PIP Final Report

Inquiry Question: In what ways does implementing thinking classrooms affect students’ abilities
to problem solve and build thinking habits in my Grade 4/5 classroom?

To explore this question I am going to be using materials by Peter Lilijedalh such as his
literature work and website. Peter Lilijedalh has researched thinking classrooms and created a
website and written multiple books rich with resources and knowledge regarding how to create
thinking classrooms: www.peterliljedahl.com. Throughout my Professional Semester III, I used
Peter Lilijedalh’s website and literature for different thinking tasks and for inspiration when
creating my own thinking tasks and when planning my lessons. I created lessons that involved
small group work and visibly randomized the groups, so students were constantly working with
different peers. By doing random groups it allows students to opportunity to learn how to work
cooperatively with all peers and listen to other perspectives.

I researched Peter Lilijedalh and his literature resources and his website as well as I had
many conversations with my teacher mentor about the best ways to create a thinking
classroom. One of the main strategies that I used was trial and error. Through this I found out
that for my group of students, having a routine worked best.

Typically for mathematics, the students would come in from recess and see on the
board the materials that they needed to grab before the lesson started. The students’ mini
whiteboards were mostly used at the beginning of each mathematics class to demonstrate their
knowledge by answering questions on the whiteboards and holding them up for me to see.
Following this part of the lesson would be small group work through a thinking task or
mathematics game for practice and a worksheet or mastery check to demonstrate their
knowledge on the subject. During the thinking task portion students were put into randomized
groups and presented with a smaller challenge on the SmartBoard that gradually increased in
difficulty as students achieved the first question. Thin slicing the thinking task allows an
opportunity for all students to be challenged at different levels and reduces boredom and
frustration if a task is too easy or difficult. Each small group was directed to their own section of
the class that had a vertical non-permeant surface that they would work on as a group to solve
the questions.

I kept observational notes throughout my practicum tracking the progress of how

students worked together and how their problem solving skills evolved. Throughout my
practicum it became obvious how the student’s perseverance to solve difficult tasks increased.
Students started off not enjoying group work and shouting “No” after seeing that they did not
have their friends always in the groups to quickly gathering themselves and going to their
designated vertical non-permeant surfaces to begin working. At the beginning we had many
students who refused to work together and now a majority of students have been
cooperatively working together.
I have created a document with steps that are necessary to implement when creating
thinking classrooms as my final Professional Inquiry Project.