(20) 16 ways to use the Thinking Kit

(20)16 ways to use the Thinking Kit

The new year is in full swing. Teachers across the world are back to work, sharing thoughts, ideas and resources...ready for what 2016 may bring.

With this in mind, we thought when better than to share 16 ways to use the Thinking Kit. Using the Thinking Kit Creator (currently free), educational activities can be created on any browser. The user saves the activity, gets a code, then uses that code in the Thinking Kit App (free) to download the activity onto iPads (or get students to). This teams two really strong themes together - learning using iPads AND digital content creation, whether by teachers or the learners themselves.

Activities involve one main goal/objective/question and snippets of information or images to help learners complete/answer it.

The Thinking Kit App can be used individually, but works brilliantly as a group activity too. It seamlessly allows for multi-touch and engages learners in face to face collaboration as they learn. There is a dedicated Reflection Stage and lots of tools to help them become better problem solvers, critical thinkers and team players.

So, without further ado, let’s get started…

1. Simple grouping tasks - add lots of images, pieces of text or both then get learners to sort them accordingly. Get students to use the ‘group tool’ to give groups a name and sort the snippets into them.
   
   E.g. Lots of images of animals and facts on vertebrate and invertebrate - students must then create mini groups, e.g. ‘mammals’ and drag and drop the relevant snippets into them.
   
   
   
2. Reading - break up a large topic into lots of digestible snippets which students can read together to answer an intriguing question about the topic.
   
   E.g. Introduce your class to a piece of literature by giving them key points of the book before they read the full text. Or do this afterwards as a reflection activity.
   
   
3. Ordering task - Get learners to sort the snippets/images into some kind of order, whether that’s chronological, size or even relevance.
   
   E.g. For history, add key moments in time and get students to arrange them correctly.
   
   
4. Custom background - Add a map or image and get students to move the slips into the correct space
   
   E.g. Use a map as the background and have students put countries in the correct place on it, or have a human body as the background and get learners to place the names of bones in the correct place.
   
   
5. Problem solving - Have an engaging story based problem accompanied by an open question to answer.
   
   E.g. A maths murder mystery - learners must piece together elements of the story and clues, do the maths involved and put forward an argument as to who could have been the killer.
   
   
   
6. Questions and answers - Add 10 question slips and 10 answer slips then get students to match them up. To make it a bit harder, don’t answer some of the questions - they can add them with the Note Tool.
   
   E.g. A more ‘fact-based’ subject would go well with this, perhaps scientific reactions or checking understanding of storylines in a book.
   
   
7. Quickly create an activity on breaking news - The Thinking Kit Creator is ideal for getting something together for the following day (or same day) if a sudden or unexpected event occurs which you want to address with students.
   
   E.g. There may have been a natural disaster or a world crisis. Educators could use the current high awareness of it to create an activity and get students to understand it better/share their views.
   
   
8. Learners on a school trip - With access to a camera, smartphone or tablet, students could take these devices on a trip and record their own evidence. They can then create a Thinking Kit activity and use their own images and notes to work on it themselves or as an activity for other groups.
   
   E.g. An example is ‘Does Warkworth need a bypass?’ Students would go there, take pictures of the place, record some local statistics and possibly ask some locals’ opinions.

9. SOLE session review - If you haven’t heard, SOLEs are “created when educators and/or parents encourage kids to work in groups that they form, and are free to change, to answer big, open questions by using the internet” (SOLE toolkit). The origins lie in Professor Sugata Mitra’s Ted-Prize winning talk here. For more information go to School in the Cloud. Give students a big question and carry on a SOLE session as usual. Following their research, the groups could make a Thinking Kit activity with what they have discovered. They could then ‘do’ the activity at a later date or get their fellow students to!
   
   E.g. In the Greenfield Arts’ session, they used the question ‘What makes us human?’ Before/after the class discussion they had, to answer this question, groups could use their gathered information/views to create activities for each other.
   
   
10. 
    Encourage discussion on difficult issues - An activity can be created on a more sensitive issue in a ‘different’ way to the norm. The snippets could include different points of view, facts and engaging images. Working through these in small groups will be less intimidating than as a whole class, it will be easier/less daunting for students to speak up and those at the end who feel more confident, can then engage in a whole class discussion.
    
