Understanding How the Brain Thinks Understanding How the Brain Works For 21st century success, now more than ever, students will need a skill set far beyond the current mandated standards that are evaluated on standardized tests. The qualifications for success in today's ever-changing world will demand the ability to think critically, communicate clearly, use continually changing technology, be culturally aware and adaptive, and possess the judgment and open-mindedness to make complex decisions based on accurate analysis of information. The most rewarding jobs of this century will be those that cannot be done by computers. For students to be best prepared for the opportunities and challenges awaiting them, they need to develop their highest thinking skills -- the brain's executive functions. Factory Model of Education Prepares for "Assembly Line" Jobs Automation and computerization are exceeding human ability for doing repetitive tasks and calculations, but the educational model has not changed. Climb high.
Defining Critical Thinking It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking. Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. Another Brief Conceptualization of Critical Thinking ~ Linda Elder, September, 2007
Twelve learning technologies with big education potential By Laura Devaney, Managing Editor, @eSN_Laura Read more by Laura Devaney May 22nd, 2013 Learning technologies that will become widespread and widely-implemented in a year or less: 1. Bring your own device initiatives 2. Cloud computing 3. Technologies and practices that have the potential to change teaching and learning, but that are two or three years from popular practice, include: 5. Four or five years down the line, learning technologies that may dramatically influence education include: 9. 3D printing 10. Several key factors are driving technology trends: Key challenges include: Ongoing professional development needs to be valued and integrated. The report is produced by the New Media Consortium, the Consortium for School Networking, and the International Society for Technology in Education.
What Is Design Thinking? How might we engage students more deeply in reading? -- Karen, learning specialist How might we create a classroom space that is more centered around the needs and interests of the students? -- Michael, second-grade teacher How might we create a more collaborative culture for teachers at our school? How might we connect more with our neighborhood community? How might we create a district-wide approach to curriculum that engages the 21st century learner? As educators, we are designing every single day -- whether it's finding new ways to teach content more effectively, using our classroom space differently, developing new approaches to connecting with parents, or creating new solutions for our schools. Wherever they fall on the spectrum of scale -- the challenges facing educators today are real, complex, and varied. Design Thinking is one of them. Design Thinking is a process and a mindset It's human-centered It's collaborative Designing requires conversation, critique and all-out teamwork.
Resources and Downloads for Teaching Critical Thinking Tips for downloading: PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Click here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader. Click on any title link below to view or download that file. Resources On This Page: Lesson Plans & Rubrics KIPP King Curriculum Planning Guide <img height="12" width="11" class="media-image media-element file-content-image" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content_image_breakpoints_theme_edutopia_desktop_1x/public/content/08/pdficon.gif? Back to Top Tools for Critical Thinking Scope and Sequence, Speech and Composition <img alt="" title="" class="media-image" width="11" height="12" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content_image_breakpoints_theme_edutopia_desktop_1x/public/content/08/pdficon.gif? Culture at KIPP
1352461687 6Fotolia 40346191 XS College Readiness: Reading Critically We have a generation of students that are trained to automatically trust the textbook, or for that matter, trust anything that is written. Today, many students don't know how to read things with a grain of salt. So how do we go about fixing this? Well, first we have to get them to read, then get them to read critically. Dr. Today, Mike Rose is a professor at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Between the Lines Reading has to be synonymous to thinking. With all of that creative learning juice flowing in student's brains while they read, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. We should teach students to identify concepts while they read and then judge which of them is a key concept. Have you heard of the residue of thinking? As you can see, using Cornell Notes the right way can help students read critically, which by the way helps them remember what they read. Going Digital What strategies have you found to be effective in helping students read critically?
Terrific Mini Guide to Help Stude... December 26, 2014 Questioning is the key to critical thinking and through questions students get to explore the deep layers of meanings that would otherwise go unnoticed. Of course not all questions have this analytical ability. For instance, closed questions tend to limit the thinking choices available for students. In today's post, I am sharing with you this mini guide created by Foundation of Critical Thinking which you can use with your students to help them better comprehend and apply critical thinking in their learning. I learned about this great resource from a post shared by Education to Save The World. Image credit: Foundation of Critical Thinking
Interculture and school! INTERCULTURA – non-profit, volunteer based, educational organisation, promoting intercultural learning through student exchanges Intercultura is a non-governmental organisation, recognised by the Italian government, operated by over 4,000 volunteers in 147 chapters all over Italy, and belonging to the international networks of AFS Intercultural Programs and of EFIL, the European Federation for Intercultural Learning. Thanks to these affiliations Intercultura has a consultative status at the Unesco and in the Council of Europe. In more than 50 countries, AFS is an international, voluntary, non-governmental, non-profit organization that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world.To learn more about AFS 100 years history, please start the AFS interactive timeline. The School Program abroad Class Exchanges Volunteering with Intercultura Scholarship Training
Students Evolve from Consumers to Critics and Creators Critical-thinking skills -- and fluency in multimedia production -- are integral to media literacy. Running Time: 8 min. For many students, what happens in the traditional American classroom is boring. A recent study, "Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds," found that students in grades 3-12 spend an average of six hours and twenty-one minutes plugged in to some type of media each day. For this digital generation, electronic media is increasingly seductive, influential, and pervasive, yet most schools treat the written word as the only means of communication worthy of study. Credit: Edutopia Cue the herald trumpets, and enter the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), an organization that promotes media literacy as an essential life skill. Media literacy means various things to different people, encompassing everything from the basics of graphic design to critical analysis of advertising images and news broadcasts. Credit: The Jacob Burns Film Center
intercultural education What Teachers Need to Know about Critical Thinking Vs Creative Thinking December 7, 2014 When it comes to differentiating critical thinking from creative thinking, things get a little bit blurry as there is no consensus as to what really defines these processes. This lack of consensus is particularly reflected in the various meanings creative thinking takes in different disciplines.For instance, in business and corporate world, creative thinking is synonymous with entrepreneurship, in mathematics it stands for problem solving, and in education it carries connotations of innovation. While there is no agreed upon definition for these two types of thinking, a comprehensive body of literature confirms the fact that creative and critical thinking are not identical. Also, check out this table to learn about some of the differences between creative and critical thinking. As for Umich.edu, both creative and critical thinkers use different thinking strategies: Creative Thinkers Here is a good illustrative visual on creative and critical thinking from Brain tree.
The Question Game: A Playful Way To Teach Critical Thinking The Question Game by Sophie Wrobel, geist.avesophos.de The Question Game: A Playful Way To Teach Critical Thinking Big idea: Teaching kids to ask smart questions on their own A four-year-old asks on average about 400 questions per day, and an adult hardly asks any. Our school system is structured around rewards for regurgitating the right answer, and not asking smart questions – in fact, it discourages asking questions. In A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, Warren Berger suggests that there are three main questions which help in problem solving: Why questions, What If questions, and How questions. Regardless of the question, the question needs to be phrased openly and positively in order to achieve positive results – a closed or negative question only raises bad feelings against each other. Why questions help to find the root of a problemWhat If questions open up the floor for creative solutionsHow questions focus on developing practical solutions