Instructional Practice Inventory and Higher Order Thinking (Part Two)

Dr. Jerry Valentine, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, brings over 50 years of experience to the educational field. His strategies have been utilized in over 35 states currently in several international countries.

Dr. Valentine will share information on higher order thinking in order to positively impact academic success. 

Thanks for listening. If you would like to share your thoughts or topic ideas, or would like to be a guest, you can find Educational Relevance on Facebook, YouTube or email us at oliviaw1201@educationalrelevance.org, brwright44@gmail,com or mark@educationalrelevance.org.

Transcript

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 0:00

Hello. Welcome to Educational Relevance, platform for experienced educators to share proven successful strategies to educate today's leaders be it administrators, staff members, and others who work in education. We are honored today to have Dr. Jerry Valentine with us. Valentine is a currently professor emeritus over at University of Missouri, Dr. Valentine brings over 50 years of tremendous experience to the educational field. His strategies have been utilized in over 35 states currently in several international countries. we are so honored to have Dr. Valentine join us. I'm also here with my colleague Mr. Mark Mcbeth. Mark is educational leader and done some tremendous work in states of both Missouri, Kansas and Colorado. Mark. Good to see you again, what we're going to discuss today, what's your teachers be doing to promote higher order thinking strategies and Why should they incorporate these into the classrooms? Mark, I'm going to turn it over to you. And Dr. Valentine

Track 1: 1:00

So thanks, Brian. So Dr. Valentine, a while back we talked about IPI and how you collect data on student engagement. What is the conversation that we should be having around higher order and deeper thinking type of stuff. And then what's the impact of that? Why do teachers even want to think about it in the long run?

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 1:22

Well, we know there's a tight relationship between higher, deeper thinking time and academic success. So there's an educational reason to want to do this. We want the kids to leave us with the best skills and thought processes that we can give them. know that that there's a link between. Skills that go with higher or deeper thinking and what the business industry folks really expect of the people that work for them, and we know that we've got a society today that is is proliferated with data from multiple sources and angles and views, and we have to be responsible for that. Clear thinkers as to what we are at and hearing and good consumers of that. And that means we have to be critical thinkers. We have to be able to analyze. We have to be able to make good judgments in order to be frankly, good, productive, contributing citizens to the community. So higher deeper thinking is, is not just a. an educational philosophical, notion that sounds really good in journals and in papers and other places. Higher and Deeper Thinking is a is a basic fundamental of what we expect as a byproduct of our educational system. We expect kids to be able to do numeracy and literacy and be able to read and write and, to remember things and to know facts and understand history and civics and science and all. But we also expect them to be able to think more deeply about those kinds of things and be more reflective about it and be better consumers of it and to be better consumers of all. The things that surround them in life. So higher deeper thinking is a fundamental skill that we'd love to generate more of amongst our students, because it means they're going to be more

Track 1: 3:07

Aren't we already doing that in the classroom?

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 3:09

some degree we are. But if you look at the fact that in any given classroom, typical classroom across the country, out of a child's classroom day, they spend about 20 percent engaged in higher, deeper thinking about 70 to 80 percent engaged in lower order surface thinking. And about 5 percent of the time. Disengage from thought process associated with the curriculum. So, we could grow that, and that's what cognitive psychologists have told us for a long time, if we could grow that, then we would be doing a better service to our students. How much should we grow it becomes a basic question. If you look at a bar graph and you see that, that if this is a bar graph for higher, deeper thinking, and this is a bar graph for lower order surface thinking, skill building, fact finding recall kinds of things, what we should have happen, according to most of the people who research and study this, is we should be working toward a balance between the two, amount of time, 60%, 40%, 40%, 60%, 50%, but it shouldn't be set up with a bar graph this different, up here at 70 and down here at 25 or something like that, or 20, it should be more balanced. one to one ratio, not a three to one, four to one ratio. That means we've got a long way to go. It means we've got to engage faculty in understanding the importance of that for the good of our kids and the kids that we send from us after 13 years trying to educate them. So, that's the fundamental issue. It produces people who are capable of thinking more. The more opportunity students have to learn to think more deeply, more critically, more reflectively, more analytically, more creatively, in the context of a curriculum area. In multiple curriculum areas, the more we engage them in that, the more they see the bigger picture, the more they understand, the more they become curious, the more they become inquisitive, the more they develop skills of inquiry think on their own and be better citizens.

