Critical and Reflective Thinking

Context

This excerpt is part of a longer interview with a student who talked about his experiences and the events that shaped him as a learner. In looking back, he recounts the challenges he experienced in his early high school years. During this time, he did not want to be at school, he avoided completing any work, and had no connection to school. He explains the impact of receiving an award as most improved student and the teachers who provided him opportunities to use his strengths when representing his knowledge and understanding.

This interview was part of a series that explored the challenges and successes students experience as they work to complete school.

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Student Interview

Context

Students had been working on a writing portfolio throughout the year. After reviewing their portfolios and reflecting on the writing they had done thus far, students set goals and created a plan for how these goals might be achieved.

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Student Work Sample

Teacher Reflection

This student was able to identify an area of his writing that he was proud of and explain why it was a strength. He also identified an area needing improvement and identified actions he could take meet his writing goals. He was able to specify how his teacher could help him meet these goals.

He demonstrated personal awareness and responsibility by:

• Recognizing his strengths
• Valuing his work and abilities
• Identifying what he needed need to achieve his goals
• Asking for help
• Planning for success

Context

In this class, student math work is largely self-paced, and students take responsibility for their learning. A change in math programs had caused the student some worry about her pace of work. This student approached the teacher to discuss some ideas she thought would help her with her work. She did not seek her parents' help to do this, although she had talked to them at home about good solutions before coming to the teacher. The teacher was satisfied with the student's progress, so this was not a teacher concern.

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Activity Video

Context

A class worked on exploring the ‘story behind the seams’ – issues related to the manufacturing of jeans in sweatshops. They examined multiple texts including videos, articles, poems, photo essays, short stories, and documentaries. With each text, the class ‘housed’ their critical thinking on a pair of jeans. The teacher found that as they investigated more deeply into this topic, their questions became increasingly sophisticated.

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Context

A class was conducting an inquiry on what technology was needed to explore extreme environments such as the depths of the ocean. When one of the students made an interesting connection between the extreme environments of the deepest parts of the ocean and submarines, the teacher noticed a keen interest in the class, and presented a challenge to create submersibles via the classroom blog.

While many students formed teams for this project, some chose to work individually. The teacher also made a submersible and he posted his trials on his blog for each phase of construction. Through the blog, teams and parents were able to follow and facilitate discussion with each other. 

Students brought their submersible to the front of the class and demonstrated/explained:

1. What did you learn about submarines?
2. What was the greatest challenge you faced? Were you able to overcome this?

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Activity Photo

Student Reflection

• Making a Submersible

Context

Students created mind maps to summarize their learning. Students had to analyze what they had learned, make connections between ideas, and synthesize their thinking to produce these representations of their thinking. They reflected on the question: “How does studying changes on the earth reveal secrets from the past and impact our future?”

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Student Work Sample

Context

During free centre time, students are encouraged to decide for themselves what and where they want to explore. This student chose to play with a basket of dinosaurs.

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Learning Story

R had all the dinosaurs sorted in two lines, facing each other. He seemed deep in thought while looking at the dinosaurs. The teacher asked, “What’s happening with all the dinosaurs?” He was enthusiastic with his answer and appeared excited to share his knowledge. He seemed to know quite a bit about dinosaurs including the names of various dinosaurs. He also pointed out the spikes on the Stegosaurus’ tail and knew that they were there to protect themselves against other dinosaurs.

R said he sorted the dinosaurs by categories, herbivores and carnivores. He stated that the carnivores eat meat and can eat the other dinosaurs. He said he knew there were more herbivore dinosaurs than the carnivores and, because of this, he said the herbivores would win the battle. He seemed focused in his play and was very engaged in how he set up the dinosaurs.

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Context

Students were asked to develop ‘one-pagers’ to communicate their understanding of a short story. They were required to include a summary, a question and answer, a quotation and analysis, a symbol and analysis, a title with thematic significance, and their opinion. Afterwards, students reflected on the process (i.e. why they chose the layout, the significance of each component, and how this assignment assisted in demonstrating their comprehension and thinking). The images and texts that students produced became new representations of their thinking.

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Student Work Photo

Student Reflection

• The Lost Thing Photo (PDF)

Context

During free time, a table was set up with four, small work surfaces. Each work surface had a wooden, square plate and 5 bowls of materials that included flat rocks, corks, spools, wooden rings and cubes. A prompt card with the question, “How high can you stack it?” was also at the table.  

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Teacher Observation

Four girls used the materials differently, but all were purposeful and intentional in their actions. They were patient, focused, and worked methodically to build their structures, with very little interaction; all seemed focused on their own buildings, and were not influenced by what others were doing.

One student (off camera, but you can hear her) seemed most interested in the sound the rocks made when she banged them on the work surface. Another stacked the corks up high until the structure fell over. Another built 4 low, identical, structures on her plate, while another, had a plan and built a more complex “town;” she stayed at the table the longest and went on to construct an even larger structure.

These materials were kept out for two weeks to give the children time to reexplore, reinvestigate and rebuild.

Activity Video

Context

In a French Immersion class, students were asked to solve an open-ended problem in groups of three and then represent their thinking in any way they chose. The problem was:

There are six cookies for the three of you. Saha’s mom said he can only have one cookie. How will you share all the cookies so it’s fair?

The video shows how students used a variety of ways to solve this problem.

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Teacher Reflection

In the first two clips, the group shows how they have organized their thinking in a table. M explains that she and A will be able to eat two cookies today and S will only get to eat one cookie, but he will get a second cookie tomorrow. This shows that they can think beyond the present time. They illustrated their solution by drawing an arrow and a cookie and “demain” for tomorrow.

In the third clip, another group shows that they have organized their thinking through a series of drawings. S describes how it would not be fair if one student had more cookies than another student. M and J then use theirs drawing to describe how they would divide each cookie into six equal pieces with each student eating two pieces from each cookie. The smaller pieces would then make one larger cookie meaning that they were still following Saha’s mom’s direction that he can only eat one cookie.

Activity Video