“I HAVE TO TEACH WHAT”?

Don’t Sweat It: 10 12 Easy Ways to Bring Creativity and Critical Thinking Into Your Classroom Today!

#12 START SMALL Start with easier,

factual questions to build your students’ confidence. Start slow, many students are not used to critical thinking in the classroom.

#11 SWITCH IT UP Teachers like to

build routines in the classroom and those are great. However everyone gets bored doing the same thing over and over. Make sure your assignments and activities aren’t getting stale.

#10 – GIVE THEM THE TOOLS TO SUCCEED So much technology

at our school goes unused. Make a point to allow students to use tools to display their creativity. Have students write and record a rap or short movie. Allow students to make power points or wikis on your content.

9. WORK WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES Join with a colleague from

another content area and plan a lesson or unit together. Student can read The Diary of Anne Frank in ELA while learning about the Holocaust in Social Studies. When students see these subjects are not in a vacuum they will begin to make connections between the contents. Allow them to display these connections in a creative way.

8. MAKE IT RELEVANT Make the content relevant

to the student by connecting it to the real world or things that interest them. In math class have students find the favorite players career scoring average or have ELA students write letters to the editor about local issues they care about. The more our students see a connection between the classroom and the real world the more engaged they will be

7. MAKE THEM THINK ABOUT THEIR THINKING Secondary students are

often deficient in critical thinking skills by the time they reach college. Make students think about their thinking by asking questions. Before you start ask “what do you already know/” During the lesson have students make a list of misunderstandings about the content. After the lesson ask students how their thinking has changed with this new information.

6. MAKE THEM COMPARE AND CONTRAST Have students

compare and contrast two people, ideas, place, or characters. Ask, “how are they alike? How are they different?” By making students enumerate how things are similar or different they are developing critical thinking by evaluating both variables.

5. LET THEM TEACH EACH OTHER Why should you do the

heavy lifting, you already know this stuff? Allow students to teach each other. This can be done with students in the same class or by allowing older students to tutor younger. Allow older students to design their own lesson plan to teach. This promotes creativity as well as critical thinking by evaluating the best way to teach an objective

4. “PROVE IT” So a student has a

correct answer, wonderful! Now make them prove it. Ask how they know that is true. Would they be able to prove their idea in the real world? How? What would they say to someone who disagrees with them? Critical thinking is promoted when students try to test or prove their hypothesis.

3. GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY Allow students to get

into the content with hands on activities. Challenge students to make a DNA model from Styrofoam, marshmallows, and toothpicks or to create a diorama in a scene from a novel. Don’t just stick with pencil and paper!

2. ARGUE WITH THEM Have students evaluate

and discuss their ideas in groups discussions. These could be Socratic, teacher led, whole class discussions or smaller group discussions between student groups. Dialogue and opposing viewpoints can open the doors to new ideas. Make sure there are ground rules and consequences for class discussion to promote a safe environment.

1. COME TOGETHER The #1 way to

promote creativity and critical thinking is collaboration. Students will need to be able to collaborate with many people in a multitude of environments. Lets give them practice in communicating and sharing ideas in the classroom.