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Wikipedia is a surprisingly useful tool for even formal educational research. The 'References' section on each page can be a gold mine.
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This year's high school winner in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge tackles the complexities of her Indian-American identity.
(Image credit: Olivia Obineme for NPR)
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What are the ingredients for '21st Century Learning?' 1. The internet 2. Permission to interact 3. Absence of extrinsic motivation
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Secretary Duncan issued a technical assistance memo highlighting key components of strong state bullying laws and policies.
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Yesterday afternoon I read an interesting article titled Belgian Farmer Accidentally Moves French Border. The whole story is almost exactly what the title says. A farmer moved a stone that was in his way when plowing a field. It just happened that the stone he moved is a marker for the border between two small towns in Belgium and France. The border itself is not in dispute and the border is a
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It’s been a minute (or thousands) since I’ve blogged new technology finds. This year has us utilizing technology in new ways and in need of tools that support learning in new ways. I thought I’d drop back into the tech-tool blogging world with some of the technology that has kept us sane this year, but are also SO good that we’ll continue to use them even in non-COVID years.
What it is:Mindstamp is one of my favorite finds this year. This interactive video creation platform is a major upgrade to remote learning, but we’ve come up with about a hundred ways that it is equally valuable as a learning tool regardless of whether we are in-person or remote. Mindstamp makes it easy to quickly create interactive video experiences that include buttons, questions, hotspots, branching. You can ask questions directly in the video that are free-response, multiple-choice, audio response, video response, or drawn response. The editor is intuitive and easy to use…this is not one of those tools that you will have to spend a significant amount of time learning. When your videos are played, you get a full report showing exactly what the viewer did. You can see how long the video was viewed, how it was interacted with, and see responses to any questions.
How to integrate Mindstamp into the classroom: Mindstamp is an obvious choice for creating learning experiences that can be viewed and interacted with asynchronously. During our remote learning, we used Mindstamp for daily community messages that encouraged students to be part of the conversation. Our goal was to keep our community connected even though our school-wide morning meetings looked very different. We loved the ability for students to respond to question prompts in a variety of ways and for everyone else in the community to see their contribution. We also used Mindstamp to debut our recorded performance of our theater production. We set up the performance as if it were a live telethon and invited our viewers to interact with the video in a variety of ways (text-to-give, leave a message for our performers, etc.). Though we couldn’t be in an auditorium enjoying the performance live, the interactive video gave us the feel of something that our whole community to be involved in.
Mindstamp is a fantastic platform any time you want to “flip” your classroom. Give students the opportunity to ask questions about the content that you can address live during class, or just check for understanding throughout the video. You’ll be able to see exactly what pieces of new learning may be hindering your learners. Mindstamp lets you record your own video or import video from other platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. We have greatly appreciated the ability to import learning content from YouTube and then pausing the video and inserting additional links, photos, videos, or audio that supports the learning just like we would do if we were in a classroom watching it together.
At Anastasis, we individualize learning for each learner based on who they are and where they are in the standards. As a result, we set up our independent learning time as center rotations with one of those rotations being the teacher. Mindstamp could be used to make the teacher available at every rotation with a video message that explains the center and opportunities for students to record their process and leave it as a question response.
Mindstamp isn’t just for teacher-created content. Students can create their own interactive video content. Students could record themselves completing a science experiment and adding supporting research they used in the form of links throughout the video, drawings or photos that support their findings, and ask for feedback from other students or teachers in the form of questions throughout their video.
Mindstamp would be a FANTASTIC platform to create choose-your-own-adventure type videos. It could be interesting for students to explore a historical or current event through video and then explore different outcomes based on the response. It could also be a great way for students to explore different points of view on the same topic. The main video could introduce the topic, and they could use branching, links, photos, and videos to explore the topic through multiple perspectives.
Truly, once you get into Mindstamp, you are going to think of hundreds of ways it could be used to enhance remote and in-person learning. We keep coming up with new ways to support our students through videos. We’ve loved the data dashboard for accountability and support purposes.
