Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning (Corwin Mathematics Series)

by Peter Liljedahl

At the end of the time spent on the boards, you give every group a highlighter and ask them to self-evaluate how well their group persevered that day. When they are done, give the three groups that you were evaluating (in Grades 4–12) the rubrics that you highlighted for them. The total time you will have spent on cocreating, presenting, and using this rubric will be less than 15 minutes—but the transformational changes in your students will be monumental. Every time we have done this, the changes in student behavior around whatever competency we choose to focus on, irrespective of how poor it was the day before, is huge. Once students see what behaviors are expected, and that these behaviors are valued, the students begin to see them as valuable as well. And when these competencies improve so does your thinking classroom.

! PBIS