{"id":38,"date":"2015-03-10T00:13:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/?p=38"},"modified":"2015-03-10T00:13:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:13:08","slug":"action-plan-developing-critical-thinkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/2015\/03\/10\/action-plan-developing-critical-thinkers\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Plan &#8230; Developing Critical Thinkers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After missing the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> F2F Session at MaRS, I felt like I had hit a roadblock with my action plan. I know I missed out on some great discussions and collaboration with the <a title=\"Cohort21\" href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/\">Cohort21<\/a> members and did not know where to start. After some great guidance and support from Derek and other Cohort facilitators, I feel confidant enough to share and my prototype and welcome feedback for improvement.<\/p>\n<p>I have spent a lot of time in the <em>defining <\/em>phase of the design process to redefine the problem I am facing in my classroom. My goal for my students is for them to utilize the 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century Skills accessible to them to develop critical thinking skills when reading, answering questions, and participating in class\/ small-group discussion.\u00a0I want to get students passed the literal level of thinking and push them to\u00a0think critically about all material that is presented to them. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/74\/files\/2015\/03\/visible-thinking2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-40\" src=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/74\/files\/2015\/03\/visible-thinking2-300x159.jpg\" alt=\"visible-thinking2\" width=\"300\" height=\"159\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/files\/2015\/03\/visible-thinking2-300x159.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/files\/2015\/03\/visible-thinking2-100x53.jpg 100w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/files\/2015\/03\/visible-thinking2.jpg 702w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 960px) 75vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now that I have redefined my problem, I have based my action plan around by 3<sup>rd<\/sup> term novel study on the book <em>Wonder by R.J. Palacio. <\/em>For those of you have not read Wonder- it is a must read with very important messages about kindness, courage, and acceptance embedded in its text. This book is about a young boy, Auggie Pullman, who has not been to a mainstream school due to a facial deformity. As he enters Middle School, his parents decide to send him to a private school in the heart of Manhattan. The book is divided into eight parts, interspersing first-person narrative with the opinions and stories of family members and classmates. Due to the varying perspectives of the novel, I believe this is the best novel to use with my action plan.<\/p>\n<p>Below are the steps I will take when implementing my plan\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I will start off each class with a <a title=\"Visible Thinking\" href=\"http:\/\/www.visiblethinkingpz.org\">visible thinking routine<\/a>.\u00a0Here students will practice making their \u201cthinking visible\u201d through discussion and creative exercises. This will force students to think about what they are thinking and verbally express these thoughts.<\/li>\n<li>I stumbled upon a <a href=\"https:\/\/prezi.com\/zafjw2ni90h5\/visible-thinking-routines-matrix\/\">Prezi <\/a>describing the visible thinking routine matrix. I will use this Prezi as a way to introduce the idea of visible thinking and familiarize them with its components.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>All students read <em>Wonder <\/em>on the school iPads. As part of their reading routine, students will use iBook to annotate, highlight, and make comments while reading. During weekly book talks, students will meet in small groups and discuss what they have highlighted and comments they may have on certain parts of the book. Using the thinking routines, students will have question prompts to help enrich their discussion and continue practicing their critical thinking skills.<\/li>\n<li>Students use KidBlog to answer discussion questions posted by teachers. This is where students will use their visible thinking routines and implement them in written form. Consistent feedback and communication between teacher and student will be crucial for this component to help students reflect on their thinking.<\/li>\n<li>Have students collaborate with one another using their blogs and technology. My class thoroughly enjoys leaving comments on each other\u2019s blogs and this has been a great way for them to practice their assessment and feedback skills.<\/li>\n<li>Twitter and Twitter Fontana will be used as discussion starters using hashtags that connect with the novel. Students will read tweets that have been posted by other readers and discuss common themes, trends, and messages that they see.<\/li>\n<li>Design Thinking: Once students have finished <em>Wonder, <\/em>they will read the \u2018<em>Julian Chapter- a Bullies Perspective\u2019. <\/em>They will need to reflect on both novels and the different perspectives to create a final reflection piece. They may use any form of technology or medium to reflect their interpretation of the novel and the difference\/ similarities between <strong>a bully <\/strong>and <strong>a victim. <\/strong>They will use this piece to make a presentation about the themes of the novel to younger grades.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>I will be introducing the design process, as well as, multiple \u2018creative thinking routines\u2019. One creative thinking routine I will be using is called: <strong><em>Step Inside: Perceive Know about, Care about- A routine for getting inside viewpoints. <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By implementing these ideas, my hope is that students start to feel comfortable with the thinking process. They will be able to make their thinking visible and think critically by analyzing and questioning multiple viewpoints.<\/p>\n<p>My hope for the future\u2026 connect my class with other schools that are reading the novel. Set up Google Hangouts and online discussion forums for students to communicate and share their ideas with a larger population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After missing the 3rd F2F Session at MaRS, I felt like I had hit a roadblock with my action plan. I know I missed out on some great discussions and collaboration with the Cohort21 members and did not know where to start. After some great guidance and support from Derek and other Cohort facilitators, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/2015\/03\/10\/action-plan-developing-critical-thinkers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Action Plan &#8230; Developing Critical Thinkers&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","tag-actionplan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/amandalupo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}