The 4Cs and Socratic Seminar

Teaching and learning has always called for a blend of art and science, a blend of the how and the what.

As we continue to be conscientious about how we teach, we need to think about how the 4Cs (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity)  can naturally play into our classrooms. When the super skills of the 4Cs merge with the 3Rs, long-lasting academic skills emerge.

The 4Cs are not new, but these teaching and learning components are being re-emphasized as we focus on graduating students who are able succeed in the world of college and the world of work, students who meet the demand of “What Employers Want.”

Teachers have approached the 4Cs in many ways, sometimes unconsciously, but one of the most powerful instructional strategies used to meet the demands of curriculum and the 4Cs is found in conducting Socratic Seminars.

Socratic Seminars involve a deep classroom discussion or dialogue based on a close or critical reading of a rich text (or art or music), a text that aligns with the standards, that invites multiple interpretations, a text that students have to negotiate to find meaning. This search for meaning can be done in all content areas.

After reading the text, students come to the classroom armed with questions that are driven by their curiosity, not driven by the need to be right. Questions breath life into Socratic Seminars, which complements Socrates’ belief that students can improve their reasoning skills and ultimately move toward more rational thinking as they investigate knowledge through questions. Socrates knew that “questions drive the human mind into critical thought. [...] while answers often signal a full stop in thought” (Copeland 7).

Socratic Seminar directly supports communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, for questions are woven throughout the 4 Cs as seen in the rubrics from EdLeader21:

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  Communication: “Asks probing QUESTIONS that lead to greater understanding and help the collaborators think more deeply about the discussion.”

  
  


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  Creativity: “Shows skill in asking open-ended QUESTIONS that lead to the generation of original ideas.”

  
  


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  Critical Thinking: “Generates powerful QUESTIONS closely related to the problem, investigation, or challenge.”

  
  


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  Collaboration: While this C does not specifically mention questions, it demands that questioning take place as leaders move work of the group forward by “identifying points of agreement and disagreement,” by “looking at ideas from multiple perspectives,” by “displaying CURIOSITY about the quality of work” -- all of which surface during Socratic circles.

  
  

Conducting a Socratic Seminar will have students swimming in the Cs of creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. as well as in a positive classroom culture where community building, conflict resolution, and civil conversations are present as teachers foster capable, curious, and confident learners.

Alright, that may be a bit much, an overdose of the Cs, but from what we have observed and experienced, Socratic Seminar is worth pursuing. If you are interested in learning more about this instructional approach, check out various resources online and look for an upcoming latte session.

RESOURCES:
Socratic Seminar Handouts from AVID:  http://goo.gl/ub2M4Y

Socratic Seminar Observation Checklist: http://goo.gl/Kz97wH

 

 

Creating a 4Cs Culture

We know we are living in a world where routine and repetitive tasks are becoming more automated. Because of this, we must develop the capacity in our students to innovate and work together in an effort to prepare them for jobs, problems, environments, and lifestyles that do not yet exist. How do we do this? We need to encourage students to try something new. We need to create environments where students are free to have ideas, to act on those ideas, and to feel comfortable with those ideas being either fantastically successful or fantastically unsuccessful.

We also know that we cannot create these environments for students before creating them for teachers and staff. Showing them that the first attempt should necessarily be the final attempt. Modeling risk taking, creativity, and collaboration in our schools and classrooms is the important first step to encouraging our students to do the same.

So, how do we know when we have done it well? How do we help students “see” a goal of being creative? How do we encourage them to dig deeper and demand the cycle of feedback and revision? Below is a graphic depicting some of the behaviors of Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, and Critical Thinking. These help us to identify specific student behaviors as the standard to achieve by the end of high school.

(Image Used with permission from Henry County Public Schools)

The snapshot in the previous image is a great “end in mind” but we need more specific indicators for teachers and students to identify their current level of application and next steps. Bismarck Schools is using the EdLeader21 rubrics. The following link is to a portal page for the 4Cs. Please note that the K-2 level is currently being finalize.  The linked information in the resource below is only accessible to BPS staff via their Moodle login.

https://student.moodle.bismarckschools.org/mod/page/view.php?id=149242

Please note that these 4 Cs standards are now available in Powerschool. A special thank you to the teachers who will be using and providing feedback to students and to us using these standards.

I "C" You "C"

As educators, we will be having more and more discussions about the Cs.  Depending on which book you read or who you talk to, there can be any number of Cs.

