Critical Thinking at Forest Green/CFL

Sophia is a grade five student who took the challenge of  reworking a news story told by one of her peers during our opening exercises.

Sophia writes:

How did it come about you ask?

Well my mom said to me. “Do you have a story in your head yet?”

And I answered, “No I will ask my teacher when I go to school tomorrow,”

The next day at school I forgot to ask but I didn’t have to ask because…  Joe brought a mini cactus for show-and-tell or news items. Then that got everyone talking, including Mrs. Rutland.

She told us the story about the time she got a cactus. She loves cactus because they are easy to care for and she doesn’t have to water them that much.  But she was in for a big surprise! After a few weeks, not even, it started to grow in all different directions! It took over her house. No matter how hard she tried it just kept growing and attaching itself to things.

Mrs. Rutland challenged the class to do a critical thinking activity, rework the piece.

I took the challenge and wrote Mrs. Rutland and The Cactus. I wrote four chapters and will share parts of my story with you.

………First the kids had to make a chart showing how much the cactus grew each day. Second the students had to draw illustrations to show how it looked and last of all…water, just a little.

…….the cactus grew…..she unlocked her door and the classroom was covered in some sort of vine.

…………Snip, snap, snip, snap with the giant scissors. Plunk, plunk, plunk into the garbage bin………….

In this instance, students were being thoughtful about a news item brought in by one of their classmates. Keeping it real helped to motivate the students to rework the piece and write stories. Critical thinking was encouraged by discussing possible solutions to the dilema of the wandering cactus.  Students love it when their teacher tells them stories and it can be a powerful approach to learning.  Combined with critical thinking tools, personal stories can be turned into valuable, teachable moments.

Grade two teachers met at Muir Lake School on February 17 to share ideas and lessons relating to critical thinking.  S. Hobbins from Forest Green, S. Matsuba from Muir Lake and D. Rutland from Stony Creek at Connections for Learning offered support and encouragement to each other in delivering critical thinking lessons in their grade two classrooms.  Some of the strategies shared included identity bags, picture mysteries, CT prompts, using criteria, counting money, CT challenges for fairy tales, best way to travel in Iqaluit, determining who is a princess and language arts activities.  Many suggestions were presented and each of the teachers committed to trying a new critical thinking activity with their students.  Collaboration is stimulating!

One of the qualities of the Master Teacher is that they conduct transformative learning with what seems to the rest of us to be little effort.  They are able to develop lessons, concepts, activities that engage students where ever they are at in their learning.  It has been my honor to work beside a number of Master Teachers over the years.  I am often in awe of their thought processes, their approach with students, and the interesting and engaging lessons they plan and deliver.

Mary Moody is a Master teacher in the very manner described above.  She is constantly searching for new ways of reaching students and challenging them to dig a little deeper into their growing tool kit to solve problems, build skills, and express their learning.  Most recently, Mrs. Moody showed me a Math lesson that challenges students to see the connections between the various operations and numbers. 

Now, anyone can create a worksheet designed to teach operations and number sense.  But Mrs. Moody’s circles are open ended.    They are like soduko ramped up.  With a soduko, there is only one possible solution, with Mrs. Moody’s Math Circles, the possibilities are endless.  Students who are still at an emergent stage with operations can complete the circle with the operations they know, while advanced students are challenged to include exponents, square roots, and higher operations.  The instructions for each group of learners are directed at their ability level, but the same circle applies to all.  This is differentiation as it was intended.  It is not a case of each student having an entirely separate lesson plan, but students being able to work together on a project, each at their own ability level.

Mrs. Moody with a simple number relation circle

Mrs. Moody begins with a simple “net”, with the only “clue” being the number “1″.  The student was given the direction to complete the net using BEDMAS, the order of operations.  The student was allowed to add circles to the net, but could not delete any.  The following is one result:

A completed number relations net

One of the teacher’s from Connections For Learning, M. A., joined the AISI lead teacher cohort for PD in January. In this session we worked in small groups to create Language Arts critical challenges. M. worked with a group to create a critical challenge titled,” Powerful Persuasive Advertising”. It is a “perform to specs” challenge. As well, in the afternoon we were joined by a TC2 specialist via Elluminate and Google Docs. She offered additional support and helped us “tweek” our critical challenges.  At the end of the day several critical challenge lessons plans were completed in rough draft. It is great to see new teachers join in on the collaborative work that we are doing.

Many of the Stony Creek families are using critical thinking skills in the home program.  Families are familiar with using criteria to make a reasoned judgement.  To take it one step further, parents were invited to try one of the patterns in the form that critical challenges may take as noted by the Critical Thinking Consortium: critique the piece, judge the better or best, rework the piece, decode the puzzle, design to specs and perform to specs.  Several families shared their experiences at the February PAC.

Decode the puzzle and design to specs.

One parent is using a story board with six pictures to have her daughter and a friend collaboratively write a story.  Criteria is being developed for the students to use during the writing process. This is a wonderful project for these grade two girls and everyone is looking forward to hearing about what they do next. 

Rework the piece and design to specs

A grade two student used a story from the Magic Tree House series to do a rework the piece challenge. He developed criteria with his mother in the form of a story graph. The editing and rewriting was also completed using criteria. The end product, a book, is really very impressive!

