Group items tagged

Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself. Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking. This is a very good site to study the meaning behind the terms. What do we mean by critical thinking? How do we know when students are engaged in it? What are the outcomes of teaching critical thinking?

Older article saying technology may be changing our ability to read, think, and produce deep works.

I've honestly never considered this before. Whether you agree with the chart's conclusions is obviously open for discussion, but the chart left me thinking about specifically WHY we assign HW and what we should be doing about it.

Given technology, can homework be used as a means to (a) differentiate assessment, (b) have students demonstrate understanding via a different modality, (c) scaffold learning to further enhance the classroom experience. For a while, Howard Gardner experimented at Harvard with assigning his lectures as homework. Students watched videos and then came to class prepared to engage in discussion. Could a similar approach be taken at the high school level?

Chris: I think this flow chart is very interesting and worthy of considerable discussion. I like it. I would tweak it a bit. For example, I think you could (and should) give application homework that is formative as well as summative. I think all types of homework that fit with all six levels of Bloom's taxonomy could be given both formatively and summatively. The only homework that should be "graded" is homework that leads to end-of-learning assessment. If the homework is given in the process of learning, then it should not be graded but should receive feedback, both from the instructor as well as from the student(s).

Tim Brown's article on Design Thinking in the Harvard Business Review. What does the subject of "design thinking" have to contribute to the field of education? A topic of considerable interest to educators.

An interesting 'blog from Stanford's Keith Devlin (NPR's Math Guy) who is documenting his thinking as he prepares to offer a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) on Mathematical Thinking.  This is an incredibly compelling read if you are interested in transition issues from secondary to college, the future potential of online courses, and/or mathematics education.

Great TED talk on design thinking. We used the process in the Lovett workshop this weekend.

I don't know all the places this could be used, but the graph in this article contains a STUNNING amount of information. I think the math is obvious, but I envision some phenomenal social science lessons, technology insights, the evolution of science, the implied connections to the ability of societies to spread information, the differences in cost of the various innovations and why that matters .... Hope you find something cool.

Admittedly, peer grading is not the same as grading by an expert who really knows the material. But it is better than nothing! In fact, done conscientiously, using a well designed rubric, it's a lot better than you might think, particularly when the results are compared with grading by an instructor who has a large number of assignments to grade in a limited amount of time! In some studies, students were observed to learn better when they were asked to actively assess their answers and those of their peers according to the instructor's rubric. In particular, students who self-graded using a rubric outperformed students who were graded by instructors.

Join me for a one or two- day workshop on Whole Brain Thinking: Cultivate 21st Century Creativity and Leadership at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC Wednesday & Thursday, November 30 - December 1, 2011 or Thursday, May 31 or Thursday & Friday, May 31 - June 1, 2012 Times: 9 am - 5 pm Cost: One day $225 or Two days $350 (both are tax exempt) Recent surveys indicate skills in critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration and innovation are crucial for achieving success in a global economy.

A surface-level report that might compel some students to look much deeper.

I'm a big fan of Universal Design for Learning and CAST (http://cast.org) tools. This is a great resource for instructional materials.

This article from Anthropology News discusses Prof. Michael Wesch's 2008 presentation at the Library of Congress - An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. It is worth a read, especially with regard to the last statement, "

"So, learning math is somewhat like learning to read: we can do it, but it takes time and effort, and requires mastering increasingly complex skills and con- tent. Just about everyone will get to the point where they can read a serious newspaper, and just about everyone will get to the point where they can do high school-level algebra and geometry-even if not everyone wants to reach the point of comprehending James Joyce's Ulysses or solving partial differential equations."

This relatively new site from Discovery has some great resources for integrating STEM into the curriculum. It also gives students a look into future career paths.

While this research is interesting and may have something to say to all educators, I can't imagine teaching without the art of "asking good questions." Good questions ignite critical thinking on the part of students.

Great post I found via John Burk