Planning Considerations:
This thinking routine asks students to think about a topic or issue that may be approached differently in other communities or nations.
This routine can be used to think about several issues or topics, but it works particularly well when analyzing current events. The amount of time this takes depends on the topic or issue you are asking students to look at. If the topic or issues requires a lot of background knowledge, then there may be several class periods allocated to this before the thinking routine can be effectively used. If the topic or issues is something that students have personal knowledge or experience with, it could be used in a shorter amount of time.
Materials:
This was incorporated into my senior government course during their Minnesota Bill Project. This project asks students to research a bill that is currently proposed in the Minnesota State Legislature. After they read and research the bill, they were asked to answer the following questions: MN Bill Background/Projecting Across Distance (the questions related to this thinking routine are in red). Students researched how the topic or issues would affect their community and how it is approached in other parts of the country and world.
Standards alignment:
MN State Social Studies Standards 9 - 12:
9.1.1.1 Demonstrate civic skills that enable people to be informed on current issues in order to monitor and influence state, local tribal, national or international affairs.
Student examples:
Recommendations:
This would be a great routine to use for any current event, but could also be used as a way to get students thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals. Students could examine any one of the goals and use this routine to think about how the issue is approached in their local community, their nation, and around the world. Making connections between the local and the global is a tough skill for students, but it is essential for teaching students to think globally.
Reflection:
This thinking routine really helped students see how policy-making in Minnesota is not happening in a vacuum. Topics and issues that are affecting our local community and state are also affecting other states and countries. It gave students a chance to compare and contrast solutions to issues across the nation and world. Researching a variety of different solutions to the same problems helped students understand two things. First, that the issues that are faced in our state are not unlike those faced by people all over the world. In other words, it helped them understand that we are more alike than different. Second, seeing several attempts at addressing a problem leads to more creative solutions for all of us.