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 5:04

If I can answer this question, Mark, always talked about the three R's rigor, relevance, relationships. how does building relationships with staff and with teachers assist this higher order thinking to be done?

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 5:14

We know that relationships are a key factor on everybody's research and I mentioned Hattie just a minute ago, but if you look at the factors and his Comprehensive studies and how he studied everybody else's research as well, you know, teacher student relationships are a critical part of the learning process. have to have that respect for the teacher. They have to have that appreciation for the teacher. The teacher has to have that collaborative respect, that same kind of respect for the students and the way they work with them. yeah, relationships are important. What we've also seen, though, as we help teachers develop more, engaging, more thoughtful learning experiences in the classroom. We see the kids engaging more and we see the kids building more and more respect for the teacher. The, the quality of the teaching learning experience that a teacher puts together in the classroom Affects the kids in terms of their attitude, it affects them in terms of their motivation, it affects them in terms of their commitment, it affects them in terms of the amount of time they're willing to invest in the learning process. Children, build off of that teacher. That teacher's energy, that teacher's enthusiasm, that teacher's honesty, that teacher's Personality and that teacher's knowledge of subject matter and important as anything in all of that in helping build a relationship, I think, is that teacher's ability to create really high quality learning experiences for the kids that asks them to understand fundamentals and go beyond that to have a deep appreciation of the content area and the subject that they're talking about, whether that's first grade or whether that's 12th

Track 1: 6:48

What's the difference between really that defining factor of giving them information and having them process and think information?

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 6:58

we basically, in the IPI process, instructional practice, inventory process of codifying how kids are cognitively engaged. We basically have started into six categories. Two of the categories are about higher, deeper thinking. And to achieve higher, deeper thinking, you have to find ways to. Mentally engage the kids in analysis and in problem solving and in reflection and in creativity, et cetera. Well, you take that and you look at two other two categories in the IPI process are also about lower order surface thinking primarily. Is it, the learning process teacher led, teacher directed? Is the teacher doing the thing and the kids are sitting back passively processing? Just as somebody watching this podcast is doing right now, they're sitting back passively processing while we provide insights, and one, another category, actually two more in the IAPI process are about When the kids are busy doing seat work, practice work, etc. And is the teacher attentive to and focused on the kids? Or is the teacher attentive, not attentive to and focused on the kids? So three categories there that are about lower order surface thinking. Rigor understanding and having a good foundation of facts and figures and basic knowledge. But rigor doesn't stop there. Although, albeit too much testing tends to stop there, rigor is all about we take that foundational knowledge and go deeper and deeper and deeper with it in order to understand it so well that we become, we learn to appreciate science, we learn to appreciate literature. to understand it and are curious about it and want to absorb more. We learn to become a learner who is a self learner. create student centered classrooms where instead of the teacher talking at and spending all that time informing kids, engages kids in that. And we've also learned that one of the most powerful forms of learning for our kids is How to create collaborative learning amongst the students, whether I put the kids in pairs, triads, quartets, quintets, or have a whole class discussion, it doesn't seem to matter, as long as the students are learning to cooperate and collaborate with each other, because the more they do that, more they learn from each other, the deeper is their understanding, the broader is their perspective of the content and appreciation of it, the more they recall. Because when we have to talk something through and just discuss it with others, it increases our recall. So, for the kids, rigor, rigor doesn't mean just facts and figures, being able to rattle off ten presidents names in a row a certain era. It's about understanding the contributions of those presidents to history and their impact on it throughout history. Both president and later it's all about asking the kids to be more thoughtful, engaging learning participants, because that's what will carry them all into life. Not a whole bunch of facts that they had to memorize and we'll soon forget their tests on a high stakes test score. That doesn't take that into account. Assessments are valuable. We have to learn how to how to build formative and summative assessments that really get at a child's understanding of something, depth of knowledge of something. yet we find states giving up on that because to really score statewide assessments that have rigor to them that are engaged with, if you will, recall issues and more higher order issues, coding and scoring of the higher order issues it's expensive. It's much more complex than scoring, you know, multiple choice answers on a high stakes test. So

Track 1: 10:42

So, that's made me think of a question. aren't you going to get kickback from teachers thinking about this? Because it is harder to do

