Reflecting on Initial Implementations: Criteria and Habits of Mind

As school started again, it was the first year I have been able to start fresh with the beginnings, or middles, of new understandings about critical, creative and collaborative thinking (C3 thinking). As I have started to introduce these concepts to my middle and high school science and math students, I have been able to observe a few things. The first is that one of the easiest ways to start integrating C3 thinking into practice is to discuss the idea of criteria when posing questions. Criteria helps people think about what would make a good answer to the question. It frames the direction that the answers will go. 

Its amazing how quickly thoughtless answers were eliminated when criteria was explicitly applied to the question. Beyond that, I was pleased at how quick many of my senior students were able to come up with what makes a good answer to questions I have posed. Albeit we have started simply, with questions like "What is the most important math concept learned last year?", but the thoughtfulness of the answers were surprising, and in many the creativity, or the divergence of answers I got from students was also surprising. For example, many chose to answer the questions with explicit concepts taught within the government assigned curriculum, things like the concept of functions. However, I also got answers that diverged from the expected answers to things like how to use a calculator effectively. In the end, the class collaborated on a single answer, and the calculator answer best met the criteria we set out.

The collaborative work benefited significantly by being explicit about being open-mindedness, and also always pointing back to the criteria we set out. These things kept emotions in check as well as the need to win that sometimes arises in disagreements.

These two developments pointed to how powerful incorporating C3 Thinking into the classroom can be with simple adjustments to the way regular instruction is done. I am only imagining how powerful it could be with full scale implementation and weeks down the road with much scaffolding. Something to look forward to.   

Doing Critical Inquiry

I am now in my second master's class of the program. We are currently studying how to inquire critically, which forms the essence of thinking critically.

If I could define critical thinking in my own words, it would be: Critical thinking is the thinking involved in arriving at a reasoned judgment on a question,  issue, decision, or topic. Let's expand that a bit. This can be done in simple situations like what to have for breakfast, or in more complex situations like who to vote for, or on a topic like what was the most important instigator of World War II.

These form the basis for inquiry. An inquiry is essentially the act of thinking critically about an issue. Bailin and Battersby define an inquiry as "the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment" (Bailin and Battersby, 4). It is clear how close the definitions of inquiry and critical thinking are.

They suggest that there are some useful guidelines to help focus and develop an inquiry properly and come to a strong reasoned judgment as free of un-reasoned bias as possible. The questions that form these guidelines are:

• What is the issue?
• What kinds of claims or judgments are at issue?
• What are the relevant reasons and arguments on various sides of the issue?
• What is the context of the issue?
• How do we comparatively evaluate the various reasons and arguments to reach a reasoned judgment?

(Bailin and Battersby, 20)

These guidelines have proved helpful as I have tried to practice inquiry for myself. One thing I keep thinking about is how can I effectively and regularly apply this in a math or science classroom? Sometimes it does not seem obvious that there are issues that afford reasoned judgment, but I know they are there.

The obvious answer to that question is have students do an investigation into an issue. For science this could be something like what was the most powerful reason that caused people to shift their thinking about the idea that the Earth is not the center of the universe. What I am wondering is if this process can be done in the short sense, like a one class or couple class long investigation into different types of medical processes around birth (like invitro and artificial insemination), or what are the best strategies for solving word problems (math and physics).

It seems to me that it would take some scaffolding to get the students used to thinking on this level, but it could frame the way I do a class. I'll probably write about some more ideas in the future. 

What are your thoughts?

Fair and Effective Formative Assessments

The reality of our current educational system, at least in Canada, is that we must do some kind of summative assessments either at one point in the year (the bitter end) or at various points of the year, like at the end of units or chapters.

This got me thinking... what would make summative assessments fair and accurate. I think it is clear that a test doesn't always allow a student to shine their best. If a student has severe test anxiety for example, this would be a problem. Another possible issue is for those students with a learning disability like dyslexia, who have difficulty reading or writing.

I saw this idea from a GAFE conference once, where you use google presentations to crowd-source ideas or thoughts on a topic. So I've done just that. What I want to know from my readers is, what are some concepts that make assessments fair and reasonable, and also, what are some examples or counter-examples of those things.

You can find instructions on how to add to the presentation in the actual presentation. Any ideas would be great!

Effective and Fair Summative Assessment

Creativity - Initial Thoughts

I have started my Masters Degree in Education. The focus of the degree is to study critical, creative, and collaborative thinking as it relates to inquiry. The journey has been stretching, and immensely practical as I work to integrate strategies for encouraging my students to be better critical thinkers, more creative, and more collaborative.

One of the areas that really struck me is the topic of creativity. I realized we have so many misconceptions about what creativity is, and how to foster it. Some think it is an unknowable sources of inspiration that comes out of no where, and others think it a deep structured process that leads to new things.

At its core, I have realized that creativity is about creating something new, a product if you will. This product need not be physical. It could be a concept, an idea and more. But beyond just any product, for something to be creative, it must at the most basic level be novel to the creator, and it must be a useful product. Sawyer wrote a seminal work on creativity, trying to combine all the existing research in the western world on the subject. He wrote in his book these things.

"Creativity is a new mental combination that is expressed in the world." (2012, Sawyer, 7)

This speaks more of creativity on the societal or global level. He also writes this:

Creativity is the generation of a product that is judged to be novel and also to be appropriate, useful, or valuable by a suitably knowledgeable social group." (2012, Saywer, 8)

This is a great definition, because it nicely constrains creativity, yet doesn't limit the value of creativity on the individual level. Students don't often create something new on the societal level, but they do often make breakthroughs, or create something novel and useful for themselves and potentially the class environment.

This has really allowed my idea of creativity and how to value even the small instances of creativity in my classroom.

References:

Sawyer, R. Keith. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.