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Strategies for Encouraging Critical Thinking

I came across this article today that offers some good tips to encourage critical thinking skills in your classroom. These strategies are low-tech. It goes to show that a good teacher, not just technology, can make a huge impact on student learning.



http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-promote-critical-thinking

Here are a few of the points from the article below, as well as some of my input.

  1. Know when to jump in to help (Don't always jump in to help)
    1. A skill that I have learned providing tech support. Troubleshooting is a very high level of thinking. It is a skill that teaches you to find more than one answer and eliminate the incorrect ones. The more you troubleshoot, the more efficient your thinking skills become. Don't take that away from students.
  2. Make Connections
    1. Learn with a purpose. I can try to learn to play the piano. If there is not a particular song I am interested in playing however, the learning experience is very difficult, I lose interest quickly, and I am more likely to give up.
  3. Provide Group Opportunities
    1. I often find myself at a point when I am stuck. I cannot think of a way to solve a particular problem. I don't always ask for help, but sometimes bouncing an idea around off of a colleague or a willing ear helps me see problems from a perspective I never would have considered on my own (or was too obvious for me to see at the moment).

I could not access the original article that inspired this post, however here is the link for reference.
Original Article: https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/6-strategies-for-encouraging-critical-thinking



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