Tips: One of the things we learned is that students cannot respond to a question as a video response from an iPad or iPhone. They will need to use a computer for video responses so keep that in mind as you are building interactive content.
Mindstamp is offering iLearn technology readers a 50% discount of any tier. Use the code ILEARN between now and March 15, 2021, for 50% off!
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Do your students understand the “reclamation process” or how land is restored for a sustainable future? Do your students recognize the role of transition metals, like copper, in the products they use everyday, from seat belts to smartphones? Give students an opportunity to take STEM learning to the next level with digital interactive explorations from Dig Into Mining – The Story of Copper, an interactive educational program for students grades 6-12 that uncovers the use of metals such as copper in our everyday life, and provides students a deeper understanding of today’s hard rock mining industry.
The program features seven explorations that offer students a self-paced, deeper dive into how STEM and analytical skills are used to solve real-world problems in today’s mining industry.
In Dig a Little Deeper, a virtual lab that has been designed as an authentic, problem-based learning simulation focused on the exploration phase of the mining process, students will be challenged to choose from three possible sites on which to mine for copper. To help them choose a site, students will assume the roles of a geologist, an environmental scientist, and a mining engineer. Students may go through each of the tests individually or as a part of a team. Within each career lens, students will develop an authentic research question, evaluate/test data, and analyze the results. All three sites will have benefits and trade-offs. Once all data is collected, students will make and justify a recommendation, based on the evidence they’ve uncovered throughout.
The Dig into Mining Careers Exploration gives high school students the opportunities to explore specific careers in the mining industry, providing a curated list of recommended careers based on their interests, preferences, hobbies and skills in twelve key areas. The list of in-demand mining careers matching their responses will help students discover new pathways for future success. The program’s career profiles, featuring a video highlighting a Freeport-McMoran professional in their work environment and an accompanying career guide, can also be used to give students a more in-depth perspective on careers in mining.
Virtual simulation Aim to Reclaim gives students the opportunity to explore the reclamation process and discover how land is restored to create a more sustainable future. Observations and learnings about the different types of careers involved are introduced throughout the virtual lab, and decision points are built in to allow students to better understand the complexity of the reclamation process.
And that’s just the beginning! Other digital explorations available through the program explore related topics, including the usage of copper in electric and hybrid vehicles, the stages of copper processing, and the operations of a real mining site, including examining the technology and equipment used during the copper extraction, processing and refinement phases of mining.
Inspire your students to consider today’s mining industry as a possible career pathway, and expand their understanding of the impact of metals such as copper on everyday life! Find these resources and more at DigIntoMining.com or on the Dig into Mining channel in Discovery Education’s K-12 learning platform.
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What it is:BombBomb is an email service that lets you record and embed video directly in your email. That is a totally oversimplified explanation because BombBomb does SO much more. This is one of those pieces of technology that has been life-saving for me during the pandemic and one that I will continue using forevermore! In addition to easily adding video to your email, you can add images, button-type navigation, build and send forms right in BombBomb, and even create automations. BombBomb shows you who opened your email and what they clicked/engaged/watched while they were there.
How to integrate BombBomb into the classroom: During the pandemic, BombBomb has been an incredible way for us to communicate and keep connected to our students and their families. Each day we were in remote learning, I sent a daily email with a video message for the community, links to all of our teacher’s daily plans, links to tech-support, and a daily check-in survey so parents could share how remote learning was going in their house. At Anastasis, we start every day with a whole-community meeting. Obviously, 2020 wreaked havoc on that daily tradition. Since we couldn’t be together each morning, I recorded a video as if we were together. I invited the kids/families to send me content that would show up in future videos (Mindstamp helped with this as well!). In one email, families had access to all teacher’s plans for the day as well as a way to share feedback about what was going well or what they were struggling with. As the admin team received feedback about what families were struggling with, we could offer real-time immediate support. Any time a family shared something that was hard, we either adjusted or contacted them to support them. BombBomb made this process seamless for us! Because we could see who was opening and interacting with each portion of the email, we knew we had a high level of engagement and could see what was and wasn’t working well even for families who didn’t fill out our survey each day.
