All Things CLASS

Good afternoon Class Community, 

I am searching for clarity on how Montessori and CLASS line up for Concept Development. The following information was gathered from the Montessori podcast and articles on Montessori and CLASS. 

CLASS definition for CD is: Measures the teachers' use of instructional support discussions and activities to promote students' higher-order thinking skills and cognition and the teacher's focus on understanding rather than rote instruction. 

"Children build higher-order thinking skills (Concept Development) when they are working in geography by not only placing the pieces of a puzzle of countries where they belong but also matching them with their flags and capitals, and then getting deeper into research about their climate, flora, fauna, language, culture, similarities, and much more. This allows for integrating previous knowledge, investigating for new information, and relating it to personal experiences." (How CLASS and Montessori Work in Unison ) March 6 2019 by Monica Pujol-Nassif

Casey Cicak wrote on another thread: "The biggest challenge for a Montessori room regarding CLASS is that they may look like they aren't involved with the children. The philosophy of Montessori is huge on respecting the child's learning path and not controlling the learning pattern. Children are the authors' of their learning, and most Montessori teachers will not step over that line during a child's work cycle. They will wait until after the child is finished to comment or ask questions. In this way, they look like they are on the outside of things rather than in the midst of it. However, they are typically watching and waiting and available for the children as a resource and guide only..."

Here is the where I would like to hear what others think. Since CLASS is looking for the teacher to guide the exploration, if , during independent lesson time, some activities provided children opportunities to solve problems (e.g., locks and key activity and nuts and bolt matching). Children occasionally had opportunities to work on activities to classify and sort, for example, picture matching activities such as sorting items to match pictures (e.g., sorting toy animals to pictures of habitats such as land, air, and sea) and sorting shape figures to match the pictures of the shapes. If the teachers were not a part of these activities then would they count as Analysis and reasoning? Also, would the independent tasks like pouring egg erasers between jugs, transferring large plastic eggs with thongs, and self-care skills like buttoning, zipping, and fastening belt buckles count for connections to real life since the teacher was not making "intentional efforts to make the learning meaningful by helping students apply their thinking to real-world events and by covering concepts and ideas that are part of the students everyday experiences". 

Thoughts?

Montessori and Concept Development is difficult because as mentioned the teachers wait for a child to ask for help, watching and waiting, but available. in the PreK manual under MID for Analysis and Reasoning it states "Occasional opportunities may exist for students to compare and contract ideas, materials, and so forth. For example, the teacher may set up a center in which students can categorize objects  that are similar by color, shape, or size; however, he does not facilitate the activity or introduce it in such a way that students get the most out of it.".