At the core of the Cs are critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication.  There is broad reaching consensus around the importance the Cs for our students’ futures.  On the surface it is easy to brush off the Cs thinking that, “Of course our students practice these competencies.”   The question is really at what level and with what kind of rigor or intentionality.

Our district is currently looking at 4Cs work from EdLeader21 (http://www.edleader21.com).  EdLeader21 is a professional learning community providing leading work on designing rubrics for the 4Cs.

As an entry point, below are the Cs and the performance areas associated with them. We will link up the full rubrics in the next post.

Critical Thinking

• Information and discovery


• Interpretation and analysis


• Reasoning


• Problem solving/solution finding


• Constructing arguments


• Self-regulation/reflection

Creativity

• Idea generation


• Idea design and refinement


• Openness and courage to explore


• Work creatively with others


• Creative production and innovation


• Self-regulation/reflection

Collaboration

• Leadership and initiative


• Cooperation


• Flexibility


• Responsibility and productivity


• Use of technology tools for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration


• Responsiveness


• Self-regulation/reflection

Communication

• Engaging in conversations and discussions


• Using 21st Century communication tools


• Listening


• Communicating in diverse environments


• Delivering oral presentations


• Self-regulation/reflection

Image C Mosaic CC BY Leo Reynolds

Teaching and Learning @ BPS

Teaching and Learning @ BPS

We are thrilled to connect our Bismarck Public School community to thinking and collaboration resources through the Teaching and Learning Blog site.  This site offers a portal to conversations and thinking that comes in a variety of formats all in one spot.  Read feature blogs on teaching and learning topics, learn about our informal “latte” learning events, review some of the academic research staff have completed, or follow the  #learnbps twitter chat.

The Power of Access

Have you seen the cell phone commercials where the co-workers  are “one up’ing” each other by the speed of the information they are getting to their data phones?  Being in the “know” or up to date is an expectation in the 21^st Century.  Access is critical to “knowing” and the more conveniently available and faster the access the better.

Access is an interesting word with many different levels of significance. At a basic human need level, access to water, food, and transportation shaped where early settlements took hold. On a more complex level, access to information has and continues to shape governance and opportunity.   Access to information through print technologies and now the internet has provided transparency and opportunities to be heard. In the past, power controlled information.  In today’s world, information flows much more freely via websites, YouTube, twittering, blogs, wikis and so on.

Occasionally people deny the significance of the internet for information under the claim that it is not trustworthy; anyone can post anything.  While this is true, with 21^st Century research skills and critical thought one can effectively cross check information and decipher the good from the bad; we need to hone these skills not control the information itself.

At Bismarck Public Schools we have the benefit of “access” to many of the things that matter for success in teaching and learning.  I would like to take a minute to highlight the technology related access we have that gives us power for learning.

• The Highway/The Internet: The highway to information in the 21^st Century is the Internet. With a multi-gig pipeline to the world, access at BPS is truly world class.  A 10 Mb file transfer today (the size of one high resolution photo shot on the typical house-hold digital camera) happens in less than a minute vs 15 years ago when it would take about 45 minutes.


• Jumping on the Highway/Teacher Access: Teachers at BPS have laptops that afford them access that is not confined to a room or a cabled port.  This access allows us to think, discuss, research, and create anywhere/anytime.

• Jumping on the Highway/Student Access: Student access is also changing to where students spend their time – from computer labs to classrooms to home.  To move from access as an event to transparent access, BPS has been working with several grades/subjects.  Pilot participants in 5th, 6th, and 9th grade have a 2 to 1 ratio of netbooks in their classroom providing access to content and the ability to produce and share their own work.  High School English students have one-to-one access to netbooks for research and writing, making this process much more fluid with the tools and information right at hand. One big win for access has been the implementation of Google Apps for Education.  This has bridged the divide for student work, giving them a workspace that is accessible from just about any internet connected device at any location and at any time.  Since the rollout at the beginning of the school year over 4,240 students in grades 4-6 have activated their accounts.


• Navigating/Access to Support: The internet has lots of information but it can’t replace the localized support, encouragement, and connections.  Building capacity to use the tools available and leverage the internet is the goal behind the BIMS (Building Integration Mentors).  BIMs have logged over 1000 hours of support from Q&A to Lattes to classroom support.  Through the support of the BIMs there were 139 Latte opportunities this year and 27 people have been awarded graduate credit for their Latte learning efforts.

I believe we have and provide good “access.” We will continue to strive for technology access that is fluid and flawless.  We look forward to continued collaborative work to leverage this access by getting really good at taking the access to the next level of synthesis, construction, collaboration, production, innovation, and communication.