    E.g. Topics such as bullying or sex education can be broken down and discussed as small groups as an introduction. A ‘scenario’ can be given through a Thinking Kit activity and students can begin to understand ‘taboo’ subjects through relatable stories and even ‘give advice’ to the characters in them.
    
    
11. Work on different strands of the same topic - Split the class into groups of three, then give each group a different strand of topic to research. They then create an activity themselves to share this with other groups, so they learn through each other.
    
    E.g. The topic may be key figures in history - each group focuses on one, creates a Thinking Kit activity, and gives the code to another group for them to learn about a different strand to what they created theirs on.
    
    
12. Ice breaker activity - Thinking Kit could be used to help students get to know each other better, whether that’s because they have just met (new class) or they have had a long break. Students could create an activity about themselves for others to use or get into pairs, then their partner creates one about what they have discussed.
    

    

    
    

13. Revision - Educators could create an activity for students to ‘do’ when early on in the teaching of a topic. They could do it upon completion of teaching of that topic, then again a few weeks later to see how much they have remembered. Alternatively, students could create one on their own. Understanding, interpreting and then reiterating points in their own words can be great for retention of information. When they do this a few weeks later then again nearer an exam, the information will be more likely to soak in.
    
    
14. Record of learning - Use the ‘reports’ feature of the Thinking Kit App to review how students have done in a particular task. Students can print or email these reports too, which include the list of content of an activity, screenshots of the process of doing an activity and anything they have added, e.g. named groups or notes.
    
    
15. Whole class discussion - When students have completed a session on the Thinking Kit App, one (or more) group’s session can be played to the whole class as a point of discussion. Using this dedicated Reflection Stage on a projector for example, can open up the class to share their views and get into a debate.

16. Differentiation - If learners are at different levels of their understanding of a topic, or you would rather lightly ease some groups in, you can create different versions of the same activity. Just get the core of information in, save it, add more things (whether they are images/information to make the task easier… or more complex things being added to broaden the activity) then click ‘Save As’.

We hope these have been interesting to read through and that you enjoy creating your own activities or getting students to themselves.

Thinking Kit is out now. The Thinking Kit App is always free, and the Thinking Kit Creator has a completely free 30 day trial. All you need is your email address and your name! Register at www.thinking-kit.com/signin. No other details are required to sign up.

It's fascinating for us to hear about all the ways Thinking Kit is being used. Let us know how you've used Thinking Kit by emailing info@reflectivethinking.com.

Getting kids thinking

The theme of this month's (September 2015) issue of UKED Magazine is 'Getting kids thinking'. Our Director, Dr. Ahmed Kharrufa, wrote a piece, which is on page five.

The article, 'Appreciating the value of skills: Evaluation beyond subject-specific knowledge', looks at how we can evaluate, measure and reflect on important skills rather than only students' level of knowledge on a topic.

To read the piece, please click here.

5 ways to make the most out of Digital Mysteries

Since Digital Mysteries for iPad launched in November 2014, we’ve been developing more and more apps and now have 37 live on the App Store! We are regularly uploading more so keep an eye out.

Much to our excitement, downloads have come from far and wide – the UK of course, where we are based, but also USA, Australia, Canada, China and far too many countries to list!

After speaking to many teachers who use the mysteries, there can be differences in how and why they are used. Some teachers prefer to download the app then have a quick run through and then use it with their class. Others prefer to really explore everything the app has to offer, try different things and customise it, then, and only then, do they use it with the students.

So to make the most of what our Digital Mysteries apps have to offer, we’ve created this ‘Top 5’ list of things you might not know are available:

1. Dedicated collaboration: Although our descriptions discuss how the apps are designed for working in pairs/small groups, as well as many of our tweets and emails, this is not always the way people use them. This is probably because when a teacher downloads an app, they are on their own and each individual app has a specific focus, e.g. Shakespeare, so they focus on the content, ease of use, the process and what students could possibly learn. While working individually on Digital Mysteries is absolutely fine, and can bring lots of benefits, it brings a multitude of extra benefits when worked on in pairs (or a three). It is excellent for developing collaboration skills, discussion, communication and higher level thinking. The apps are made so that more than one touch is allowed at a time, so students work together on ONE iPad – an added bonus being that you actually only need half the amount of iPads (see ‘Doubling the availability of your iPads’).
   