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 10:50

Yeah, it is harder to do by and large. Kick back. we hear the, struggles that teachers have all the time as we work with schools, you know, we could be in the course of a single year working with 50, a hundred schools the IPI process, helping them learn how to put it in place and work through it. And we're constantly seeing teachers. Who want to help their colleagues because the teachers that I get to work with are the teachers who will lead the process in the school. Now, when I sit down with them as they begin the process, when I sit down with them a year into the process, when I sit down with them five years into the process and we start talking and debriefing, what they continue to say is, boy, it's a struggle to get my colleagues to be open to looking at this because They've been teaching a certain way for a long period of time or for a short period of time and that's how they learned and they tend to repeat and repeat and repeat and you know the only answer you got on that one is if you keep doing the same thing and keep repeating the same thing you keep getting the same thing well that's basically why we have to look at how do we help teachers grow just a little bit each year in terms of expanding their repertoire of strategies so that those strategies move more and more from a certain percent of time being a lower order and now move to a higher percent of time being higher order you've got to take that time from somewhere and once you eliminate disengagement during class time now you've got to start pulling where do we keep growing higher order we have to start pulling it from lower order time Without sacrificing the importance of lower order. I talk to teachers all the time about you need a certain amount of lower, a certain amount of higher order, and you've got to have both because both is what good teaching is. So in the IPI coding world, we talk about, you have to have a lot of threes, a lot of fours, a lot of fives, and a lot of sixes. The threes and fours are essential. lower order and the fives and sixes are essential. They're higher order. And we've got to take and reduce one and grow the other in order to get the kinds of experiences we need with our kids.

Track 1: 12:51

good. But

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 12:52

Well, let me ask this question here for me. Two things. One the day and time teachers, you talk about strategy, teachers are incorporating technology their classrooms on a regular basis right now. How would you use the instructional practice inventory and help teach us how to incorporate this along the technology in the classroom? Okay.

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 13:11

We've really had some fun looking at technology. When I built this process, one to one wasn't even really on the horizon. It didn't seem in most schools. By, and that was in 19 95, 96. By 2000, it was starting to be talked about as we're collecting data in the early two thousands, we're seeing schools that now have, more sophisticated projection systems and a, computer in the classroom for the teacher. And then as we go a little further into the two thousands, we're now starting to see schools that have technology in the hands of kids. And by 2010, I am, I'm thinking, God, I wish I would've figured out the time to have done this before, but I gotta do it now. We have to add a technology component to the IPI process. It measures how kids are thinking when they're using technology vis a vis how kids are thinking when they're not using technology, and how is technology being used in the classroom to support and foster learning, particularly higher order and remove and reduce disengagement. So by 2011 we put in place and have been using now for the last 13 14 years an additional component gives us insight as to how kids are thinking. they are engaging when the teacher is using technology as a tool to engage them with the learning experience, and we found that as teachers get a year or 2 under the belt of how to use the technology, and if they're part of the which means. They're looking at data on a regular basis of how their kids are thinking. They're trying to find strategies for improving that thinking that we now have a tool, a piece of technology that can be a great boon to that, because there's so much that a piece of technology in the classroom can bring to enhancing the opportunities to create higher, deeper thinking. And that's what we've seen in the numbers, a typical school. My start out with 20 percent higher deeper thinking, and that's extremely common across the country, a school that's not focused on cognitive engagement, a school that is not looking at at how our kids are thinking and trying to do something special with it. Now, once schools start to focus on that, we typically see that 20 percent up to 25%. Sometimes right at around or under 30, and I've had the fortune of having data from before schools start using technology in a very persistent, pervasive kind of way today where they are. And we've seen as technology gets starts to come into the picture at middle schools and high schools, we see that as an added tool. That makes increasing higher, deeper thinking more, more practical. feasible at the middle school and high school level, but at the elementary schools, as we've seen more technology coming to the classroom, our data tell us that we're seeing less higher, deeper thinking because so much of the software and so much of the technology that's used in our elementary schools. is geared towards skill building, and recall numeracy and literacy. Tremendous amounts of great software that help kids learn to read better, and help them learn to do their math better. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. But that's usurping time that the teacher might have otherwise, and did previously spend, the kids to be hands on, asking them to think, asking them to engage with role playing, asking them to do things that in that elementary classroom would have been more exciting to them. And the payoff of that still is we think we'll do better on a high stakes test. Because we've got all of this and we want our kids to have that numeracy and literacy, we're missing out on asking the kids to think because that's where the biggest payoff comes in terms of all types of testing. The literature has said for years, we engage kids more in higher, deeper thinking, the payoff on testing is there, whether the test is a higher order type of test or recall type of test, because the kids understand, what you're asking them to learn better by doing it with more thoughtful learning experiences. I don't know if that's kind of answering your question, but, but clearly, to take that a little further and be very concrete about it. From about 20 percent starting point, to about 25 to 30 percent two years in, to about 30 to 35 percent to four or five years in, once technology is folded into that. Now, that moves us toward where so many psychologists tell us they like the balance between higher thinking and lower thinking. And so it's like growing it toward a one to one ratio. Or just a 60 kind of ratio, but increasing that flow of higher or deeper thinking opportunities into the classroom for the kids. Technology is a great boon for that. At the middle school and high school level, at the elementary level, we've got to figure out how to use it more effectively.

