HOTS Questions- Part of Your Toolbox?

Recently our school had a team of five outside educators come in and evaluate 200 minutes of instructional time in grades Kindergarten through 8th grade and meet with me and one of my teachers afterwards to let us know what they saw that was going well and one thing we could improve upon that would have an immediate impact on student learning.

HOTS Questions visual

What we decided collectively could make an immediate impact would be for our teachers to have a stronger focus on HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) questions.  It is a tool in their toolbox that likely was being used, but needed to be refreshed and pulled out more often.  I talked with the staff at our staff meeting the following week to let them know what our focus goal was going to be for the next 90 days. I came up with a couple of ways we could tackle this.  At our next staff PD day, the presenter, Cindy McKinney, wove this into the discussion.

One of my teachers took the idea and quietly came up with a great visual on her own (see picture on left).  Her goal, when she made it, was to not only give herself this visual, but a smaller version for her students too! Some of her colleagues saw it and told her how awesome it was (and would she make them one).  The idea behind it is for the teacher (and students) to work from basic "basement" level questions that had concrete answers to "attic" level questions that require much deeper thinking.  Getting the students to move from the "basement" to the "attic" in their questioning skills on their own is vital to their success as students.  Now the onus is not solely on the teacher, some of it now falls to the students in her room too. 

This visual is like a Bloom's meets HOTS questions mashup.  The visual made sense not only to her, but her colleagues as well.  What a great, easy way to add (and refresh) this tool to the toolbox of things a teacher can draw from when needed.

I share this not to necessarily say that HOTS questions need to be a part of a teacher's toolbox, which they do, but also to showcase one of my teacher's great ideas for taking the initiative to move a needed staff focus goal forward without my help AND get buy-in from other teachers on staff to do the same.

Your thoughts?

"Be Bold!"

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Eric Doden of Greater Ft Wayne Inc. speak to a group of Pastors, board chairs and principals in NE Indiana.  Eric is a very dynamic speaker who has a ton of passion and enthusiasm for the city of Ft Wayne.  Of all the things he spoke about, the thing I walked away with from his presentation were two words "BE BOLD!" Indeed he has been bold and passionate about telling others about the great things going on in Ft Wayne and NE Indiana.  Are you being BOLD about the ministry where you are?

I think that at times our Lutheran heritage of being humble etc gets the best of us and we forget to BE BOLD about the good news.  We have so much great stuff to share that we should be shouting it from the rooftops!

As a principal of a Lutheran school, there are many things I could (and should) share in my school ministry everyday, greatest of which is the exciting news of God's grace and our salvation through Jesus Christ. Many days, weeks, months we get caught up in the daily operation of our school that we forget that.  We have a message not only for those who already know, but even more important for those who don't yet know. Our ministry goal is to share Jesus with our students and their families everyday in our classrooms and then take it to those who don't yet know.

This is a reminder that we all need to BE BOLD and passionate about the awesome news we have to share not only with our own but those have yet to hear.  With Christmas just around the corner, it's a great opportunity to share the good news of the birth of our savior.  Will you BE BOLD to share the good news?  I will.