Design to specs and decode the puzzle

A family newspaper was produced by a sister and brother in grades four and six. It was really well planned and they even had a “decode the puzzle” activity for the reader.  The “Guess Who?” article gave clues for the reader to solve a mystery.  It was very well done!

Judge the better or best

After reading a book about princesses, a grade two student created criteria for a princess. Her criteria stated that a princess is kind, helpful and smart. She made a chart showing people that met each of the criteria and gave examples for each.  It was so precious when she was able to say that her mom was a princess because she met the criteria.

It is exciting to see our parents assisting the students in developing the tools for learning and for good thinking.  We certainly are building a community of thinkers in the Stony Creek program!

 Stony Creek parents reviewed the following definition of critical thinking at the January PAC: “To think critically is essentially to engage in deliberations with the intention of making a judgement based on appropriate criteria.  Critical thinking offers an effective and motivating way for students to learn. It engages students in their learning and helps to provide a deeper understanding. “  

Parents then took part in a “judge the better or best” mapping activity and also matched sample critical challenges with critical thinking prompts.  A challenge was put to parents to use one of the following prompts at home with their children before the PAC in February: critique the piece, judge the better or best, rework the piece, decode the puzzle, design to specs or perform to specs.

We are looking forward to families sharing what they tried at the next PAC.

Learning math to communicate ideas and solve problems in an authentic context will help students succeed in mathematics. Students need to see that mathematics is everywhere and that it is an important way to communicate ideas.  Mathematics is a form of literacy.

“I can take something in mathematical form and communicate it in written form.”

But, students need to see the value in communicating these ideas. That is why it is so important for students to make connections to math. How often have we heard students ask, “Why are we learning this?”  Students will be engaged if math provides meaning for them.  

In the following critical challenge groups of students are provided with the same amount of change and asked to determine the most effective method to come up with $1.75. Perhaps a real life application could be to ask students to determine the most effective method to come up with $1.75 to be used at a penny carnival. Another application could be to determine the most effective method to come up with $1.75 in the least amount of coins to be carried for shopping at the mall. The last two examples provide relevance for the students and make the learning meaningful. The challenges should be based on criteria.  In each of the challenges, every individual can be successful at the task no matter how they get there.  Students can show their learning by writing about it in the math journal.  Reflective writing is a way to show understanding that is supported by evidence.

Students need to see that math is everywhere.  Connections can be made to math from stories, pictures, videos, role playing, newspaper articles, manipulatives, issues, and everyday activities. We can instill meaning in math for our students by making it relevant for them.

Never underestimate the power of motivation. Students are quick to ask, “Why bother? How does this apply to me? Why are we learning this?” If we want students to be motivated to learn, they must be engaged in the learning experience. It is more interesting to solve a problem, read an unknown conclusion or figure out a puzzling situation than it is to complete a worksheet or just answer comprehension questions. We can engage our students by embedding critical thinking into our teaching practices.

Critical thinking challenges learners to assess or judge from possible options based on criteria. The Critical Thinking Consortium has described six ways that a critical challenge may take.  Teachers can create critical challenges by asking students to critique the piece, judge the better or best, rework the piece, decode the puzzle, design to specs or perform to specs. These challenges invite students to reflect about curricular content rather than just memorize it. Let’s use critical thinking as a way of teaching the content so that our students are engaged in their learning. It should not be something that is added on to our teaching load, rather, an approach that motivates and provides students with tools needed to understand the subject matter.

What is Self-Reflective Writing?  And why should we do it?

Self-reflection is something we all do.  We are thinkers.  We think back over things that we have said or done, and make decisions or judgments.  Unfortunately,  self-reflection can become mostly self-criticism, but it doesn’t need to be that way.  Self-reflection can help us move forward.

Regular self-reflection helps us discover where we are, where we have been, and where we are going.  Learners need to be doing this all the time.

At Forest Green/CFL, we are taking a new look at how students are assessed.  Yes, there is still the role of teacher as guide and evaluator.  The teacher provides the learning environment and gives the student regular feedback.  But we are also interested in inviting the student into the process.

Self-reflection is self-assessment.  Self-reflection can be critical thinking.  When a student takes a good hard look at their work, and using criteria, decides where they are at, that is thinking critically.  We need students to take ownership.  Once again, assessment is not something that should be done to students, but it should be something that is done with students.  When students think carefully, critically, and creatively about their own progress, they are engaged in their learning.  Self-reflection helps us to develop goals and to gauge our progress over time.  We all know that the best progress is made when the individual sets the goal for themselves, instead of being directed by others.

All right, so we may take the time to think about our own growth, but why write about it?  Self-reflective writing is a way to demonstrate to others that we are thinking critically about our progress, that we are setting goals, and that we are moving forward.  Some people blog about their growth.  Some write captions under their work.  Some people keep their self-reflections private, and simply revisit these reflections from time to time in order to celebrate their own progress.  Writing is always a way to explore and organize thoughts.

Does it take practice to write reflectively?  Absolutely.  To get you started, consider asking yourself when looking at your work:

What have I created here?  What have I learned?  If I could do it again, what would I do differently?   If I had more time, what would I add?  What am I proud of in this work?  How does this work measure up to the criteria given?  How does doing this work inform my future?  What are my strengths, and what are my goals?