BombBomb is a great way to provide video feedback for your students while you are remote. You can use the screencast tool to walk them through the work they submitted with your comments and suggestions.
We are currently back to in-person learning, but I’m still using BombBomb to send my weekly newsletter. I’ve never been one who loves recording video (I wouldn’t say I love it now…but it has gotten SO much easier), I prefer writing, but I have to say families seem to love the video content. Parents who are not inclined to read the weekly newsletter seem more inclined to watch a 2-minute video update. That makes all our lives easier! I’ve also noticed that parents seem more connected and likely to interact when they see me on video than a written message alone.
As a teacher in the classroom, BombBomb would be a great way to flip your classroom and send students videos tailored to what they are learning. Because you have a built-in video library, email library, form library, and the ability to automate, you could set this up one year and continue using it year after year! You don’t have to record all of your video content, you can also import videos from a link expanding the content available about a million fold. BombBomb also allows you to screencast directly from email making it a great way to send support to students.
If you teach young students or students who don’t have their own email, you can still use BombBomb to create video content and related links (seriously, it’s almost like having the ability to create mini-websites). BombBomb gives you a share link for every email you create so you can share it with students as a link or even create QR codes that link to the email you created. At Anastasis, we individualize for every student every day. A lot of our independent learning is set up as center rotations with one of the centers always being one-on-one with the teacher. With BombBomb you could record yourself explaining the center, and include any other links or information that students may need. You could also create a form that acts as an exit ticket for that center rotation. If you have a mobile device or Chromebook at the center, it’s almost like having you right there with them. Again, with the email/video/form library you could create this one year and keep using it over and over. The analytics help you see how students are interacting (how many times they viewed the video, what links they clicked on, etc.).
We’re an inquiry-based school. This means that the kids are constantly doing research and digging deeper. The research process can be too much for our littles. Using BombBomb, teachers can break down that research process in video and provide guided research links.
BombBomb is also a major upgrade to email you are sending to parents. Imagine sending a quick video of something brilliant that their child did in class. Or, you could record a conferring session between you and their child so they can gain insight into your assessment process and student growth. You’ll be able to see which families are opening and interacting with your emails, and those who may need a different approach.
Tips: To help teachers through the pandemic, BombBomb is FREE for educators. You should sign up today, I truly cannot say enough good things about this platform!
Here’s an example of an email I sent out in prep for Giving Tuesday…see you really don’t have to be fancy with your videos, just record and share!
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The TeachThought Podcast Ep. 247 Creating Changemakers Through PBL
Drew Perkins talks with Leesa Carter-Jones, president and CEO of the Captain Planet Foundation, about their work to engage young people through project-based learning.
Thanks so much for joining us again. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it.
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Critical thinking is the ongoing application of unbiased, accurate, and ‘good-faith’ analysis, interpretation, contextualizing, and synthesizing multiple data sources and cognitive perspectives in pursuit of understanding.
What are the 7 critical thinking strategies? Someone emailed me recently asking that question and I immediately wondered how many more than seven there were. 27? 77?
Infinity?
This is a post that’s going to have to be updated over time because do define, clarify, offer tips for and examples of each would be a short book.
But I did create a graphic and list many dozen to start with below (60 for now). I’ve also started adding some thinking for each but, as I mentioned, this will take time because it’s such an ambitious list (kind of like the Types of Questions post I did recently.) So, on with the list.
1. Analyze
One of the more basic critical thinking strategies is ‘analysis’: Identify the parts and see the relationships between those parts and how they contribute to the whole.
2. Interpret
Explain the significance or meaning of a ‘thing’ in a specific content or to a specific audience. Similar to ‘translate’ but (generally) with more cognitive demand.
3. Infer
Draw a reasonable conclusion based on the best available data. This critical thinking strategy is useful almost anywhere–from reading to playing a game to solving a problem in the real-world.
In fact, many of these strategies are built-in to the taxonomy.