   How to: When you’ve tapped ‘Begin New Mystery Session’, toggle the number of users there is using the arrows. Names are entered and they have separate buttons to press in-session. They must tap on their own name to agree certain things throughout the session, e.g. that they’ve read an introduction, agree with the name choice for a group or that they’ve decided on their answer.
   
   


2. Reports: When students have finished a session and wrote their answer in, a PDF report is automatically generated. Upon completion, you aren’t automatically taken to the PDF, as it may not be the right time to look at it, or it may be something the teacher would print/share rather than the students.
   
   How to: To view a session report, just go to View Reports in the main menu and tap on the one you want to see. From there, you can print, email or share.
   
   


3. Differentiation: Most of our apps have three difficulty levels to them. It varies from app to app what difference this makes, but it usually means the higher the difficulty level, the more slips of information are provided to students (which may have abstract or more advanced content on them). There are also sometimes differences in the hints given to students when they have difficulty moving on from the Grouping Stage or Sequencing Stage.
   
   How to: To change your difficulty level, go to Settings from the main menu and toggle between levels in the top right hand corner.
   
   


4. Number of stages: If you didn’t know already, most Digital Mysteries apps have three stages in ‘solving’ them. The default is usually 1. Reading, 2. Grouping and 3. Sequencing (followed by entering an answer and playback). However, if you would rather students have access to all of the tools from the beginning and have the process unsegmented (before answer and playback), you can. If you like the idea of students simply reading all the slips, then moving to the stage where they create and group them all, choose Two Stage.
   
   How to: To set a different amount of stages, just go to Settings, and toggle between the amount of stages in the top left corner. (One Stage is all tools at once, with no segmentation of reading, grouping then sequencing. Two Stage is reading then grouping).
   
   


5. Session playback: Schools we’ve spoken to about Digital Mysteries tend to love this feature. Students also find it engaging too; it is brilliant to watch as they show other groups what they’ve been doing. Session playback, also known as the Reflection Stage, occurs automatically after students write in their answer. This means that most people know about it. You could also:

• Bookmark: Sit with each group and discuss some key moments with students. Within the actual session, students can ‘bookmark’ certain points in time - these are then pinpointed on the playback timeline so you/they can easily go back to them.
• Improve: Ask students to think about what they would do differently as they reflect; it’s not just like a video playback, so they/you can pause it and play around with what’s on the screen!
• Quick glance: Have a look at our guide, ‘Interpreting What’s on the Screen’ – it’s a rundown of what the different icons mean at a glance.
• Go back to it next week: While the Reflection Stage automatically occurs immediately after students enter an answer, you can also go to ‘Session Playback’ from the main menu at any time afterwards, and just tap on the one you want to view. This is great to recap and see how much students remembered.
• Reflect as a class: Try connecting one of the iPads to a projector and reflecting on the session as a class (Using the Session Playback)
  
  
  
  

Thanks very much for reading this post on Digital Mysteries – there are many ways to use it (both, as a teacher and a student). We could have added various other things but this is a short summary of those which you may have missed. We would love to know how you use Digital Mysteries or if you have any tips for other users. Comment here or email info@reflectivethinking.com

There is also a video here which runs through a typical session, and you can visit our resources page and FAQ for more things not mentioned here, or contact us if you have a question.

Externalization: Making thinking visible

During collaborative group work, some of the main processes in the acquisition of knowledge are the construction, transmission, and comprehension of explanations. These activities result when trying to explain some concepts or when resolving conflicts about certain understandings/beliefs. This is because during such activities, some assumptions that are usually implicit, have to be made explicit. Furthermore, during the process, missing knowledge is identified and is subsequently filled by deductive and/or inductive learning mechanisms. These activities do not normally occur during individual learning.

Accordingly, technologies (or even technology-free activities) that are designed to foster collaborative learning, need to focus on increasing the probability of such useful group activities to occur. The more students' thinking is made visible to others (visually or verbally), the more likely it is that it will be followed by discussions aiming at explanations/conflict resolution.

