Building A Thinking Classroom: Disaster Strikes!

My last several posts have all cataloged my early efforts to "Build A Thinking Classroom in Mathematics" by implementing what I've learned from the book by that name by Peter Liljedahl.  When I last wrote, I was "in the weeds" for the first time, having had to deal with some unexpected struggles and some uncomfortable outcomes after an early curricular thinking task.

I'm happy to report that I was able to get out of those weeds the following two days.  As I expected to do, I did some heavy consolidating on Monday, and then I was able to spin that experience into a great day of thinking on Tuesday when we extended fraction multiplication situations into whole number x mixed number situations.

It was a beautiful day of thinking.  Students came up with at least four approaches to those types of situations. I tried consolidating exclusively through "gallery viewing" students thinking, and I challenged every group to go back to their boards and try using every group's strategy after we saw one.

I left Tuesday on cloud nine.  Had I mastered this "Thinking Classroom" business already?

I got the answer to that question the very next day, and it was a resounding NO.

The last extension of our current topic was to tackle "fraction of a mixed number" situations.  After a quick review of the learning from the past three days, I set them off to tackle the day's thinking task.

It crashed.  It burned.  Nothing but a pile of rubble remains.

Every class was a different experience.  The first class struggled, knew it, was not able to learn from the type of consolidation we had done yesterday (described above), and left frustrated.  The second class struggled but insisted that they didn't.  I went back to the accountability-sequencing of placing the "check your understanding questions" right after thinking time, and they largely just refused to do it, waiting on me to rescue them from their struggle.  The third group struggled, knew it, and gave up before the thinking time was even over.  They resisted any attempts at redirection, hints, or help.
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​The first class was at least willing to own their struggle and to try and learn through consolidation.

Not a good day.

Some takeaways:

• I outlined in a past post that I'm going to have to come to terms with some kids approaching thinking through calculation, while others approach thinking through representation.  Today created a new wrinkle in that situation - the "calculation" kids, today, mostly didn't know how to perform the calculations necessary to solve today's problems, and had nothing to fall back on.  In fact, they often calculated incorrectly and were unwilling to pivot to different thinking even when I pointed this out.  "Remember, yesterday we saw four different approaches to these situations.  You're running into a road block with the calculation approach, so try another one."  .... "No."​​
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A handful of groups were willing to take my hints and my references to the successes of the last two days in order to get to a productive place.

• I definitely do not have a reliable process or sequence for what to do after the thinking task.  I tried three different ones today.  Maybe I'll settle one one, or maybe it will have to be flexible based on how everything goes during the thinking task.
• Students creating an outstanding toolbox of strategies one day does not at all assure that they will be able to use those tools again the next.
• I have a lot to learn.

​There are a couple of possibilities I'm considering for responding to this disaster.  One, I may just do a big consolidation day tomorrow like I did to get "out of the weeds" on Monday.  Two, I may just let it be and try to learn from it.  Today's situations were the highest-level, apex situations regarding this skill, and I'm not even sure they're necessary for all students to master.  I'd love for them to, of course, but they have the most common situations down from the past few days, so I might just let this one lie and move on. Three, I might take a step back tomorrow and revisit the easier tasks, then try to extend just a little into today's learning again.

We'll see.

For now, back to the drawing board.

Ok, ok, it wasn't ALL a disaster.  But I'm not in a glass-half-full kind of mood after today.

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