Track 1: 18:10

what I take away from that is the, the idea that if you have a central focus around higher order, deeper thinking. The technology now has a role in a place, but if you come in and say, I want technology and you're not thinking deeper on a, on a deeper level, it's just technology.

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 18:33

you've nailed it. You've nailed it. Perfectly. And see, we've seen the as a, Multipronged process over the years because we're trying to help create a culture in the school and in the classroom about the focuses on learning. seen the IPI as a tool to help foster change in instructional strategies and practices in classroom. We've also used the IPI as an outcome measure for all the kinds of things that we do because you can have a nice longitudinal plot of how your kids are thinking. And we see it as a, interval measure, when we start to see blips on our radar where we are or not moving in terms of thinking time in the classroom. And you get those things from both looking at higher or deeper thinking looking at disengagement. Because disengagement is a huge negative impact on kids learning. if we look at a school and it has 10 percent disengagement. of time, then those kids in that school are missing the equivalent of three and a half to four weeks of lost learning time during that school year. If we see just five percent disengagement time, those kids are missing the equivalent of one and a half to two weeks of lost learning time. And if we should happen to see and we do happen to see in just about every state we've worked with a school or two or a few who actually have 20 percent Student disengagement time. And when you have 20%, that means that those kids are missing the equivalent of 7. 5 to 8 weeks of lost learning time during the school year. And in every case I've looked at, those are schools that are on the most struggling list of academically successful schools in a given state. They are the schools that seem to be at the bottom of the, ranking of schools academically. can't expect kids to well in their learning experience if, they are not during class time engaged in learning. And if that disengagement is 20%, there's no way they can hope to do. They're missing too much, too much learning time.

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 20:40

Well, I tell you at this point in time, Mark, anything you want to finish off with any final statement

Track 1: 20:45

I think that that final 5 minutes was really powerful with the data behind it. It doesn't matter what level a school is that this kind of conversation is essential no matter what with the educators, whether they're at a low performing and struggling and have 20 percent of disengagement or they're at 5 percent disengagement and still have stuff going on. With that data schools that might be, 40, 50, 60 percent in the middle has room for growth and the connection to the assessments make this essential because then we actually have student learning. that's what the assessment is supposed to measure for us, is whether the kid's learning or not learning. it's worthy of having a opportunity to talk to Dr. Valentine again. on how to make shifts inside of schools using this data. But the big thing is, is. How to create practices within schools leadership practices, daily routines, all those things. That's where you're so powerful at Brian is getting those things put into system and schools that maybe don't have that. I really, appreciate Dr. Valentine's time. It's obvious that he has done a lot of research over the years to validate the value of this and then to take other people's research to support what he's doing.

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 22:06

First of all, Mark, thank you. Dr. Valentine man, I can sit here soaking up the knowledge I'm hearing. We didn't even get into the discussion, Mark, about sustainability and how we're going to talk about how we sustain this in different school districts. How you want to make sure you come up with the longitudinal data. We didn't even discuss that today So yes, I think there may be an opportunity to come back and speak. Dr. Valentine, I hope you don't mind doing that sometime in the near future. As

squadcaster-6ia1_2_04-11-2024_100246: 22:28

Glad to.

bryan-r-wright_2_04-11-2024_100245: 22:29

All right. guys, thank you for everything. we're going to close off, this session of educational relevance, Thank you very much. Bye bye now.