Roosevelt Elementary School: Implications of Implementation
Long Beach, California
The implementation of Thinking Maps at my school has brought changes that not only affect student performance as shown in our results presented above, but also the quality of instruction and the culture of the school. I know that over time, I will continue to have the same high-level resultsas other schools in terms of academic performance for my students. I also know that the changes I see as Thinking Maps become a regular part of the instructional program will also become more deeply embedded in the culture of the school.
There are several dramatic changes I put forward during my first year as a principal that I regret. The implementation of Thinking Maps was not one of them. I asked my staff what they thought accounted for the growth in student achievement. Obviously, I wanted to make sure that we repeated these successful strategies. Every member of my staff responded that it was the implementation of Thinking Maps that made a significant difference in student outcomes. When we analyzed exactly how teachers used the maps, we found two patterns throughout the school. First, Thinking Maps were used across the curriculum in all grade levels including kindergarten.
Second, Thinking Maps were used to promote critical thinking skills even for students who were still acquiring English.
Heather Krstich (who taught the third-grade combination literacy class with all the third-grade retainees and fourth-grade very limited Englishlanguage learners) suggested that the reason that the Thinking Maps helped was because it gave the students a cohesive feeling across all the curriculums. "The students did not feel [that the curriculum] was so segmerited. They were able to focus on their thinking instead of on individual activities in each of the curricula. Thinking Maps gave the students a systematic approach to thinking that they can use over the years." She added that the English-language learners in her classroom had a cohesive strategy built on the language of the maps. "The maps have such a consistent language that students were able to concentrate on their thinking rather than what they were doing."
With this experience of implementing Thinking Maps, I also now have a standard by which I can compare other professional development trainings and other changes I plan to promote at Roosevelt Elementary School. This standard includes implementing changes that successfully affect student academic outcomes, teacher learning, reflection, accountability, and the school climate as effectively as this common language for learning, teaching, and assessing.
We now have this new standard in our school-including for our students-because we have a first language for thinking, whether it be in a first or second language for speaking and writing. This language will help us to think and act on complex problems-such as how to transform and continually grow in an inner-city environment-with the confidence that we will be able to see more clearly each other's thinking.
More information about Roosevelt Elementary School is part of the book Student Successes With Thinking Maps — read excerpts from this chapter and other chapters about the student successes.