Cheryl LemkeMetiri Group

Critical Thinking and Problem SolvingClinic Sessions – Examples of Practice

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

TODAY

• What is it?

• Why is it important?

TOMORROW

•How can you develop it in students, teachers, administrators, community?

1 The WHAT…the WHY… ELEVATOR SPEECHES?

Critical Thinking

…the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome.

…bewildered by difficult ideas…

“subjunctive tenses in English, Hamlet’ indecision, Archimedes’ principle of displacement, why it’s hotter in the summer, how slavery could have taken such a strong hold in the South.”

Our most important choice is what we try to teach, not how we teach it.”

- David Perkins, Harvard University

The Solution…

Empowering re engagement of students in learning through a combination of critical thinking, multimodal learning, relevancy, student-centered learning.

LongTermMemory

IntegrativeThinking

NewUnderstanding

Dual Memory ChannelsBased on Models of Working Memory By Myake and Shah (1999)

Cued Text/Sound Memories

Sights&

Sounds

AttentionIntegrativeThinking

NewUnderstanding

WorkingMemory

Text/Sounds

Visuals

Cued Visual Memories

Balance focus on HOTS and Basics

Intelligence and critical thinking can be developed

Intelligence

ExperientialIntelligence•Fields•Situations•Contexts

ReflectiveIntelligence• Dispositions• Challenges• Technical

Neural Intelligence

•Tools•Techniques

Key Models

• Diane Halpern

• Tishman and Perkins

• deBono’s CoRT

Diane Halpern

1.What is the Goal?

4. Have You Reached Your Goal?

Reflection

3. Which Thinking Skills Will Get You To Your Goal?

•Deductive Reasoning•Argument Analysis•Hypothesis Testing•Uses of Probability•Decision Making•Problem Solving•Creative Thinking

Challenges2. What is Known?

Dispositions

Success

Yes

No

Smart Schools (Perkins)

1.“Theory One.” Principles of teaching and learning.

2. Pedagogy of Understanding. Generative content.

3. The metacurriculum. HOTS, transfer, intellectual passion.

4. Distributed intelligence. Collaboration. Tools extentions.

5. Cognitive Economy. Hot cognitive economies.

2 Critical Thinking in Practice… Teaching for Understanding

Teaching for Understanding

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Video:http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/framewk/efp/align/efpalisu.htm

Critical Thinking: Grades 1-2

International Projects

http://www.iearn.org

Remember your algebra teacher…

IMMEX

Rights to publish Movie not available

IMMEX

• Online problem sets - (9) mathematics

• Problem sets consist of a number of cases that students solve

• The step-by-step decisions that each student or group makes while problem-solving are tracked in a search-path map

http://immex.ucla.edu

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video decompressorare needed to see this picture.

WISEWeb-based Integrated Science Environment

• How far does light go?• How safe are airbags?• Should you eat

genetically modified food?

• Why are frogs showing up deformed all over the world?

http://wise.berkeley.edu

Web-based Integrated Science Environment

http://wise.berkeley.com

SimCalchttp://www.simcalc.umassd.edu/

SimCalc

http://www.simcalc.umassd.edu/software/

Diane Halpern

1.What is the Goal?

4. Have You Reached Your Goal?

Reflection

3. Which Thinking Skills Will Get You To Your Goal?

•Deductive Reasoning•Argument Analysis•Hypothesis Testing•Uses of Probability•Decision Making•Problem Solving•Creative Thinking

Challenges2. What is Known?

Dispositions

Success

Yes

No

You Make the Call

http://library.thinkquest.org/J001709/thinkquest_values/make_call/start.html

Vocabulary Words

http://annesmith9h.blogspot.com/2006/10/wonder-woman-gone-country.html

Making Thinking Visible

You Decide…

Has she convinced you to stop buying items produced in sweatshops?

What other options might you consider to impact this situation?

(Sweatshop Video) http://www.sfett.com/home.php?id=iCan2

Assign Intellectually Stimulating Work

•Relevance Beyond School

•Disciplined Inquiry

•Knowledge Construction

Quality of Assignments Counts

Source: Improving Chicago’s Schools, Fred Newman 2001

Students Learn More in Classrooms with High Quality Assignments: Effects on On-Year ITBS Gains

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4

ITBS Reading

ITBS Math

Classrooms with high-quality assignments

Classrooms with low-quality assignments

Nested Approach

Content ActivitiesConcepts:•Systems

•Cycles

•Relationship

Thinking Skills:•Inferring

•Sequencing

•Comparing

•Contrasting

•PSing

Habits of Mind:•Attending

•Risk Taking

•Persistence

•etc

Outcomes

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