#70Days: Getting reading for #EduRead!

Devotional phrase today from Peterson's Practice Resurrection: " The diversity of gifts adds up to a unity of function."  (I happen to love the mathematical word choices!)

"Each Christian participates in his or her own specific way in the context and conditions of his or her own life circumstances, but none of us do it on our own or under our own power."

We have been gifted to do the work and doing the work leads to maturity ... ours and those in our sphere of influence.

"But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. So Christ himself gave ... to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7-13)

Then I saw this tweet this morning and I couldn't help but relate it to my devotional time ... in giving gifts to His people Christ sets us up to be in positions to succeed!  And we are grateful!

I can only imagine the overflowing warmth this teacher must have felt from this student's high praise!

Today is Wednesday - the day for on of my favorite Tweet Chats ... #EduRead.  Tonight we are discussing an article from the Harvard Education Letter, Volume 27, Number 5, published September/October 2011.  The title is "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions."  I'm interested in this chat because I see too many bright, energetic students waiting to be spoonfed instead of pursuing their own curiosities in math!

I'm sharing my notes and questions from the article ...

This is my experience as well:

• Or, as one teacher put it: “I would often ask my students, ‘Do you have any questions,’ but, of course, I didn’t get much back from them.”

These are significant outcomes:

• In the classroom, teachers have seen how the same process manages to develop students’ divergent (brainstorming), convergent (categorizing and prioritizing), and metacognitive (reflective) thinking abilities in a very short period of time.
• When teachers deploy the QFT in their classes, they notice three important changes in classroom culture and practices. Teachers tell us that using the QFT consistently increases participation in group and peer learning processes, improves classroom management, and enhances their efforts to address inequities in education.

The process is flexible:

• Teachers can use the QFT at different points: to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves.

Questions I am pondering in advance of our discussion tonight!

• How does this idea fit with other routines I already use in your classroom? For example, I used “I notice; I wonder" fairly consistently in the fall ... then let that practice slip away. How might I strengthen the process?
• What might work well as a QFocus in my Algebra 2 classes?

One thing that captures my attention from this article is that in the process the students sort their questions as open or closed, try to improve their questions, and then rank order their questions (top three!) This alone is such a great thinking routine!

Looking forward to our discussion tonight ... #EduRead at 8 pm. Also check out the Read, Chat, Reflect blog! Share an article or two that we need to discuss this summer!
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Time now for a bit of list making ... we leave for a week at the beach on Saturday.  I am sure I have some "stuff" to do!