The Picture Me Thinking Model
Structure for Integrating Inquiry, Argumentation, and Essay Writing.
A Professional Development Short-Course for Secondary Teachers.
View a 3-minute summary video at our School Administrator Site
On-Site Online Educator Training
Picture Me Thinking is a 4-session 2-hour online video course on how to use the PMT Model to develop students' research literacy skills.
Revolutionary Inquiry Tools
The PMT Model is used to frame inquiry-based instruction. It cues cognitive strategies that help students investigate disciplinary ideas.
Powerful Writing Outcomes
The PMT Model seamlessly drives the inquiry dialogue toward argument outlines that can be used for oral presentations and essays.
Teach Students to Think Like Researchers!
The PMT Model makes the process of going from inquiry to argumentative writing explicit. It does this by scaffolding the core cognitive strategies used in professional research.
Research shows that blending inquiry-based instruction and argumentative writing instruction is the best method for advancing students' writing skills. It works because students learn how to refine their thinking before writing. (Miller, Scott & McTigue, 2018, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1170233).
The PMT Course includes video case studies that demonstrate how the PMT Model is frames inquiry-to-writing lessons in language arts, science, and social studies.
The PMT Lesson Planning Template helps teachers prepare for instruction by integrating ELA research and writing standards with direct instruction on disciplinary core concepts. Student assessments for dialogue participation and essay writing are included in the template file.
Professional Learning Communities can use the PMT Model to develop interdisciplinary inquiry lessons.
"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 PMT Model provides structure for the inquiry-to-writing process. It guides concept-based, phenomena-anchored, model-driven, and argument-driven inquiry.
The PMT Model functions as a graphic/verbal map for the inquiry-to-writing process. Graphic organizers serve as symbols and tools for core cognitive strategies. Each organizer has specific thinking scripts and vocabulary that are provided in the REESE graphic organizer templates.
Equity, Inclusion, and Differentiated Instruction
Students who read below grade level need reasoning skills broken out of reading instruction and taught explicitly. Inquiry-based instruction scaffolded by the PMT Model brings reasoning skills into a social space where students can learn from both teachers and peers. The inquiry dialogue naturally differentiates instruction because the students' ideas are taken up and refined in real time.
It's so easy to try it out!
Time-efficient and affordable at $11 per level or $44 for the full course!
Take one 30-minute level at a time or use the full course to form a professional learning community.
The four-level PMT Course will be in your library for 18 months, so you can review any level at anytime!
