Look-Fors: High Operational Practices from The Pedagogy of Confidence

Identifying and Activating Student Strengths Look-Fors:

Reciprocal relationship between student and teacher

Identify what students do well
Affirmations of work ethic and effort
Asking for student opinions
Eliciting and listening to student experiences and success
Feedback is explicit

Building Relationships Look-Fors:

Affirmation of student strengths

Eliciting and listening to student experiences
Body language (open, smiling, heads up, etc.)
Listening and conversation, not just teacher directed instruction, teacher on
stage
Student story-telling
Variety of students talking, leading, answering
Encouragement of others
Collective celebrations
Positive language
Calm tone/pitch in voice

Eliciting HIP Look-Fors:

Application of complex thinking in processes to expand on, elaborate on, or

create new knowledge, products, or ways of doing things
Driven by the Habits of Mind which include: persisting, managing impulsivity,
listening with empathy, thinking flexibly, thinking about thinking, striving for
accuracy, questioning and posing problems, applying past knowledge to new
situations, thinking and communicating with clarity and precision, gathering data
through all sense, creating, imagining, innovating responding with wonderment
and awe, taking responsible risks, finding humor, thinking interdependently,
remaining open to continuous learning

Adapted from Cathryn Peterson

Providing Enrichment Look-Fors:

Experiences that reinforce strengths and nurture interests

Exposure through exploratory activities
Use of activities to promote development of higher order thinking skills
Opportunities to apply personal interests in real inquiry or real-problem oriented
activities

Integrating Prerequisites for Academic Learning Look-Fors:

Explicit instruction of cognitive skills and development of conceptual

understanding prior to independent tasks
Students are exposed to the skills and conceptual ideas in a variety of ways

Situating Learning in the Lives of Students Look-Fors:

Context and relevance is provided to students

Examples and stories are relevant to the students lives
Students can connect with/to the examples
Activities activate and build upon student prior knowledge and frame of
reference

Amplifying Student Voice Look-Fors:

Student perspective is shared

Students respond to teacher perspectives
Dialogue and discourse with the teacher to analyze or intervene with real life
issues that affect students
Students have ability to de-center and consider ideas of others
Critical thinking to include: synthesizing, hypothesizing, theorizing, generalizing,
and determining cause and effect relationship regarding issues
Questioning and cueing
Partner/Group work, with the sharing out of ideas
Listing/Documenting of student ideas
Students explaining, storytelling, questioning, etc.
Many students sharing ideas (race, gender, etc.)

Adapted from Cathryn Peterson