This process of making thinking visible is usually termed externalization of thinking. Encouraging externalization can involve making very simple changes to the activity design. For example, instead of asking students to just put items in groups, ask them to specifically name these groups and write down the name of the group. Instead of asking the students to find a relation between items, ask them to be explicit about the type of the relation: whether it is a causal, temporal, or special relation for example. Asking for this bit of extra information means that students have to be more explicit about their thinking. The more explicit they are, the more chances that there will be a need for providing an explanation, or solving a disagreement in the group.

A screenshot from a mystery - students have named their groups, e.g. 'Attractions of the New World'.

SOLE with a twist

After planning it before Christmas, we were very much looking forward to visiting Greenfield Arts’ SOLE Room 13, again. They do amazing work with students of different ages, and are one of the schools chosen to host a SOLE (Self Organised Learning Environment) area. When last there, we observed a ‘SOLE Grannies’ session (more info on these here), but today was going to be a little different. We were running a session of Digital Mysteries within the SOLE room – with some features of SOLE, but not quite the same.

Mrs Pattison, two colleagues and her year five class walked along the road from Byerley Park Primary School. They often make visits to Greenfields for SOLE sessions, and do really well. If you don't know SOLEs very well, these are “created when educators and/or parents encourage kids to work in groups that they form, and are free to change, to answer big, open questions by using the internet” (SOLE toolkit). The origins lie in Professor Sugata Mitra’s Ted-Prize winning talk here. To find out more, go to School in the Cloud.

Students were provided with mini iPads, enough for half of the class. It is deliberate that they only have one between two, as mysteries are designed to be worked on together and they can both interact with the screen at the same time. The whole process is designed to encourage discussion throughout – so they’re always engaging with each other.

Pip the Dog – 5 minute intro

Since students have not used our app before, we started with a little introduction with Digital Mysteries: Pip the Dog, a fairly simple PSHE/Citizenship app. It didn’t need much explaining but we went through; how to resize a slip, how to progress from one stage to the next and what each stage asks from you.

After about 5 minutes we asked if everyone was ready to begin the full session, and there was lots of shouts of ‘Yes!’, it was time to move on.

Theo in Ancient Greece

Since the students had covered Ancient Greece in another term, we chose Digital Mysteries: Theo in Ancient Greece as the task for this session. This was good to re-jog their memories at the same time as collaborating, thinking, learning new things and reflecting.

The main question in this app is ‘What is Theo most proud of about Ancient Greece?’

Set up

• Mostly pairs, one three, then as the time went on, a few working on their own.
• Medium difficulty (each app has Easy, Medium and Hard settings – this usually determines how many slips and hints the group are given). In this case, Hard would have brought in an extra topic to consider – democracy.
• Two stages – reading, then grouping the slips, followed by typing in their answer and then the Reflection Stage. By default, there would usually be a Sequencing Stage in between grouping and answering, but we eased them in for today, especially because we wanted more time than usual to reflect at the end.

Activity

While it wasn’t a traditional SOLE session as such, we were in SOLE Room 13. It’s a flexible working space, with brilliant decor and different places to sit. In traditional SOLEs, the students are free to sit wherever, move around and have full control over their learning. One of the walls is clear glass – so it is a small way of observing what is going on.

What we did, was integrate some elements of a SOLE session. We stayed within the room for a little while until we knew the students were settled into the task (as well as for taking some pictures).

Reading Stage

• Students got to grips with this straight away: there are a few different ways of making the icon sized slips bigger so you can read everything on them. Many tended to double tap and a few used the ‘pinch and zoom’ gesture.
• The majority of students read the slips in numerical order – this helps them be organised as they know which they have read. The information on the slips is deliberately not in correlation chronologically with the numbers of them, so this works fine.
• Some read the slips together and some pairs had a pattern of having one student re-size the slip then the other reading it while the other listened.

Grouping Stage

Students are asked to create at least three named groups to sort the slips into. There was a good mixture when having a look at the end. One pair did only have two (relevant, not relevant), but even this helped see how the students thought (that's why we call it Brains on the Tablet).

