen the impact of this when working with my 3rd grade son, and working as a reading tutor. My son often speeds through his math homework, only asking me to check it for completion. Often, I notice that a few answers are incorrect, typically due to reading the questions too quickly and not solving the true problem. I ask him about his thought process on these, gauging his understanding of the question. More often than not, he can see immediately what the issue is without me identifying an error. He will sheepishly erase and rewrite the answer.
If he gets stuck, I’ll ask what he could use from earlier in the assignment to apply to the problem before guiding him through problem solving. If we walk through a similar problem together, my pen doesn’t touch his paper. If it touches paper at all, it’s a scrap piece that we chuck at the end. He applies the possible next steps to the problem himself. My final feedback to him usually includes making sure he reviews what he has learned and make sure it is applied to the questions we haven’t reviewed together. Asking about the student’s thought process, gauging what they have understood, and encouraging them to wonder or build upon their knowledge is a great way to keep students motivated and curious. It also keeps their learning responsibility in their wheelhouse, providing support without taking away agency. I hope to use Feedback to the Learner in my future classroom. Thanks for the post!
Good afternoon Cecilia, this week’s weather was lovely! A nice break from the cold and some sun before next week’s rain.
I appreciated the in-depth description the reading gave of some of the tools we as teachers could use to promote deep learning within the classroom, though I hope to take advantage of one not listed. In another class I’m taking this semester I’ve been introduced to the invaluable use of an interactive word wall. Interactive word walls are a visual representation of a concept or lesson “and are a classroom strategy used to reinforce reading and language arts instruction” (Jackson & Narvaez, 2013, 43). I know they’re incredibly helpful and versatile, and I can see myself finding a way to incorporate them in every subject area to aid in my students’ comprehension.
I have not taught in a classroom setting before but am intrigued by the use of class discussions and how they can prompt deep learning. I’m particularly interested in their effectiveness in Kindergarten through second grade as I know younger children can have a harder time staying on task. With so many young minds in the classroom, I wonder if a class discussion would at times leave some voices unheard, some students distracted and unfocused, or lead to the class getting too loud and out of hand. A tool I would confidently use to activate deep learning would be graphic organizers and concept maps. I could envision lessons being overwhelming to students and graphic organizers and concept maps allow students to pull out the key information and process it more effectively.
https://blog.richmond.edu/elemscisoc/files/2022/02/InteractiveWordWall.pdf
^^^ Link to information about interactive word walls
Hi Cecilia! Thanks so much for this blog post! I agree that the use of graphic organizers can be beneficial to students. I completely forgot how helpful they could be, as I rarely received them in high school. However, in my education classes at Richmond, I have received many graphic organizers and seen how helpful they could be. Especially for students who are visual learners, it makes it easier for them to piece together large amounts of information. An additional specific strategy I learned about in my Diverse Learners class was mnemonics. Whether used in math (PEMDAS) or English classes (certain schemes to remember how to spell longer words like “Massachusetts”), I always found tricks like these entertaining but also very useful. I worked in a science classroom last semester, and one very helpful mnemonic was used to help students remember the order of the planets in the solar system. This is a tool that I would hope to implement in my classroom. Though it may not initially be presented as enabling deep learning, I witnessed firsthand in my classroom last semester how these mnemonics can be dissected in a class discussion, so students not only have a fun trick to remember certain concepts but also allow for a deep understanding of certain topics that may require more memorization.
I am also interested in the metacognitive strategies because I had never heard of this term before. However, after the reading informed me more about the topic, I reflected on some of the strategies used in school that may be classified as metacognitive. One strategy that stuck out to me was reflective journals, in which students can reflect on their coursework daily/weekly/monthly. We had a modified version of this for my Elementary Science class, which I took last semester, and I found it very helpful. It not only helped me stay organized but allowed me to reflect on each class and assignments. These journals help students stay on track; for younger students, it is a good way for teachers to check in on student progress. This is definitely a strategy I hope to integrate into my future classrooms. Thanks again, Cecilia, for a great thought-provoking post!
