Thinking

Key Questions: How can students think critically? How can students be creative? How can students transfer skills and knowledge across disciplines and subject groups?

Skills Clusters: Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Transfer Skills

Brainstorming.pdf

D.O.V.E. Brainstorming Model

Goal: Students will learn four concepts to keep in mind while brainstorming.
Task: [See Variation for suggestions]
Reflection: How can you practice each concept in everyday life? Focus on one element -- Which do you struggle with? Why? Which are easy? Why?
Variation: Explicit Teaching - Use Cornell Notes for direct teaching of these concepts. Implicit Teaching - Have students assess brainstorm lists, mind maps, etc. generated in class against this list to find room for improvement or to help writer's block.

Millennium Development Goals Activity

Goal: Understand what the ATL Skills are and how they can be used in a real-life scenario.
Task: Your group is responsible for one of the eight Millennium Goals. You will explore this through a skills-based perspective. In your group, use ATL Skills Outline to determine which of the Skills Practices you would need to use to develop solutions to this global issue. List (or check off) the skills you think are appropriate and feel free to add any skills you believe are needed but not listed.
Reflection: How would working on these specific skills change your classroom experience? Are they any skills you would need that are not included in the ATL Skills Outline?
Variation: Students can present their lists to others in a creative way.

Visible Thinking Routines (various)

Goal: "Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning. By thinking dispositions, we mean curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, a creative mindset, not just being skilled but also alert to thinking and learning opportunities and eager to take them" (http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/)
Task: There are core visible thinking routines listed on the site such as
- Think Pair Share: "Think Pair Share involves posing a question to students, asking them to take a few minutes of thinking time and then turning to a nearby student to share their thoughts."
- I use to think...But now, I think: "Remind students of the topic you want them to consider. It could be the ideal itself--fairness, truth, understanding, or creativity--or it could be the unit you are studying. Have students write a response using each of the sentence stems:
Variation: In addition to Core Routines, there are thinking routines for Understanding, Fairness, Truth, and Creativity. Thinking Routines (available in PDF version, too)
Resource: Visible Thinking Routines Website

Report abuse