MTV in the Social Studies Classroom

October 12, 2024 aumillal Uncategorized 6

No, not Music Television

MTV is the strategy of “Making Thinking Visible” as I began my MTV practice in my own classroom, there were two core reasons for MTV that stuck with me:

  • Cultivating Engaged Students: When we use MTV strategies, students quickly become more interested in their learning. This is not just because their learning becomes clearer to them, but also because the strategies of making thinking visible force students to work with each other, expand their understanding of themselves and their peers, and go places with their learning and the content they had not considered before. When students share their thought processes openly, it creates a space where multiple perspectives can be safely shared, deepening understanding of the complexity of the content being studied. This sharing allows for richer discussions, and fosters a classroom culture where different approaches to thinking are valued.
    • In the book The Power of Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church, they cite a conversation with teacher Hardevi Vyas about how MTV cultivates engaged student, Vyas notes that, “students move from a place of interest, to deep engagement, to a real desire to take action.” When students can begin to see other perspectives and deeply consider other points of view they begin to actively engage with their learning.
    • Ritchhart and Church also note three different kinds of engagement necessary for student thinking, “(i) engagement with others, (ii) engagement with ideas, and (iii) engagement in action.” They continue by saying, “In engaging with others, we recognize that learning unfolds in the company of others and is a social endeavor. We learn in, from, and with groups.” So a major part of cultivating engaged students, is also engaging students with those around them.
  • Changing the role of the Student and Teacher: I had a mentor who constantly asked in his leadership and observation, “who is working harder?” was it the teacher, or the student. If the answer wasn’t the student, something was wrong. When we implement MTV strategies the learning responsibility falls to the student. This reminds me specifically of “The Leaderless Discussion” (Ritchhart and Church p. 59). In this strategy the teacher must fall to the side and allow students to ask the questions and make decisions.
    • As teachers, for so long, our role was to provide information, give students answers so they could regurgitate them on a test and feel good that they were successful. That was nice and clean, and wrapped up well, but it did not help students learn, it did not encourage original thought, and at the core of it all, it did not encourage students to think. Creating thinking people for life is our goal as teachers after all, isn’t it? If so, then we cannot be the deliverers of knowledge, we need to be willing to step back and trust our students to do the work so they can develop these deeply necessary skills. Ritchhart and Church cite another teacher conversation when it comes to changing the role of the student and teacher, they note, “Mary has shifted her role from that of deliverer to orchestrator who works hard to establish a supportive culture and to create conditions for inquiry and opportunities for meaningful exploration.” (p. 10)
      • I often say to my students when they are hoping I will hand them an answer that, “I already did high school,” it’s their turn. While this is wildly uncomfortable because as teachers we are used to control, and fear for our students, we don’t want to see them fail, if we adopt a role of guidance, and provide our students with all the supports they need to understand their process in coming to a conclusion, more often than not, we will see students rise to the occasion, gain a deeper understanding, and grow in their abilities and performance. Ritchhart and Church offer comfort in this scenario by reminding us that “teachers whose classrooms are most transformed do not abandon curriculum or preparing students for high-stakes tests, they see their role as teaching beyond the test toward preparing students for a lifetime of learning.” (p. 10)
Dawn Taylor discusses the need to change the role of teacher in the 21st century

MTV Strategies in Action: “Plus 1”

My first official MTV classroom strategy was the “plus 1” activity. In this activity students generate a list, after receiving information (a video, a set of notes, etc.) they will then pass this list to their neighbor who has to add one to it. Peers can add anything, a new fact to the list, a statement, a concept they grasped from the information, or, they can expand on something a student already has in their list. Peers can add as much as they like but the requirement is just to “plus 1.” Repeat this process a few times (I did it twice) then return the list to its original creator. Students will be given time to look at their added list, and then draw a conclusion, the question I posed to students was: How has this new list enhanced your thinking or changed your understanding?

I presented students with basic information the day before we engaged with this activity to introduce the industrial revolution. I then used this strategy as an introductory lesson the following day. I made a worksheet to help them organize their lists and responses and thus describe their understanding. 

I ran this activity in two separate periods, back-to-back, in the same subject, and with the same general makeup (mainly sophomores, present yesterday to receive notes, about 50/50 male vs. female, most students are members of minority groups). Some students worked diligently, mainly in the first class period, and came to conclusions about the content making deeper connections to regulations and statuses that exist today, while others, mainly in the second class period, struggled with recall and therefore did not have large lists to build their understanding from.

Based on my experience presenting my first MTV strategy, I have identified some successes and challenges:

  • Successes: most students were deeply engaged with one another and the content, students who are usually distracted or not participating in class followed instructions well and worked to participate in the activity. MTV strategies proved to be engaging for students and made them more likely to not just engage in the activity but, therefore, the content as well.
  • Challenges: many students struggled in the first step of basic recall to build their lists, which meant that eventually, the entire activity became challenging for them to complete. Additionally, many students who struggled with creating their own lists, struggled with both understanding what their plus 1s should look like, as well as what plus 1s they could come up with. Many added “that’s cool!” or “I agree” or “interesting thought!” rather than adding depth of knowledge to what we were trying to construct.
Example of the worksheet created and used in instruction.

