| Teacher Stuff Like all teachers, you want your students to be critical thinkers. The exercise in Step 2 models one of the many ways you can effectively use technology (databases) to promote critical thinking. Walk students through the step-by-step process, guiding, challenging, and encouraging as you move about the room. Creating a student-centered learning environment may not be easy and it can be time-consuming, but the benefits for the children far outweigh the effort required to make it happen. Therefore, feel free to structure this activity (steps 5 & 6) to meet the needs of your students. For best results, devote one class period to each of the four sets of questions. Steps 5 and 6 under the second segment of this week’s lesson direct students to react to 4 different sets of questions related to the information they have gathered. This approach can be applied to any research project or any content area information students are currently studying. Or think of it as a personal facilitation tool for infusing your entire curriculum with critical thinking skills! Research clearly shows that students demonstrate higher achievement in classrooms where thinking skills are directly taught, followed by immediate application to the content area. (Freseman 1990)
|