Picture Me Thinking
A research-based model for scaffolding the inquiry-to-writing process.
On-Site Online Educator Training
Picture Me Thinking is a 2-hour online video course that demonstrates how to use the PMT Model to frame inquiry-to-writing instruction. It is valuble for grades 5-12 academic educators.
Revolutionary Inquiry Tools
The Picture Me Thinking Model serves as a graphic/verbal map that facilitates the core cognitive strategies used for inquiry and writing by professional researchers across disciplines.
Powerful Writing Outcomes
The PMT Model makes the parallel paths of inquiry and writing transparent. The Model helps students translate inquiry problems and solutions into argument outlines for essays.
Thinking is a Pre-Skill for Essay Writing
Research shows that blending inquiry-based instruction and writing instruction is the best method for improving students' argumentative writing, because reasoning is modeled and refined during the inquiry dialogue. (Miller, Scott & McTigue, 2018, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1170233).
The PMT Model helps student groups stay on track as they investigate disciplinary concepts and apply them to real world problems. Writing about their process and findings solidifies students' understanding of disciplinary ideas.
The PMT Course includes video demonstrations of how to use the PMT Model to frame inquiry-to-writing instruction and how to sequence and scaffold the inquiry dialogue.
The PMT Lesson Planning template lists the ELA standards for inquiry and writing that are met by instruction framed by the Model. Teachers can chose the disciplinary concepts to investigate from science or social studies standards.
Having a consistent model for the inquiry-to-writing process, across grades and subjects, makes it easier for teachers to collaborate on lesson planning within or across disciplines. Collaborating with peers improves inquiry instruction skills.
"The PMT Model makes inquiry explicit!" Linda Darling Hammond, Ph.D., Stanford GSE, Founder of SCOPE.
"The PMT Model makes it easy to use multi-media content to engage students in learning!" Urban Ed. Professor J. Mahiri, Ph.D, U.C. Berkeley GSE.
The Picture Me Thinking Model
"The DNA of the Inquiry-to-Writing Process"
The Model functions as a graphic/verbal map for the inquiry-to-writing process. Graphic organizers serve as both symbols and tools for specific cognitive strategies. Each strategy has specific thinking scripts and vocabulary.
The PMT Model provides structure for inquiry-based instruction; including concept-based, phenomena-anchored, model-driven and argument-driven inquiry. As the demonstration videos in the course show, the PMT Model makes all these instructional approaches cohesive.
Equity, Inclusion, and Differentiated Instruction
Students who read below grade level need reasoning skills broken out of reading instruction and taught explicitly. Socially-situated inquiry meets this need because teachers and peers model and refine their reasoning during inquiry.
Consistent scaffolding makes it easier for diverse learners to participate in the inquiry dialogue. Further, the inquiry dialogue naturally differentiates instruction because the students' ideas are the focus of instruction.
It's so easy to see how it works !
Time-efficient and affordable, at $11 per level or $44 for the full four-level course!
Take one level at a time or use the full course to form a professional learning community.
The PMT Course will be in your library for 18 months, so you can review any level anytime!