Hi Cecilia!
Thank you for your insightful thoughts about Chapter 3 of Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12: Designing Student Learning for Conceptual Understanding by Hattie, John, et al.. Like you, I also hope to use graphic organizers and concept maps with my future students. I feel as though they help students better understand what they are learning because it gives them a way to organize their thoughts. For instance, students could use a graphic organizer or concept map to help them analyze primary sources. I would also like to use close reading as a strategy in my future classroom. Close reading helps me better understand what I am reading and why I might be reading it. I think students can only benefit from the close reading method as it will better help them not only understand what they are reading but potentially find deeper meaning. I wonder if I could find a way to use both graphic organizers/concept maps and close reading strategies in the same lesson.
In conclusion, incorporating both graphic organizers and close reading strategies into the same lesson could be a powerful way to enhance student learning. These tools can work together to help students organize their thoughts while also engaging deeply with the text. By combining these strategies, my students would develop a more comprehensive understanding of the material, making connections between key concepts and analyzing texts easier. It would be interesting to explore different ways to integrate both of these approaches in the classroom to maximize their benefits.
Thank you for the post!
Hi Cecillia!
I love your reflection after the reading. It’s great to reflect on which tools truly help students engage in meaningful learning. Like you, I’ve experienced many of these strategies, and I wholeheartedly believe that deep learning – really taking the time to understand a concept – is far more valuable than just covering a lot of material quickly. Quality over quantity, always!
For teaching social sciences (and our learning experience at UofR at the moment), I think these tools are especially powerful. Graphic organizers and concept maps, for example, can help young learners visually connect historical events, people, and ideas, making the “hard topics” or abstract concept more approachable and memorable. Class discussions bring history to life, encouraging students to see different perspectives, develop critical thinking skills and train the mind to be more open-minded. Close reading is essential when working with primary sources – it helps students analyze historical documents, question biases, and develop their own interpretations.
I’m especially intrigued by reciprocal teaching. The idea of students taking on roles to guide each other through a text sounds like a fantastic way to build confidence and deeper comprehension. It could be a great way to have students analyze letters, speeches, or even personal accounts from history. I believe both teacher and students would have an enhanced teaching and learning experience together if these strategies are appropriately planned and incorporated.
Thank you once again for your post Cecillia!
Hi Cecilia! Thank you so much for your blog post!
A specific tool that I would like to use in my own classroom is class discussions. Personally, I feel that having class discussions is one of the most potent ways to promote deep learning. Throughout my high school career and the time I have spent so far here at Richmond, I have noticed that I do my best in the classes that practice class discussions. I think that it is an excellent way for kids to actively engage in what they are meant to be learning. Additionally, kids love to talk, so having them talk about something I am teaching them will be a fun way to interact with their friends while learning. I believe that for topics like social studies, it is vital for students to know how to talk about them in a conversation because much of the content is a story. While large class discussions might not always be possible with small children, you could have them talk within their table groups and then share one idea they thought of with the class.
Another tool that I think is important to help promote deep learning is reciprocal teaching. It is always said that you learn the most when explaining it to others. Therefore, I would love to try and find a way to have my students teach each other. Again, like having a classroom discussion, reciprocal teaching is an active way for kids to learn without knowing that they are enhancing their knowledge.
Finally, a tool that I have not seen much in any of my classes at Richmond is close reading. In high school, my teachers checked out reading notes daily to ensure we were closely paying attention to the text; however, in college, teachers have not done this. I think that close reading is essential because sometimes, without even realizing it, we are just reading the words on the page and not actually absorbing the information or the ideas that the text has to offer. This happens to me when I get to the end of the page, for example, and have to go back because I don’t even know what I just read. Therefore, I think it is essential for my young students to practice close reading.