Envisioning Innovation in Education Stories
Long's Story
Long encourages colleagues:
The most important thing is - do not be afraid of failure!
This story illustrates
how you can approach innovation with…
Students
Empower students through voice and choice
Colleagues
Leverage colleagues as resources and critical friends
About this EIE Story
This is the story of Fan Tsun Long (Long), a Chinese History teacher from St. Francis of Assisi’s College (SFAC). His story is about implementing innovative teaching approaches, such as applying Thinking Routines “See, Think, Wonder”, to scaffold students’ thinking. His primary goal was to increase students’ learning motivation and confidence.
Key Highlights of this Story
SFAC is located in the Northern District of Hong Kong. Due to its proximity to the Mainland China border, the school also serves a large population of cross-border students who commute daily between Mainland China and Hong Kong.
Considering the diverse backgrounds and learning habits of SFAC students, Long developed an inquiry focus on “How to cater to learner diversity, and promote students’ learning motivation?”. He also recognized the importance of providing effective thinking tools to support students’ learning and build their confidence.
Long’s Picture of Practice:
In Long’s story, he shared his application of Thinking Routine “See, Think, Wonder” to leverage images for raising students’ interest in Chinese History lessons. This approach assists students in engaging in a structured three-step thinking process to effectively articulate their observations, draw conclusions with evidence, and pose additional questions. He also further modified the tool as “See, Think, Link” to establish connections between the DSE curriculum, which aims to enhance its relevance to assessments.
Long’s learning from a less successful attempt:
Source: One of the teaching materials discussed the relationships between Emperors and Ministers across various dynasties in Long's Chinese History lesson
Long mentioned in the video there was a less successful attempt at applying “See, Think, Wonder”, where he included excessive details in the images in an attempt to stimulate the discussion on the relationship between the Emperor and Ministers in different dynasties. He even provided captions within the images.
Referring to a similar scenario about “To Kill a Mockingbird Syndrome” from the “Making Thinking Visible” book, Long realized when implementing Thinking Routines, it is important to…
1) Establish a clear understanding goal within the content
2) Encourage students to engage in original thinking rather than simply guessing obvious scenarios
Reflecting on potential adjustments for this attempt, the primary (understanding) goal would be for students to recognize the evolution of the relationship between Emperors and Ministers across various dynasties. A tweak to his original approach would be to eliminate all captions and instead provide specific supporting questions to facilitate students’ engagement in the “See, Think, Wonder” activity. For example, “What various interactions can you see (observe) in the images?”, “Based on what you see, who do you think these individuals are?”, and “What do you wonder gives rise to these differences?”. This experience served as an essential reminder for all of his subsequent attempts.
Frameworks, Concepts and Tools Learned from the EIE Experience
Thinking Routines
A Thinking Routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. Project Zero (PZ) researchers designed Thinking Routines to deepen students’ thinking and to help make that thinking “visible”. Thinking Routines help to reveal students’ thinking to the teacher and also help students themselves notice and name particular “thinking moves”, making those moves more apparent and transferable to other contexts.
Among the wide array of Thinking Routines available, it is crucial to initially pinpoint the kind of thinking that teachers aim to cultivate in students. Acknowledging the importance of guiding students in “Introducing & Exploring Ideas” at the beginning of the lesson, Long chose to begin with “See, Think, Wonder”.
Moreover, Thinking Routines could be tailored to align with educators’ specific contexts. Long adjusted “Wonder” to “Link” in order to strengthen the inquiries related to the DSE public exam curriculum, enhance students’ comprehension of the curriculum context and learning progression, and develop their confidence in facing the public exam.
Other Resources
Are you interested in exploring more relevant frameworks, concepts and tools? Click here to learn more!