Group+1+-+Practical


 * Possible Tasks and Ideas for Assessment of Critical Thinking**

Criticalthinking.org has some video feeds on critical thinking for lower elementary What would the US be like if it had been colonized by an Asian culture?? size of people difficulties of expansion (now we would be talking about Eastern expansion rather than West) agriculture

If we gave kids the same data and asked them to make graphs to show conclusions in 3 different ways,**and ask them to** **misrepresent the data**, so readers would have to figure out what's wrong, comparing data and "bad graphs" see below: IF we want kids to be critical consumers of graphs, suppose we ask them to take a set of data--say the growth in Albemarle County over the last 100 years--and represent that data in three different ways to make people read the data so that they make three different conclusions. For example, make a pie graph and pick a piece of pie to talk about; OR create a bar graph with the key so small that there looks like no growth, OR the line graph, which is the correct way to show this type of data. ..
 * Graphing Do Figures Lie or Liars figure?**

for lower el: are these numbers the same? and why: 27 x 50 and 27 x 20 plus 27 x 30

How would we use [|Zoom -In Inquiry]? "Digital primary sources provide unique opportunities to ask questions and make connections."

[|Was John Smith a Liar?] [|Did Pocahontas Save Captain John Smith?]

[|Captain John Smith: Historian or Liar?]

Sir Walter Raleigh - was he a thief or a hero?

What is history and how do we really know what happened?

Take several coming of age novels and have them compare, find themes? How would the ending of a book change if characters swapped roles?. What if Harry and Neville were born on the same day (Harry Potter books).

Why are certain stories, folktales told in all culture?

Using primary sources, photographs in teaching history...

from some Economics lesson

[|Wilderdom - a project in natural living & transformation]
- started with pictures of houses - what can you tell about the people, the climate, etc. Have them build a hut - what goes in your hut? (they have certain choices) Like survivor games - what would you take

How could this happen? (bone found in VA but it came from Africa) - goal was to end up at Pangeae, etc.....

planning a scientific experiment to answer an authentic question. []

As long as students are working higher on Blooms, having them write a lesson, write questions....

Hand student's an artifact and have a group research it and plan research approach - gets at the collaborative stuff that's so hard to get at in lower elementary...

Kimberly - [13:03] kimberly: Practical: Creating from research after visiting other schools, interviewing pricipals, students, teachers. Gathering information to demonstate the critical thinking skills they have learned throughout he year. Replacing the final exam. Have the students come up with ways to make school better.

research topic - how did the vote go in Ancient Greece, how does it work now - compare and contrast - why did certain ideas persist? BUT, that can lead to "what is the right answer" kind of thinking! better - give them the opportunity to vote in different ways and ask which did you like better.

re math - end of year assessment - give student a number line and ask them to place these numbers on it - 17, 50, 92, etc. You can tell right away who's got place value, number sense

for the lower elem., you need a lot of diagnostic info - our SNAP program is really helping fill a need for that math info.