Thinking Skills - Living Sources

Overview:

Living Sources is the generic title for Living Graphs, Living Tables, Living Pictures, Living Maps, Living Diagrams, Living Models, Living Cartoons and Living Text. These strategies support the active construction of real world meaning. Pupils work collectively to place cards in the most appropriate place on any one of the sources above. They are encouraged to suggest hypotheses and give reasons for opinions or deductions. To be successful they need to think beyond what appears on the page.

Thinking skills objectives:

Make sure you have a thinking skill objective for the lesson.
Tell pupils what the objective is at the beginning of the lesson and refer to it throughout.

Thinking skills you can develop through a Living Source lesson are:

Information Processing
Reasoning

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Task management:

A: Groupings

Groups of 3 or 4 pupils works well
Make sure they are sitting so that they can all read the cards easily.

B: Sources:

This versatile strategy can be applied in all subjects throughout the age range.

C: Role of the teacher:

Eavesdrop carefully on the pupils to check that all can get on with the task. Avoid interfering in any group. Leave them to ‘struggle’ – this is cognitive challenge. If a group is really stuck, try to move their thinking on by asking a question rather than telling them the answer.
Eavesdrop and make a few notes of interesting comments and different ideas for use in the plenary later.

D: Timings:

This can vary according to the complexity of the source, the number of cards to be placed and the nature of the teaching group.
It will usually take the whole of an hour long lesson to complete and debrief fully.

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Metacognitive plenary:

In the metacognitive plenary you need to include questions like:

Did you decide on a strategy for reading the cards?
Where did you place the card?
Why do you think that? Go on. Tell me more.
Does anybody disagree/have a different idea/want to add to that idea?
Can you link what you have just said to another idea?
How has this strategy helped you?
Where else in school might it be useful?
Where might it be useful in the wider world?

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Assessment for learning:

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Examples of lessons:

Click on the subject button for a list of materials. Each lesson will have a brief summary of how the teacher intended it to be used and copyright free resources. In some instances the teacher concerned has indicated where the resource used might be found.

PE
Science

Have you prepared a thinking skills lesson that has worked well for you and that you are prepared to share?

If so please complete the attached form [Word 35KB ]

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