Tag Archives: Critical Thinking

Designing a meaningful warm-up

Anatomy & Physiology, Biology, Science, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back in the block schedule day, I had an opportunity to provide students with 15 minute warm-ups.  Students were presented with a controversial video, ethical or moral quote, growth mindset message, or a simple question.  The students were required to write one-half page in their interactive notebooks.  Many wrote more.  Then, we had a class discussion about the topics.  Science students are amazing.  They quickly realized they had to really think about the topic.  I often said I did not want the superficial “skipping a stone across the creek” thoughts, I wanted their “throw a large rock into a lake and watch it sink way down” thoughts.  Of course, giving the students examples like this often led to deep thinking as well.  These warm-ups were deeply philosophical, ethical, created moral dilemmas, and essentially great for scientific argumentation, creative and logical critical thinking.  I miss them.

I digress.  Currently I am teaching in a traditional schedule environment, with two late starts: Mondays and Fridays.  Clearly, with such a shortened schedule I do not have time to divert from essential content if I am to meet the students’ learning goals, and daily objectives.  It was about this time that I was found a website Effective strategies for teaching science vocabulary.  There were many, many tips, strategies, and techniques.  I had an idea that became a great warm-up.

It is no secret that the amount of science vocabulary students must learn in a year is incredibly large; far too large to accomplish easily, especially for the EL students.  After brainstorming, I realized that perhaps it would not be so difficult if the students were given a cipher, so to speak.  I had learned about this website called desmos, typically used for math students, but easily modified for my purposes.

The first iteration involved students matching concentration style six prefixes with their meanings.  The second iteration included prefixes, suffixes, or roots with their definitions.  The third iteration added more rigor; students had to match their terms and then google a new word with the same prefix, suffix or root.  Once the students had mastered these different levels (naturally scaffolded as it went through different iterations), I added another step: a collaborative connection.  Now the students had to turn to their elbow partner and share the new words they had found for the same prefix, suffix, or root, and make a connection back to the original meaning.  Most of the time the connections were clear and obvious, but some of the time they were more difficult and required some creative, out of the box thinking.  The last iteration was simply to reduce the number of terms from six to three so the warm-up could be completed in approximately five minutes.  Then, the students stamp them.  We turn them in once a week.

At first, I was not sure this would work out well.  Then, I noticed that some of the students who usually require prodding were enjoying it.  Now, the students come in quickly and immediately look for the desmos code on the screen.  I have time for attendance and to walk around and help those who are having difficulty.  It is flexible enough for me to customize for a particular lesson.  For instance, when teaching photosynthesis, the desmos warm-ups had terms such as photo-, synthesis, chemio, and chloro-.   Yeah me, this was a big win.  It checks as lot of those instructional boxes: vocabulary, collaboration, critical thinking, creative thinking, utilizing technology for research, and all within about five minutes.

 

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References

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/7079?style=print

https://teacher.desmos.com/

 

 

Work for a Cause

Biology, Geoscience, Health, Inspirational, Journals, , , , , , , , , , , ,

This particular quote is difficult for many teens to really understand deeply, cognitively, and emotionally.  Teens are at the awkward stage of life where they believe everything they do is being watched, judged, and/or criticized – not just by parents, teachers, and other authority figures, but worse than that – their “friends.”

This was a journal prompt I have used in both science classes and health classes because it serves multiple purposes.  First, the students have to really decode the message.  Most of the time they ask me to explain it without even trying, but I always make them to some time and really think about their lives and how this sentiment applies.

Most of my students will get to the cognitive meaning of the quote because they believe it is like a right or wrong question; they do not yet understand that it is not about being right or wrong, it is about building a philosophy for existence.  It is about self-esteem, belief in your inner self, no matter what anyone else thinks.

My favorite analogy is the story of my four-year-old son who wanted to get his nails polished for preschool because mommy and auntie were getting their nails polished.  Gabriel was so excited.  He picked out a really nice green for both his hands and his toes.  His smile lit the room.  When we went home, my husband pulled me aside and was so worried about my undermining our son’s masculinity.  What if he always wants to wear nail polish and then, what if he wants to wear lipstick . . . oh, my.  He was panicked.  I reassured him we would never have to worry about such things.

I cannot be sure what occurred at preschool the next day, but my beautiful son came home at 11:30 a.m. with absolutely no green nail polish on his fingers.  We had a first talk about individuality and the importance of “owning” who you are.  He had literally eaten off his nail polish from his fingers.  I can imagine the other children were pretty harsh, perhaps even a couple of the teachers as well because despite the literal TONS of famous eccentric individuals out in the world, in the every day life of an every day person, it is NOT okay to be different – our social norms dictate that being different is somehow “wrong?”

This when my teens really start to understand the depth of the message because they realize from this simple story how much of life is just like that, as if we are all square meant to fit in square spaces.  But some of us are MORE.  I AM different.  I own my differences, even celebrate them.  The students get it.  They are at a time of their life when they want everyone to “see them,” and that is where it gets tricky because I have to explain it is not about rebelling just to rebel, doing something just because you are under scrutiny, it is about doing what is right simply because it is right, even if no one else knows about it.

My students always ask who is my favorite student.  I always tell them how can I possibly have a favorite student, they are all unique, beautiful, and talented, it would be like picking my favorite flower amidst a flower garden of the most amazing, priceless, flowers in the world. Every single student knows I care about them.  No the color of their hair, their sandals, their high A’s or low F’s.  I care because my students are at an age when they need to express themselves, but they also need to be accepted for who they are – and they are still trying to figure that out (sometimes, I am still trying to figure me out too).

Once we have reached that depth behind the quote, they are in the cognitive zone for critical thinking, creative thinking, abstract thinking . . . exactly where I need them to be while we discuss science content.  The students need to see the big picture, the little picture, and the phases in-between.  It requires them to think beyond the simple facts you can google, and delve into the phenomena of why something occurs, how it is connected to our planet, earth, and life.  I just use journals to get the students in the right mental perspective, as well as teaching them a little bit about character and citizenship.