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Enjoy these 6 strategies for encouraging the development of critical thinking skills in your classrooms.

"Players aged 8 and up shape the future of a new society while learning how to recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives. Players lead a new human colony on a distant planet. They must make difficult decisions in which there are no clear right or wrong answers but important consequences - to themselves, to others in the colony and to the planet Braxos. Players develop skills such as critical thinking, perspective-taking and decision-making. Quandary provides a framework for how to approach ethical decision-making without telling players what to think."

"It's challenging enough to manage a traditional learning environment where the curriculum is handed to you, and meetings are set, and you're simply there to manage; adding more ingredients to the mix seems like asking for trouble. But the truth is, it's becoming increasingly difficult to educate children in the face of such radical technological and pedagogical progression. The good news is, many of the elements of a progressive learning environment-e.g., digital literacy, connectivism, and play-conveniently, and not coincidentally, work together. And better yet, collectively they can reduce the burden on those managing the learning because they place the learner at the center. While it's possible to tack these ideas on to a traditional classroom, and then sit back and wait for the clouds to part and the sun to shine brilliantly, you'll likely be waiting a while. These aren't single tools to "try," but news ways to think about how learners access media, how educators define success, and what the roles of immense digital communities should be in popularizing new learning models. None of it is really complicated-it just requires new thinking."

"Simple, and mostly-inexpensive activities to introduce computational thinking to K-12 children." - Includes robotic cup activity for introducing coding.

"With assessment and content standards at the forefront of learning, teachers use project approaches to engage students in authentic work and develop 21st- century skills of collaboration, problem solving and critical thinking. When well-designed, project-based curriculum can yield high quality results for students and a rewarding experience for teachers."

"If you're a digital native, you should be aware that the internet may have partially rewired your brain in such a way that when you meet people face to face, you're less capable of figuring out what they're thinking."

Along with teaching students the required content, PBL teaches them skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and accountability, self-regulation, and reflection.

"The playful approach to learning a new concept that kids usually take when playing a video game can be just the right jumping-off point for diving deeply into a topic. Games can't do all the teaching, but can engage kids to start thinking. At least that's how MIT's Education Arcade and the Learning Games Network are approaching their new free game Quandary. The two groups designed the video game to teach ethics while aligning with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts for third through eighth graders."

"We have created this wiki to house all of our collective works in 21st Century Teaching and Learning (Classrooms for the Future). This is for your reference and your use. Any documents you think you would like to be stored here, let us know. Please share this with your colleagues."

Blooms Digital Taxonomy, resources & tools

Short video...difference between asking students to create "right" picture as opposed to create

"Ah, the Internet. The once magnificent and glorious tool has transformed from being a fast-paced information highway to that place where we all admit, rather begrudgingly, that we spend too much time on. Alone. We love the immediate answers, the idea of relying on Google as one aspect of our "external brain". We crave instant gratification. We make important decisions (such as impulse buys) without a second thought. We are turning into Internet speed fiends, and we are doing it alone. "

What do you think?