Building Thinking Classrooms: Digging Deeper with Peter Liljedahl

Building Thinking Classroom is a practice most well-known for having students working on thinking tasks, in random groups, and at vertical whiteboards—all of which take place during the body of the lesson. In this two-and-a-half-hour workshop, Peter will discuss why these practices are important as well as why it is important to think beyond the body of the lesson to the closing of the lesson. In particular, Peter will look at the new research on the three practices that close a thinking classroom lesson—consolidation, meaningful notes, and check-your-understanding questions. These three practices are instrumental in helping students turn the unorganized, unstructured, and informal conception they gained from their group work into organized, structured, and formalized learning for themselves. The practices discussed will intertwine with, and make extensive references to, the soon-to-be-released books, Mathematics Tasks for the Thinking Classrooms (K-5 and 6-12). 

Roundtable Sessions: Building Thinking Classrooms: Strategies for Engaging, Empowering, and Evaluating Students

These roundtable sessions aim to provide educators with the tools and insights needed to transform their classrooms into dynamic spaces where students actively engage, think critically, and take ownership of their learning journey.

Objectives:

• To understand and apply the key principles of Building Thinking Classrooms.

• To share best practices and collaboratively develop strategies for task design, task delivery, lesson consolidation, answering questions, and using hints and extensions.

• To share best practices and collaboratively develop strategies for homework design, evaluation, formative assessment, and grading.

• To share best practices and collaboratively develop strategies for group formation, furniture arrangement, workspace optimization, and fostering autonomy.

• To empower educators to create learning environments that enhance student engagement, critical thinking, collaboration, reflective learning, and independent learning.