Anne Clarke, our Teaching for Understanding 2 instructor, offers us a simple question - What makes you say that?

"I have found this simple phrase to have a power way beyond its five words. When I first introduced it as a Thinking Routine in my classroom, it rapidly became a favorite, popping up regularly in conversation.

It's often surprising and gratifying to see how this question prompts others to share the reasoning behind their conclusions or assertions.

For example, a teacher could use it to explore an image. If you first ask, 'What's going on here?' and then follow it up with, 'What makes you say that?' students start to dig into their own learning process.

Not only does this simple routine open a window into the hidden world of thinking but it helps us model and value good thinking. When giving feedback I often find myself saying, 'just let me explain what makes me say that' as I explain the steps in my reasoning.

It is applicable to almost any classroom situation. Students working in groups use it frequently to prompt others to give evidence for their point of view.

So my tip is this. Introduce the "What makes you say that?" routine to your students, post it on the wall, and see how quickly it catches on. I am sure you will find, as I have, that this short phrase can be a significant step in creating a culture of thinking in the classroom."

WIDE World invites innovative school leaders (e.g. principals, department chairs, assistant superintendents, directors of curriculum development) to participate in the new Leading for Understanding 1 course!

Leading for Understanding 1 (LfU 1), a six-session, semester-long online course, is specifically designed to help school leaders use the Teaching for Understanding (TfU) Framework to develop and support a culture of inquiry-oriented learning in their school. Collaborating with fellow educational leaders, as well as an instructor and coach experienced in school-based understanding initiatives, school leaders will create an "action project" for their school based on TfU principles and explore its practical implementation.

After the course, school leaders will be enrolled free of charge in an alumni community where they can continue to exchange ideas and best practices with school leaders from around the world. In addition, they have the opportunity to participate in institutes and conferences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with other forward thinking school leaders.

Course openings are available for July (July 4-August 21) and September (September 19-December 18), in line with our other TfU courses. Registration for the July semester closes on June 16, 2006.

Enthusiasm must be very contagious! I'm sure that it was the enthusiasm of our new Head of Middle School, Peter Dry, which had me agreeing to be a part of the first wave of enrollees in WIDE World's Teaching for Understanding 1 (TfU 1) online course, along with my fellow teachers at Huntingtower, a co-ed, Prep to Year 12 school in Melbourne, Australia.

It must have been purely his enthusiasm that made me say "Yes" to further study after promising myself that I wouldn?t commit to anymore courses after some grueling years spent hitting the books.

Peter's impetus to involve the staff in a professional development course focused on improved learning outcomes reflects a more general trend in Australian education. Schools and teachers are more focused on pursuing innovative curriculum initiatives that allow students to achieve greater involvement in, and ownership of, their own learning. Our new Middle School structure reflected this and led to a clear need at Huntingtower to bring our teaching pedagogy in line with the latest research available. For my part, I was keen to see how Teaching for Understanding could inform and improve my day to day classroom performance.

Before starting the online experience, I thought back to a previous course I had taken in Instructional Design and wondered if TfU 1 would be a repeat of that course's systematic design of instruction. I had some hopes for TfU 1, though, since I had not found a framework in the Instructional Design field that pertained directly to teaching for understanding or improved learning in schools. Was Peter's enthusiasm heading me in the right direction?...

For Roland Stark, a member of WIDE World's research team, analyzing the classroom effects of Teaching for Understanding is not a simply a matter of tallying up course survey responses to see how many teachers said they liked the approach.

"It is a preoccupation with our work," Roland noted. "A lot of people who investigate classroom instruction find that even carefully designed surveys don't always do a good job of capturing the kind of approaches teachers use. So we're trying to bridge the gap between what surveys show and what anybody might agree was happening in the classroom if they were there."

This April, Roland, a former classroom teacher turned statistician, and David Eddy Spicer, WIDE World's research manager, attended the American Educational Research Association's annual conference in San Francisco to present their paper, "A Mixed-Methods Study of Shifts in Classroom Practice Related to Online Professional Development Courses."

In addition, David organized a symposium involving several other educational research outfits, which focused on how to square invariably imperfect survey data with actual classroom change...

July 16-19, 2006

WIDE World will be exhibiting at the NSDC Summer Conference in Washington, D.C. NSDC (National Staff Development Council) is a non-profit organization that produces the acclaimed Journal of Staff Development (JSD).

July 18-20, 2006

Ann Koufman-Frederick, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Watertown, will be talking about how to use WIDE World's CCDT (Collaborative Curriculum Design Tool) at the November Learning Conference in Weston, MA. Details of the talk can be found on the conference's updated blog.

Don't forget that the Harvard Graduate School of Education offers all kinds of options for educators in the summer and fall. Along with WIDE World's online Teaching for Understanding programs, there are local institutes and courses offered by Programs in Professional Education, Project Zero, and Change Leadership. Tell 'em WIDE World sent you!

Our classroom tip sheets, taken from our instructors' monthly tips, are now available in .pdf form on the website. Please share them with your educational colleagues!

Nancy Kang's story and classroom photo albums are also in our new section, "In the Classroom." Enjoy!

Have an idea or classroom story? Email us: wideeditor@gse.harvard.edu