Activity 1: Challenges of Tomorrow
In this task we worked together to first learn about 21st Century skills. We discussed challenges our students will face in the future and how we as teachers will help them to deal with these challenges. We worked together to share ideas and together used the website flipgrid to show our ideas. You can see all of our videos here. Please use the code: 292659dc
Alternatively, you can view the transcript of my video below.
Alternatively, you can view the transcript of my video below.
Encouraging critical thinking in the classroom
Critical thinking is a skill which is going to be vital for the citizens of tomorrow. This means that we need to equip our students with these skills, so they will be prepared for the future. Along with creativity, collaboration and communication, critical thinking is one of the ‘4Cs’ of the 21st Century. Critical thinking can be summarized as finding solutions to problems. Just a look at all the ‘fake news’ and misinformation spreading around online these days will show you why it’s such an important skill to have. Critical thinking is an important quality for someone to have in any industry, be it health sciences, business or architecture.
So how can we implement and encourage more critical thinking in the classroom? Sadly, education often takes a one-size-fits-all approach and teachers only give students one correct way to answer a question. When possible, teachers should design activities which don’t have just one answer, or way to get to the answer. Teachers should encourage multiple solutions and make sure to showcase the different ways students achieve a goal.
I’m going to present some strategies and activities which teachers can use in the classroom to encourage critical thinking.
Firstly, it’s important to teach young students to distinguish between fact and opinion. Playing fun games such as moving to the left of the class if the teacher says a fact and the right for an opinion is a good way to first approach this. You can even have students lead the activity in groups. After they have worked on factual writing and opinion writing, combine them to be able to give an opinion with supporting facts.
A simple thing to do is to wait 5 seconds before choosing a student to answer a question. Don’t just choose the first student to raise their hand. This conditions students to answer quickly, rather than creatively. Waiting a few seconds allows time for all students to think and for different, deeper opinions to form. Additionally, when a student answers, don’t tell the class if they were correct or not, but ask the class if they think the student was right and why. Even if the student was right, ask if there are any other opinions or ways the problem could be solved.
Debating is a fun way to foster critical thinking. Even with younger students such as my grade 4 class, they have strong opinions about which book, movie or band is best and love to convince others of their point of view. The teacher can play devil’s advocate and really make students work to convince you of their point of view. An extension of this is to assign people an opinion they disagree with and have them argue in favor of it. From my experience, students find this really difficult and don’t like doing it initially, but after a few sessions, there’s a switch and they start to love arguing a point that they don’t necessarily agree with and you start to see them approaching problems from multiple angles and points of view. This just shows to me that critical thinking is a skill that we can learn, rather it be something that we are born with or without
Two similar activities which I have yet to try are the believing game and the doubting game. In the Believing Game you give your students a quote or topic, then students think of supports and critiques. The doubting game is the same, but students question the quote or topic and pursue it from a critical point of view. I think these activities would work better for older students.
Having students read two different articles about the same topic, but from contrasting points of view also helps with critical thinking. A fun example for younger students is to flip a fairy tale on its head and tell it from an other perspective. Eg a tired wolf just trying to find a friend, but getting bullied by the three little pigs. For older students, you can find newspapers from two different countries and how they report on the same global event. An extension of this activity is to have students write two contrasting articles from different points of view about the same topic.
In summary, critical thinking is a vital 21st century skill and needs to be fostered inside our classrooms. We are responsible for developing the next generation of critical thinking youth and we mustn't shy away from this challenge.
Critical thinking is a skill which is going to be vital for the citizens of tomorrow. This means that we need to equip our students with these skills, so they will be prepared for the future. Along with creativity, collaboration and communication, critical thinking is one of the ‘4Cs’ of the 21st Century. Critical thinking can be summarized as finding solutions to problems. Just a look at all the ‘fake news’ and misinformation spreading around online these days will show you why it’s such an important skill to have. Critical thinking is an important quality for someone to have in any industry, be it health sciences, business or architecture.
So how can we implement and encourage more critical thinking in the classroom? Sadly, education often takes a one-size-fits-all approach and teachers only give students one correct way to answer a question. When possible, teachers should design activities which don’t have just one answer, or way to get to the answer. Teachers should encourage multiple solutions and make sure to showcase the different ways students achieve a goal.
I’m going to present some strategies and activities which teachers can use in the classroom to encourage critical thinking.
Firstly, it’s important to teach young students to distinguish between fact and opinion. Playing fun games such as moving to the left of the class if the teacher says a fact and the right for an opinion is a good way to first approach this. You can even have students lead the activity in groups. After they have worked on factual writing and opinion writing, combine them to be able to give an opinion with supporting facts.
A simple thing to do is to wait 5 seconds before choosing a student to answer a question. Don’t just choose the first student to raise their hand. This conditions students to answer quickly, rather than creatively. Waiting a few seconds allows time for all students to think and for different, deeper opinions to form. Additionally, when a student answers, don’t tell the class if they were correct or not, but ask the class if they think the student was right and why. Even if the student was right, ask if there are any other opinions or ways the problem could be solved.
Debating is a fun way to foster critical thinking. Even with younger students such as my grade 4 class, they have strong opinions about which book, movie or band is best and love to convince others of their point of view. The teacher can play devil’s advocate and really make students work to convince you of their point of view. An extension of this is to assign people an opinion they disagree with and have them argue in favor of it. From my experience, students find this really difficult and don’t like doing it initially, but after a few sessions, there’s a switch and they start to love arguing a point that they don’t necessarily agree with and you start to see them approaching problems from multiple angles and points of view. This just shows to me that critical thinking is a skill that we can learn, rather it be something that we are born with or without
Two similar activities which I have yet to try are the believing game and the doubting game. In the Believing Game you give your students a quote or topic, then students think of supports and critiques. The doubting game is the same, but students question the quote or topic and pursue it from a critical point of view. I think these activities would work better for older students.
Having students read two different articles about the same topic, but from contrasting points of view also helps with critical thinking. A fun example for younger students is to flip a fairy tale on its head and tell it from an other perspective. Eg a tired wolf just trying to find a friend, but getting bullied by the three little pigs. For older students, you can find newspapers from two different countries and how they report on the same global event. An extension of this activity is to have students write two contrasting articles from different points of view about the same topic.
In summary, critical thinking is a vital 21st century skill and needs to be fostered inside our classrooms. We are responsible for developing the next generation of critical thinking youth and we mustn't shy away from this challenge.