Based on these successes and challenges I have also identified aspects of this activity that I should keep the same, and aspects that should change next time:

  • Differently: Students have never done this activity before, it would be valuable to model this as a group before diving in. It would be simple to create a front and back to the worksheet and work through one topic as a class on the front, then, give students a new topic to try on their own on the back.
    • This would help me make sure students understand the kind of feedback that is being looked for, students should be adding thought. This way, so when it comes time to explain how the “plus 1s” added to student understanding, students wouldn’t have to struggle with finding an answer, because no comments would simply say, “wow!” or “interesting point.”
  • Differently: In addition to giving students a model to look back on, it would be beneficial to offer a word bank of sentence stems or good ways to add to the list. I found myself wondering after the activity: do they know how a statement or concept could be pulled from the information, or are they only comfortable with facts?
    • I wanted to offer a free flow of thought, but I found there needed to be more scaffolding as this was their first time doing this activity.
  • The Same: I built a worksheet to help students organize their work and thoughts, and give them a designated space to conclude the shift in their thinking or understanding that was gained from this activity. Students liked the organization offered.
    • There was a good flow in the classroom, students had enough time to think and work without giving them so much that they felt bored or stopped writing.
  • The Same: I gave instructions as we went which was helpful as students did not have to hold too many steps in their head and therefore were freed up to focus on their thinking.
    • Students were interested in sharing and speaking with classmates during the activity and during our concluding discussion. The activity was low stakes, and students grew in their active listening skills as they seemed more interested in what their peers had to say than they ever have been previously.
It may have been valuable to have students explore what they feel thinking Is before jumping in.
Above all, it is important to remember that when we implement MTV strategies we are trying to improve student depth of knowledge and move up to higher order thinking. If we are not doing so, then we need to change our practices.

TCE Thresholds as they relate to MTV practices

As we work through different strategies and concepts in this course, it is only practical to assess how they relate back to the core of TCE. In relation to MTV, two stood out to me:

  • Curriculum is co-constructed: Specifically in my first attempt using MTV as the “plus one” activity, I saw clearly how easy co-constructing curriculum with students could be. As students shared their thinking in our concluding discussion asking how thoughts and understandings of American industry had changed, I was delighted with how many students responded with conceptual understandings beyond the facts discussed in their notes the day before. Many of them were even able to relate instances of child labor and ideas of regulation to their lives today. With this wealth of knowledge I now have about what students are thinking about from a simple conversation focusing on what they have to say, I have a large amount of curriculum I can pull from that interests my students, I am free to teach my students things they genuinely want to learn and are interested in, and still fulfill my standards.

This concept of teaching students what they actually want to learn leads well into my second threshold concept

  • Teachers and students have empowerment/agency: If students are building curriculum with us, then of course they have agency in what they are going to learn, and empowerment to feel equal with the teacher. If I am using the “plus one” strategy consistently, then my students will always have a voice in the classroom. But I think agency can go beyond this, my students should be offered more than just conversation that helps me build curriculum, but they should have an active part in what that curriculum looks like. I am interested in the way MTV encourages students to ask good questions, and am thankful that it points out that this is not easy! If we can use MTV strategies to teach students how to ask good, interesting, open questions, then all our work in the classroom will change. Students will be able to stretch themselves further in their thinking strategies as their questions encourage conversation, and, they will experience more agency as they are given increasingly more time and attention to the questions they’re asking and discussions that are coming out of those questions. If students can ask good questions, there is no limit to what kind of thinking can emerge around our information. 
“Project Zero” takes thinking a step farther. A discussion on not just thinking skills, but thinking habits.

6 Comments

  1. I loved the video you posted by Dawn Taylor! She made such a great point about how teaching in the 21st century has to be different from the past. I especially liked when she said, “there needs to be a shift from knowledge deliverers to skills and knowledge developers.” Working in higher education, I see firsthand how important it is to help students develop these skills for success in the real world. Her emphasis on teaching communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills really resonated with me, as that’s exactly what I want to focus on in my role!

    • Thank you for the role you play! It is so important to teach these skills each year I gain new freshmen it seems their collaboration and communication skills have gotten worse! Real world application is so important and something I know we focus on in higher ed but I would love to see trickle down to high school, the sooner students can see the way all that we do influences their next stage of life the better.

    • Thank you! I was excited about the idea of habits as well, it really clicked for me that we can plug in as many strategies as we want but if we aren’t actively teaching our students to do these things ON THEIR OWN, their impact is miniscule.

  3. Hi Annie, I enjoyed your post it gave me a lot to think about. I especially liked the worksheet you provided for students to use in the +1 routine. I also used this routine in my class and I think having that worksheet next time could be useful, would you mind if I made a version of it myself? Kudos to you!

    • I don’t mind at all! It’s posted to share, if you would even like, I can send you a pdf version. I would like to update it to include some kind of sentence stems or word bank next time, I think that may deepen student response. I also gained a lot of insight from your post about your student’s +1 work, so thank you for sharing!

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