It is hard to believe I only have 3 days left. It is going to be hard to leave. It is great to be part of a community. It is challenging that it is for such a short time.
I am working on encouraging critical thinking this week. I need to figure out a way to make sure the thinking is not mine but the students'. I did an exercise today trying to get students to come up with their own "criteria for judgement". They got this concept and I had a lot of different suggestions. I think I needed to organize the responses a little better because the list got too long. When I tried to focus it down to 3 points I probably didn't include everyone's ideas.
The great part of having class established criteria is that the teacher can step back as the "final judge" on the issue. The students can start deciding themselves whether or not they meet the criteria.
The fabulous part was challenging students to go deeper in their thinking. How can I ask the right questions to motivate thinking and reasoning?
I am also realizing how powerful it is to hold students accountable to the task. I like the idea of referring back to the original criteria. I'd like to practice doing this more consistently.
3 more days to practice. Better get to it!
Hey Niki!
ReplyDeleteI too have been trying to include critical thinking into my lesson plans...specifically to my history classes... (yay Garfield!) Some areas are easier to include critical thinking than others... Some lessons I've been so proud of ... but with others, I'm like- 'what was I thinking?'.... I've also tried to incorporate a constructivist approach to a lot of my lessons as well. It's never easy but I do think that my students learn more when my lesson's push them to communicate their own thinking...
Anyway... great to hear that you are putting Garfield's sound advice to work!... Can't wait to see you and hear your stories!...
x
Hey Niki,
ReplyDeleteI get what you are saying about the critical thinking component. I have been looking at critical thinking too, specifically when it comes to reading a text (like a math problem) and trying to figure out what is the question asking. I try to model, outloud, a problem solving techniques and steps that the kids can use when apparaching different kinds of word problems. Some of it seems to be sticking...the kids are getting better at recognizing what is being asked of them.
I agree with you when you say that the students learn more when the lesson requires them to think more independently.