5. Separate cause and effect
And concept map it–and maybe even consider prior causes to the most immediate causes and predict future possible effects. For example, if you’re considering an effect (e.g., pollution), you might see one cause being a new industrial factory built near a river or runoff. But you might also consider what enabled or ’caused’ that factory to be built–a zoning change or tax break given by the local government, for example.
And narrate or annotate the deconstruction. Deconstruct a skyscraper or a cultural movement or school or app. This is somewhere between analysis and reverse engineering.
8. Reverse Engineer
9. Write
Writing (well) is one of the most cognitively demanding things students commonly do. It’s also a wonderful strategy to promote critical thinking–a kind of vehicle to help it develop. Certainly one can write without thinking critically or think critically without writing but when they work together–in the form of a thinking journal, for example–the effects can be compelling.
10. Reflect
Observe and reflect is basic pattern for thought itself. The nature of the reflection, of course, determines if it’s actual a strategy for critical thinking but it’s certainly a worthy addition to this list.
11. Separate the subjective from the objective
And fact from opinion.
12. Be vigilant in distinguishing beliefs and facts or truths
To be able to think critically requires
Dewey described critical thinking as ‘reflective thinking’ (see #10)–the “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends.” (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9) It’s clear that to be able to consistently do this requires one to separate beliefs (which are personal and fluid) and knowledge (which is more universal and less fluid–though the depth and nature of knowledge and understanding can change over time).
13. Link and Connect
This is somewhere between analysis and concept mapping, but seeing the relationship between things–ideas, trends, opportunities, problems–is not only useful as a strategy but is how the brain learns: by making connections.
14. Use formal and/or informal inquiry
15. Use the 5 Ws
A flexible strategy for inquiry and thought, the 5 Ws provides a kind of starting point for ongoing thought: who, what, where, why, and when.
16. Use spiral thinking
17. Concept map
18. Illustrate what’s known, currently unknown, and unknowable
This is part analysis, part epistemology.
19. Use Bloom’s Taxonomy
20. Apply informed skepticism
21. Use question and statement stems
22. Explore the history of an idea, stance, social norm, etc.
Especially change over time.
23. Debate
24. Analyze from multiple perspectives
25. Transfer
26. Patience
27. Adopt the right mindset
28. Humility
29. Judge
30. Study relationships
Between beliefs, observations, and facts, for example.
31. See ‘truth’ in degrees/non-binary
32. Improve something
33. Curiosity
Similar to inquiry but more a cause of inquiry than a strategy itself. Maybe. Kind of.
34. Creativity
35. Explore the nature of thinking and belief
This sets the stage for long-term critical thinking.
36. Separate people from their ideas
This isn’t necessarily a pure critical thinking strategy but it can reduce bias and encourage rationality and objective analysis.
37. Making some abstract concrete or something concrete abstract
38. Challenge something
39. Predict and defend
40. Form a question, then improve that question before gathering information
41. Revise a question after information/observation
42. Critique something
43. Observe something
While not actually ‘critical thinking,’ critical thinking rarely happens without it. It’s one (of many) fuels for ‘higher-order’ thinking.
44. Revise something
45. Transfer a lesson or philosophical stance from one situation to another
A lesson from nature to the design of a tool or solution to a problem.
46. Compare and contrast two or more things
47. Test the validity of a model
Or even create a basic mathematical model for predicting something–stocks, real-world probabilities, etc.
48. Create an analogy
This helps emphasize relationships, rules, and effects.
49. Adapt something for something new
A new function or audience or application, for example.
50. Identify underlying assumptions
51. Analyze the role of social norms on ‘truth’
Or even the nature of ‘truth’ itself.
52. Narrate a sequence
53. Identify first truths
54. Keep a thinking journal
55. Identify and explain a pattern
56. Study the relationship between text and subtext
Or explicit and implicit.
57. Elegantly emphasize the nuance of something
58. Identify cognitive biases and blindspots
59. Use model-based learning
I’ll provide a model for this soon but I’ve been using it with students for years.
60. Take and defend a position
Similar to debate but it can be one-sided, in writing, on a podcast, or even concept-mapped. It’s a simple strategy: specify a ‘stance’ and defend it with the best possible data and unbiased thinking
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