Picture Me Thinking
Scaffolding the Inquiry-to-Writing Process
The evidence-based Picture Me Thinking Model helps teachers and students structure their thinking and collaborations during inquiry and writing instruction across academic disciplines.
On-Site Online Educator Training
Picture Me thinking is a 2.5 hour online video course for grades five through high school academic educators. Each of the five levels contains 2 to 4 videos and takes 30 minutes.
Revolutionary Inquiry Tools
The Picture Me Thinking Model is a research-based system of scaffolding for the inquiry-to-writing process. It is used to structure inquiry into disciplinary core concepts across subjects.
Powerful Writing Outcomes
The Picture Me Thinking Model builds the core cognitive strategies that facilitate collaborative inquiry, and focuses students on problem solving and building arguments for essays.
Professional Learning Communities
Thinking is a pre-skill for learning and writing.
Instruction framed by the PMT model teaches students how to think about disciplinary core concepts and apply them in problem-solving tasks during collaborative inquiry.
Research has shown that blending inquiry instruction and writing instruction is the best method for improving students' writing because it promotes reasoning. (Miller, Scott & McTigue, 2018, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1170233)
When all students, from middle school through high school, know how to use the same robust model, they arrive ready to jump into collaborating on inquiry and writing projects.
When teachers use the PMT model to frame inquiry-to-writing instruction, across grades and subjects, collaborating on interdisciplinary lesson planning is more productive.
The PMT course makes it easy for educators to scaffold the inclusion of diverse learners in inquiry-to-writing instruction in grades 5-12. The PMT Tools can serve as a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and as an MTSS for writing.
The Picture Me Thinking Model
"The DNA of the Inquiry-to-Writing Process"
The graphic/verbal PMT Model makes the structure and core cognitive strategies used for the inquiry-to-writing process explicit. The model simplifies the universal structure of scientific research and makes it transparent. The Model cues students to outline evidence-supported arguments for essays during their collaborative inquiry.
Each organizer has its own thinking scripts and connecting vocabulary that cue the steps in the inquiry process. The PMT model can frame student-initiated inquiries, scaffold published curriculum, or use standards-based concepts. It also makes it easy to frame investigations into multimedia content from Internet sources and short documentary films.
The PMT Model structures inquiry that is phenomenon-based, model-driven, argument-driven, and concept-based, and makes these approaches transparent and cohesive.
Equity, Inclusion, and Differentiated Instruction
Students who read below grade level need age-level reasoning skills taught explicitly. Socially-situated inquiry is the best forum for this because students learn from their teachers and peers as they model reasoning and language. Further, the dialogue provides context for academic reading.
The PMT tools support inclusion of all students in the CCR goals for reasoning, research, and essay writing. Lesson planning, observation, and coaching tools are included.
As more student trajectories shift toward vocational schools, it becomes increasingly important for public education to provide all students with the higher-order thinking skills traditionally taught in universities. Thinking is a life skill!
The Course Videos Provide Case-Study Demonstrations
It's so easy to try out!
Time-efficient and affordable, at $9 per level or $39 for the full five-level course!
Take one level at a time, at your own pace, or use the course to collaborate with peers.
The PMT Course will be in your library for 18 months. You can review sections anytime!
The object of teaching is to enable the child to learn without the teacher.
