CRITICAL THINKING: Fifth Grade
- Creates and implements instructional units that promote critical thinking, problems solving, and inquiry.
- Synthesizes information to promote concept development.
- Integrates engaging problems that are connected to students lives.
- Uses effective questioning methods that encourage higher order thinking.
Description & Rationale
Since the inception of building this science unit, I wanted to engage the students in some type of class discussion on a daily basis. Inspired by my experience in law school, I chose a Socratic method of instruction. I began every lesson with a question that either reviewed a previous lesson or previewed the material to be taught that day. This practice also gave me an opportunity to assess what my students knew. Some questions I chose from the scaffolding questions listed in the teacher’s manual, and some questions I created myself. I always included critical thinking questions in the notes I distributed. Other times, as we delved into various discussions, questions would come to me organically or students would raise intelligent and intriguing questions.
After covering a section of content, I often required the students to apply what they had just learned to a new situation. I used real life examples to which they could identify when feasible. Much of this approach supported the basis of my ticket-rewarding objective. Those students who pushed themselves and participated tended to earn more tickets. I always encouraged students to participate. I explicitly told them it was better to try and be wrong, then to never try at all.
I was also explicit about critical thinking. I talked to them about what thinking critically meant, and how important it was to think about thinking, i.e. metacognition. While I did not expound upon Bloom’s Taxonomy with them, I was conscientious of asking questions or planning activities that fell within the realm of higher order thinking. Whenever I was about to start a round of questions, I would announce to the students that we were going to do some critical thinking, or higher order thinking. I was extremely explicit about this.
I used graphic organizers whenever I could to engage the students’ higher order thinking skills; such as
* tracing the flow of energy in the process of setting off fireworks;
Student Flow Chart
* determining the real-life, practical applications of different types of electromagnetic energy;
Wavestown
* identifying, defining, exemplifying, and illustrating the three types of heat transfer in a foldable the students had to create.
Conduction, Convection, & Radiation Foldable
Day Three, when we did The Ball Drop Experiment, was a good day for me and the students in the area of critical thinking. I allowed them more time and space for discovering things on their own. With the data they generated from the experiment, they had to calculate averages, graph the results, draw conclusions, and compare those conclusions to hypotheses they had made prior to conducting the experiment. This required them to apply what they had learned over the last three lessons, as well as, analyze new questions and scenarios. They had to recognize a pattern or proportional relationship between potential and kinetic energy. They also had to consider and answer why the numbers did not match, and discern what happened to the “missing energy” that was not accounted for by the math.
After covering a section of content, I often required the students to apply what they had just learned to a new situation. I used real life examples to which they could identify when feasible. Much of this approach supported the basis of my ticket-rewarding objective. Those students who pushed themselves and participated tended to earn more tickets. I always encouraged students to participate. I explicitly told them it was better to try and be wrong, then to never try at all.
I was also explicit about critical thinking. I talked to them about what thinking critically meant, and how important it was to think about thinking, i.e. metacognition. While I did not expound upon Bloom’s Taxonomy with them, I was conscientious of asking questions or planning activities that fell within the realm of higher order thinking. Whenever I was about to start a round of questions, I would announce to the students that we were going to do some critical thinking, or higher order thinking. I was extremely explicit about this.
I used graphic organizers whenever I could to engage the students’ higher order thinking skills; such as
* tracing the flow of energy in the process of setting off fireworks;
Student Flow Chart
* determining the real-life, practical applications of different types of electromagnetic energy;
Wavestown
* identifying, defining, exemplifying, and illustrating the three types of heat transfer in a foldable the students had to create.
Conduction, Convection, & Radiation Foldable
Day Three, when we did The Ball Drop Experiment, was a good day for me and the students in the area of critical thinking. I allowed them more time and space for discovering things on their own. With the data they generated from the experiment, they had to calculate averages, graph the results, draw conclusions, and compare those conclusions to hypotheses they had made prior to conducting the experiment. This required them to apply what they had learned over the last three lessons, as well as, analyze new questions and scenarios. They had to recognize a pattern or proportional relationship between potential and kinetic energy. They also had to consider and answer why the numbers did not match, and discern what happened to the “missing energy” that was not accounted for by the math.
The Herschel Experiment
On Day Seven, I introduced the students to some science history about the electromagnetic spectrum and Sir Frederick William Herschel. Herschel constructed telescopes and lenses during the late 18th Century. He discovered the planet Uranus, the first discovery of a planet since antiquity. He also discovered something else about light. And, with my students, I stopped there. We proceeded to recreate what is known as the Herschel experiment. This was a directed inquiry, quasi-demonstration experiment. This experiment required us to wait for periodic temperature readings while we were outside on a beautiful sunny day. As we waited, I instructed the students to "play" with prisms & mirrors and manipulate shadows in order to answer some questions about the ways in which light behaves. When we were done with the Hershel experiment - which verified that different colors of light have different wavelengths as evidence by their distinct and distinguishable temperatures – I asked the students again what Herschel discovered about light based upon this experiment. No one figured out the answer; but when I told them, their faces lit up with understanding. Herschel discovered infrared light. Using a series of scaffolding questions and a Socratic method of inquiry, we all dissected and scrutinized how and why Herschel discovered infrared light based upon a variation of this experiment. I used parts of a NASA PowerPoint along with the Cool Cosmos website in this lesson.
Cool Cosmos http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/
The Herschel Experiment at Cool Cosmos
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/herschel_experiment.html
NASA Power Point (click here to access Power Point located on Content: Fifth Grade page under Day 7)
Cool Cosmos http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/
The Herschel Experiment at Cool Cosmos
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/classroom_activities/herschel_experiment.html
NASA Power Point (click here to access Power Point located on Content: Fifth Grade page under Day 7)
Reflection
The Herschel Experiment was a fascinating experiment. The students enjoyed it, and they understood its purpose and implications. However, when I ventured into more extended types of critical thinking questions both related to and tangential to this activity, I lost some of them. I went over the heads of many of them. I had some S.P.A.C.E. students who were right with me, and they were excited about it; but when I saw that I was losing most of the class due to brain overload, I moved on to something else. I feel good that I noticed that and adjusted my teaching accordingly. I was able to read the students and respond to their needs. I was not happy with the fact that a small, but viable number of students who were being really challenged and inspired by the more complex analysis had to be ignored essentially because I was not sufficiently teaching to the middle. If I could redo this lesson, I might compose different critical-thinking question sheets or task cards (based upon an idea from Pam Patrick on small group reading differentiation) for the students congruent with their respective small reading group designations. This is how I did the leveled readers, of course, for the science unit.
Asking higher order questions is a normal part of my teaching style. Engaging the students through higher order activities is as well. Educating students about the thinking process is something I will be doing as at teacher. Teachers should do more than teach content. They should teach students what to do with the content they have learned; how to think about the content; how to analyze content so that it can be generalized to established areas or extended to new ones. By constantly asking questions of my students, I am modeling for them the type of life-long learner I want them to be. I want them to question the world around them, seek knowledge, develop skills, be creative, and evaluate all they encounter.
Asking higher order questions is a normal part of my teaching style. Engaging the students through higher order activities is as well. Educating students about the thinking process is something I will be doing as at teacher. Teachers should do more than teach content. They should teach students what to do with the content they have learned; how to think about the content; how to analyze content so that it can be generalized to established areas or extended to new ones. By constantly asking questions of my students, I am modeling for them the type of life-long learner I want them to be. I want them to question the world around them, seek knowledge, develop skills, be creative, and evaluate all they encounter.