Thrive in Action Blog Series: Rigorous Thinking, GPS 4 - Think Aloud
The Thrive In Action blog series highlights practical applications for Great Pedagogy Strategies (GPS) within the EdConnective Thrive Framework, summarized here. The EdConnective Thrive Framework is unique in that it can be applied to teaching actions seamlessly whether learning is in-person or remote. This week we get more familiar with:
Rigorous Thinking, GPS 4 - Think Aloud: After the hook, the teacher teaches the primary content of the objective directly, explaining steps, key concepts, common misconceptions, and uses metacognition to model their thought process aloud. Students actively listen through note taking and/or reflection questions.
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Are your students struggling to master an objective? When it’s time to practice, are your students confused on the specific steps? Take a moment and reflect on how you are modeling the content for your students. You may be modeling the content clearly, step-by-step; you may have a perfectly crafted powerpoint presentation; your thoughtful anchor charts may be colorful and organized. So what more can be done?
Thinking Aloud is a strategy commonly dismissed by many teachers, despite its many benefits for student comprehension. When we think aloud our own thought process as we model the objective, it encourages students to monitor their own thought processes as they work through the same objective.
Let’s look at this case study as an example. Marsha is in kindergarten and has been having difficulty decoding unfamiliar words during a guided reading lesson. The teacher has used every trick in her book to teach Marsha three decoding strategies: sound it out, look at the picture for clues, ask what word might make sense in the sentence. Despite the teacher’s best efforts, Marsha continues to get stuck when attempting to read unfamiliar words in a text. Here is a look at how thinking aloud can teach Marsha how to monitor their own thought process when she gets stuck:
The teacher is modeling how to think about the strategies, both positively and strategically. Marsha can now model her own thinking after her teacher’s example and implement the strategies more effectively, allowing her to decode those tricky words!
Think of an objective that your students are having difficulty mastering; how can you apply the strategy of thinking aloud in your next lesson?
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