Building Thinking Classrooms

 Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics is a district-wide math focus. Many teachers have been reading, studying, and implementing the ideas from the book Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. The ideas in the book encourage students to engage in deep thinking tasks. Instead of practicing the traditional modeling, practicing, and memorizing, the students interact with one another by problem solving through tasks. 

THINKING SPACES IN MY ROOM 

I have set up thinking spaces in my classroom. The students are randomly paired together to work through math problems. As they work through the problems I walk around and guide pairs who may be struggling. It is so interesting to observe the different strategies the pairs use to work through the problems. If students struggle, I encourage them to take a look at others' work around the room. After the students are done solving a problem, they participate in a gallery walk. They walk to each of the other thinking spaces to notice what other strategies could be used to solve the problem. One of the main reasons I love the thinking spaces is because the students really push themselves to figure the problem out without giving up. I have noticed their growth mindset is a lot stronger when working at their thinking spaces compared to when they are at their seat practicing problems. 

These thinking spaces can really be incorporated into any lesson and with any subject. I recently had my students in my 2nd grade DEB group work at the thinking spaces. With their partners they were supposed to evaluate the six out of eight most important items to use when building a doghouse. With their partners they ranked the items, and then they took a walk to see how the other groups ranked the items. This led to great discussion on why or why not some items may be needed.