Agenda and timeline Introduction and Packet highlights(5 min) Workshop focus on consolidation (or “post”) learning: Collaborative Reasoning on La Volpaia (20 min) o Entrance ticket and whole class brainstorm (2 min) o Small groups, evidence finding (5 min) o Whole class debate (10 min) o Exit Ticket and Reflections (3 min) Conclusion(5 min)

Definition of Teaching Focus Comprehension instruction in the content areas: Providing students with the skills to construct meaning through an active, purposeful thinking process as they interact with texts. This also involves teaching skills to help students repair meaning and understanding from a text for a specific purpose.

1.The role of the teacher is to bridge reader and text. 2.To translate learning comprehension goals to demonstration of understanding students should be brought through the process of pre-learning, guided-learning and post-learning. – Pre-reading activities are key to engaging the student, activating prior knowledge, and sharing students' collective knowledge. They make it possible for the student to integrate new knowledge with prior knowledge. – Guided-reading activities provide scaffolds for meaning-making as students interact with the text. – Post-learning strategies support students’ consolidation of their understanding of the texts 3.Metacognition is critical to comprehension or understanding. It is necessary to teach students explicitly about the strategies for metacognition in order to them to become more independent readers who construct meaning from texts. Key Ideas

Support from theory Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development A student’s zone of proximal development is extended by others in a group, and he is led to accomplish tasks he could not accomplish without the aid of the others he works collaboratively with. Metacognition (Flavell 1976) The discussion, questioning, puzzling over problems that are part of cooperative learning put students in the position of having to be repeatedly metacognitive Collaborative Learning

Support from research One of the most researched areas of instruction, with more than 600 studies conducted in the past 90 years (Johnson and Johnson,1989) – Collaborative learning develops higher level thinking skills (Webb, 1982) – Bramlett (1994): Cooperative learning can increase students’ motivation and the time they spend on academic tasks. – Trabasso and Bouchard (2002): Cooperative learning promoted intellectual discussion…increased students’ control over their learning, promoted social interaction with peers Collaborative Learning

Metacognition in a collaborative setting Reflective thought is public or social conversation internalized… Collaborative learning provides the kind of social context, the kind of community, in which normal discourse occurs: a community of knowledgeable peers. Bruffee (1992) Metacognition + Collaborative Learning

The goal of collaborative reasoning is "to promote growth in students’ abilities to engage in reasoned argumentation" (Center for the Study of Reading, Please refer to handout in packet for specific steps involved in collaborative reasoning Collaborative Reasoning

To demonstrate a specific teaching strategy that helps students to – Support one another’s comprehension of text through collaborative reasoning – Make explicit their thinking processes in order to support students’ metacognitive awareness as they comprehend text – Provide a structure for consolidating learning (following previous pre and guided learning activities surrounding the text) Objectives for Workshop

Collaborative Reasoning on La Volpaia (20 min) o Entrance ticket and whole class brainstorm (2 min) o Small groups, evidence finding (5 min) o Whole class debate (10 min) o Exit Ticket and Reflections (3 min) Please refer to the lesson plan handout for details of the process Workshop process

a)Based on what we have discussed so far, give an adjective to describe this priest. b) Is the priest a moral person? What do you think? Place your initials along the spectrum. c) Form groups of 3-4 people. Entrance Ticket and Brainstorm (2 min)

a)Look for evidence Find sentences, symbols, descriptions in the text which you feel support your position on whether the priest is moral. Write down the evidences on one side of the page, and on the other, write down why the evidence supports your position. b) Share with your group Say first what you noticed, and tell the story of your thinking (write down your initial thought was, your final position, and explain how you got from one to the other ) as you connected the evidence from the text to your position. Evidence-finding and small-group collaboration (5 min)

a)Share your group’s most persuasive points with the rest of the class b) Present the evidence and your reasoning to convince the rest! Whole class debate (15 min)

a) Free-write in response to one of the following questions: “How does your understanding of the character of the priest help you to understand a key theme of the story?” or “How did your thinking change as you went through the process of searching for evidence, connecting it to your position on the priests’s morality, and what was the story of your thinking as you listened to how your friends’ explanation of their thinking?” Reflection and Exit Ticket (3 min)

What was the story of your thinking as you went through the process? How does this strategy relate to your practice? If you have used collaborative discussions or collaborative reasoning, what other limitations/precautions should be considered when applying it? Reflecting on the process

Walters, L. S. (2000). Putting cooperative learning to the test and building a bridge between research and practice. Harvard Education Letter, 16(3), 1–6. Ryder, R., & Graves, M. (2003). Reading and learning in content areas. (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons: NY. Clark, A. M., Anderson, R. C., Kuo, L.-J., Kim, I-H., Archodidou, A., and Nguyen-Jahiel, K. (2003). Collaborative Reasoning: Expanding ways for children to talk and think in the classroom. Educational Psychology Review, 15, Other resources

Q&A