Reflection Stage

As mentioned, there would usually be a Sequencing Stage, but due to the nature of the session and the time restrictions, the students then went straight to typing in their answer. The Reflection Stage then followed. For the groups that got to this point, it was so good to see the enthusiasm and pride on many of their faces.

The two in the video finished before everyone else, and the benefit of this set up in Room 13 was how freely they could move around and show other pairs bits of their process. This was excellent to see. One group, when asked how many groups they had made and what they were called, started talking about theirs, and used the Reflection Stage to emphasise their point. This ‘Stimulated Recall’ was interesting.

Back to us…

Katy Milne (Director of Arts and Creativity) and Mrs Pattison very kindly asked the students lots of questions at the end. These involved thinking about the setup, the content of the app, the usage of the app, what they’d learned and whether they’d do it again.

Some questions asked:

How many groups did you create?

One pair created six different groups/categories, which was interesting, and several others: four or five. As mentioned, there was one pair who created two groups.

What did you learn in this session that you didn’t know before?

A few students talked about the main character Theo. An answer included ‘We learned that Theo has a statue of him’. We then made it clear that Theo was a fictional character who was created in that time frame to help them learn about what it would be like to be someone at this time.

Another answer was ‘that builders used columns called Doric, Ionic and Corinthian to hold up roofs’ and that ‘the British Museum in London is built in a classical Greek style’ (interesting that this student used the iPad (on the app’s Reflection Stage) to point to this fact.

What was Theo most proud of about Ancient Greece? (The main question)

There was many answers but the majority said that it's Theo and his father being in the Olympics. An addition was that one of his favourite foods is olives and ‘because he won the Olympics, he got a prize of an olive crown, so he would have been proud of that’ – the connecting of two separate pieces of information was good to see. A different answer was that Theo would have been most proud of his uncle’s building work. On the Hard level of this mystery, additional slips about democracy would have been added – this could have brought in a different slant.

What did you think of how you were grouped together? Do you prefer how you usually work in a SOLE session, in bigger groups, or were you pleased with working in pairs?

Following on from the success we’ve seen in the bigger groups before, it was surprising to note that the students who spoke up, really found benefit in working in pairs:

“When you’re in pairs, you just listen.”

“I like it in little groups more, because you concentrate better.”

When Katy then asked if they felt free to move around (a big benefit of SOLE), one students said they did when they were finished: ‘Well they didn’t really get it, so me and Ryan sat and helped them’.

If you could think of a way to improve the app/mystery, what would you suggest?

It can of course be difficult for students to put their hand up and say something they feel may upset someone, but we tried to encourage them as much as possible, because feedback can only help us improve. One student did say it would be good if there was some way you could get rid of any notes and sticky tapes that you didn’t need any more/you’d done by accident – there is in actual fact, a ‘Trash’ group where you drag and drop stuff you don’t need. So although you can’t get rid of it entirely (the idea is that all thoughts/notes/actions are there if needed), you can remove it from main view and concentrate on the bigger picture.

Would you use Digital Mysteries apps again?

This was met with many enthusiastic exclaims of ‘yes’ and ‘definitely’, and when asked if they thought they could do a fresh mystery without any ‘instructions’ next time, they were very confident. A few highlights:

‘I thought that it was a bit different to any other game. In a good way.’
‘It was new.’
‘I liked it because I never knew you could do, like, this type of stuff on it.’
‘It was easy to use.’

Recap

It was a brilliant afternoon. We want to say a big thank you to Katy who organised the session, as well as James Brady for ensuring that all of the tech was running smoothly for the students.

Also a big thank you to Mrs Pattison and her colleagues for bringing the students in, asking questions and being supportive of the task. Of course, another thank you to the Byerley Park year five class who came in. They were a pleasure to work with, came up with some great ideas and were very polite at the end, coming up to us to say thank you.

At some point in the future, it will be great to do it again!

To read Greenfield Arts' blog post on this session, click here.
To try Digital Mysteries, go to our Developer's Page on the App Store.

8 things to look out for in today's classroom

Short post today, but I came across this graphic on Twitter (by Sylvia Duckworth) and thought it was very engaging.

You can read more into each point on the original author's blog (George Couros).

When I shared it on Twitter, it was extremely popular so I thought I would share it with you too.

Thanks,

Natalie