Critical Thinking

 

Critical Thinking - Tui

I had noticed in my class that the students weren't able to discuss what they had been reading in class.  They were happy to read the text and could easily read it but what was happening with that information?

I thought about what we could use to develop this and I implemented the reciprocal reading program into the class. 

It has taken awhile to get this up and running and for the students to think about what they were reading.  Some students (who are very capable readers) really struggle to discuss what they have read.  Is this because they don't understand it?  Or can they not articulate what they have read? 

I have observed that the lower readers in the class have really improved with questioning, predicting and summarising they are confident working through the process and great at discussing what they have read.  The more able students are not as fluent at doing this some really struggle with forming questions and summarising what they have read. 

We will continue to work on developing this during the rest f the this term and work on sustaining during term 4.

Critical thinking in Kererū.

In Kererū we actually talked about what 'critical thinking' was. We decided to look up what 'Critical' meant and discovered that it meant judging something on it's truth or merit. So Critical thinking meant judging the thinking of others, pulling things appart and making our own conclusions. We did some activities out of the Critical Thinking Handbook. We started with a brain warm up activity called a Rebus. Have a look at this and see if you can work out what the picture puzzles are saying.

After our brains were warmed up we did an activity where we were 'Travel Guides' to a group of friendly aliens. The exercise forced us to look at who were were as individuals and as a society.

We did not expect to have such a discussion on such simple ideas. Trying to describe what a team was to a group of aliens was quite a difficult task. What would happen if humans could not play sport or games got us onto a trail that included ideas like, not getting rid of the stress of daily life, not practicing team building and problem solving etc.

Critical thinking in Weka

Science
In Ruma Weka, we did an experiment called dancing popcorn where you put popcorn kernels in a jar of vinegar and baking soda and watch the reaction.
We predicted what we thought might happen but the experiment didn’t quite go as planned. The jar overflowed when we poured the vinegar in and went everywhere. We had to then think about what we saw happen and why and what we might be able to do to make it work best next. The class decided that if we poured the vinegar in really quickly and then put the lid on it might work better. Before we tried it, we talked about what might happen with the lid on and came up with lots of different ideas. Then we tried it again and afterwards reflected again on what we saw.


Measurement
The question was posed to the class - How could I measure the length of the classroom from one side to the other without a ruler?
The students responded with some ideas
- making a guess
- using a piece of string
- making a ruler out of paper

Then the student said  - Using my body lying down

We decided to try the student’s idea.
First, he tried lying down and getting someone to point to where his head stopped and then student stood up and moved to the other side of the finger and laid down again. He did this a few times.

Another child then said - He didn’t lie in the right place, student’s finger moved.

I then asked, how could we do it differently so that we don’t miss bits?
Someone else came up with the idea for them to all lie-down head to toe from one side of the class to the other.

They all lie down with two children standing and making sure that there are no gaps in the measuring. Once they reach the end they count.

Reading using multimodal activities

 Reading in Piwakawaka gives students the opportunity to engage with the text in a variety of ways, there is a video, and up to three text on the topic.

 Critical Thinking in Weka Tēina

The question was posed to the class after Mrs King issued the challenge 'How high can you bounce an egg?"

Question - Can we bounce an egg?

Recorded class responses

* No it would crack

* Yes, we could wrap it in paper to protect it first

They then said that Mrs King gave them more information

* We were not allowed to cook or fry the egg

We may need to try different liquids Mrs King said

* Don't use cooking oil as that would cook the egg.

Ryker thought we could use vinegar and baking soda as he has done an experiment like that before.

Can we set up an experiment based on the information we now know? 

They decided no - we didn't know enough information.

How could we find out more?

It was suggested we could Google - How to bounce an egg?

We watched 2 different videos

Using what we know and after watching the videos we made a decision as to whether an egg could bounce. We decided it could.

Completed the experiment and gathered our data and results.

Final step to watch the videos again and compare our findings. If we were making a video for others what would we need to add or change?

 Who made these??? I think Isla did

Our First Thoughts

Here are our first thoughts about what we think critical thinking is.  Great discussion was had as we critical thought about what this would look like in the classroom.