Brainstorming (p.378) is a fundamental task used by many, particularly marketers. I’ve taught my cohort of interns to begin with this process to breakdown complex processes. While challenged by their client, they were unsure what a partnership means, so I framed the term differently to think about a partnership, like a friendship. The word association created an opportunity for ideation. 

Critical thinking in Communication Arts and Literature will be vital in my practice. Through a culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogy, I plan to facilitate discussions, writing and other activities to get students thinking deeper about the context, characters, themes, etc., within assigned literature. How can educators encourage and assess critical thinking for transfer into real life situations outside the classroom (i.e. being critical about the mass media messages via commercials and news)? How might teachers collaborate with parents to identify what beyond basic skills are worth learning? 

Would the LINCS strategy work if the ninth graders were able to create their own stories with the vocabulary?  Were the stories presented not relatable to a ninth grader?  Were the lesson plans geared toward younger students or were they modified for their age groups?  What does work for ninth graders that struggle with reading?  As a future ESL teacher, this is important to me, and I would have liked an example that did “reach every student.”  

I thought the example presented for problem solving was very good.  The tenants said the problem was elevator was slow, when the real problem was they were bored.  I thought it was a good reminder for academic, behavior, or other problems that may arise in a classroom and how we need to dig a little deeper to find the real problem.  How do we as teachers not let our biases and assumptions get in the way of finding the real issue?  Is it something that we are doing as a teacher?  Is our curriculum working?  Are our teaching methods helping them?

Switching gears, we all know reading is important, but it can be one of the most challenging skills to learn.  In my classroom we use Fry’s Words.  Dr. Edward Fry created a huge list of the most common words used in English.  I feel that this list is incredibly helpful for all of my students (because to a degree they all struggle with reading and writing), but, especially with my student who is an English Language Learner.  By learning the first 100 words on this list, my student now has more confidence when he reads kindergarten and first grade books because he has learned the majority of those words already. I plan on incorporating Fry's Words into all of my future teaching.  Does anyone else use this program? If you do, what are your thoughts on it?  What other reading programs have people been exposed to?

 

The curriculum for most history and social studies classes tends to involve heavy (and often dense) readings and can be very lecture-focused and teacher-centered. When I reached college, I would often try to type verbatim the entire lecture onto my laptop, rarely engaging with the material I was being presented. As a teacher, I want to be preemptive in avoiding this type of classroom environment and find ways for my students to engage with the material I’m presenting more actively. 

 

Although often placed in opposition to the social sciences, creativity in the classroom can be a powerful tool in doing just that, especially in diverse classrooms where students approach the topics from very different perspectives. I greatly appreciated the text’s guidelines for how to incorporate creativity in the classroom and how easily many of these can be implemented in our increasingly standardized and test-focused classrooms. I do wonder, though, how much pushback teachers who stress the importance of creativity receive from school administrators who are often more concerned about the school-wide scores on standardized assessments. How might we balance these two seemingly opposite approaches to learning? 

I hope to create a classroom by providing time for students to create in a space without evaluation and by encouraging big ideas not matter how implausible they may be.

In The Language of Thinking is a very short section, but I think it is highly important. It is similar to the advice one of my Hamline professors gave: When you ask if there are “any questions” you will shut down student thinking, when you ask “What questions do you have?” you are telling the students that you expect them to think and ask. 

Rephrasing the question “What do you think about…?” can utilize an increased vocabulary and prompts deeper thinking and understanding. It can foster creative thinking by opening the students’ line of thinking. I especially like “What are some alternative explanations?” because it shows that there may be more than one possible answer. We could then discuss and debate the answers to determine the best explanation; they may both be the best explanation depending on circumstances; or perhaps there is another explanation that is better than either of them. 

Are there other common phrases or ways of presenting material that could be altered to increase opportunities for cognition and creativity? Could this become overwhelming for students and shut down their thinking? 

The area I want to speak on though is what I see in the classroom as a sub.  I know it happens because I am already answering questions from my own kids and now as a sub I answer this in the classroom.  The question of, “when am I ever going to use this in my life?” or something similar.  This week’s reading answers that question in two simple ways; it helps you develop problem solving skills and it helps you develop into a critical thinker.  When I was in Jr. and Sr. High school I would get very frustrated when I did not know something or I was not able to find an answer.  I quickly had to learn to slow down, walk away or other methods to clear my head and then come back to my work with a clear head to work the problem from another angle.  I still find myself doing that today but have had to develop some other strategies when I cannot walk away from a problem.

Some students have learned to walk away and take a break but what about students that cannot walk away from problems?  What if the problem is not necessary the school work?  What if the problem is all around them, family or life in general?  How can I as a teacher help them, “solve the problem?”  How can I encourage them to keep seeking answers?

Other effective learning strategies I used was the mantra, which I mentioned last week. I would work with my gymnasts to develop a series of positive mental cues to perform difficult skills. Instead of their minds wandering to “What if I crash?” they could replace those thoughts with the mechanics of the skill. The better they became at the skill, the less they needed in their mantras.

One last comment: there are way too many voters out there relying on heuristic, confirmation bias, and belief perseverance to make their decisions…

 

Doug, I really enjoyed your perspective on how 16th century European scientific explorers used knowledge acquired by Arabic philosophers. Similarly, I liked the simple technique of journaling that Alan described to encourage creativity in his children as well. Really all cultures and all subjects can help us show students how we all learn from one another. This made me think of a book I discovered last year for my 5th grade Science students The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba.  There are different versions of the non-fiction story available depending on the age of the readers. The book describes how in Malawi in 2002 a terrible famine forced 14-year-old Kamkwamba to quit school. Instead, he learned how to use air to create electricity. Out of garbage he built a windmill bringing electricity and hope to his village. The text can be used in different subject areas from Science through Social Studies to Language Arts. What stories or texts have you encountered in your studies that can demonstrate the transference of knowledge to students in different subjects or of different ages?