Name: Rebecca Walz QUESTION (shaping topic/ focus/ question)

What skills and processes constitute critical thinking, and how can I support my students growth as critical thinkers?

FIELD OBSERVATIONS/ CONNECTIONS TO PRESENT PRACTICE (what have you observed that has inspired/ contributed to this topic/ focus/ question) I came to teaching from community organizing and was really fired up about education as liberation, critical pedagogy, and social justice teaching. I still think teaching for social justice involves helping students develop as critical moral thinkers and actors. In trying to operationalize all these big ideas in the past few months, Ive been surprised at the direction my thinking and development has taken. I find myself turned off by explicitly partisan teaching and especially passionate about honest education as a space where teachers own their biases and guide students to see the stakes and self-interests of a spectrum of voices, rather than indoctrinating students into one viewpoint. (Indoctrination always sounds bad; I guess its just that my idea of indoctrination has somewhat changed, to include even politics I feel passionate about, represented in a unilateral way.) I want to explore how critical education can help students develop a healthy suspicion of the truth or whats normal and inspire students to ask questions, of each other and of their world. During my first few months of student teaching, I have experimented with different ways of helping students think critically. These experiences have helped me to see that: 1. I need to clarify what I mean by critical thinking 2. I need to own and account for my biases 3. My emphasis on systems-level thinking may be a very limited understanding of critical thinking 4. Students need support and scaffolding in order to have access to complicated critical analysis of their world, society, etc. LIT. REVIEW (review of literaturewhat literature, authors are relevant; what topics might I need to read about?)

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust

1. Teachers who engage youth reciprocity and probe their claims of unfairness will find a tremendous wellspring of intellectual and relational resources that can be channeled into academic achievement and the development of a critical citizenry. As evidence, countless activists, policymakers, politicians, social workers, clergy, and teachers trace their passion for justice to confrontations with unfairness they experienced in adolescence. This fact is as developmentally significant as it is politically and pedagogically useful (Nakkula and Toshalis, 89). 2. Understanding By DesignWiggins and McTighe 3. Ensrud, M. Getting at what they want to know: Using students questions to direct discussion. 4. Hine, M.B. Multiplicity and Difference in literary inquiry: Toward a conceptual framework for reader-centered cultural criticism. 5. Wiggins, G. Real world writing: Making purpose and audience matter. 6. Greene, M. Freedom education and public spaces. 7. Barton and Levstik. Participatory Democracy and democratic humanism. 8. Barton and Levstik. Inquiry. 9. Wolk, S. School as Inquiry. 10. Collins, Cognitive Apprenticeship. 11. Gilles, Cooperative Learning. 12. Tomlinson & McTighe (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction & understanding by design. 13. Socratic method, Socratic seminars 14. GreenThree Dimensional Model of Literacy (operational, cultural, critical) 15. Giroux: Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy: Everyday life as a basis for curriculum knowledge in Critical pedagogy, the state, and the cultural struggle. Theory and Resistance: A pedagogy for the opposition 16. Blooms Taxonomy 17. Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking 18. **Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the CurriculumGerald M. Nosich 19. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Chargeby Richard Paul and Linda Elder (this might map onto Wiggins and McTIghes understandings) 20. **Teaching Critical Thinking by bell hooks 21. Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills 22. Common Core Standards 23. Critical Thinking and English Language Arts EducationJudith Langer

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust

TOOL (What will you utilize to gather evidence/ information to inform your question)

REASON (What do I want to learn from this tool?)

DATA (Report evidence/ information gathered)

ANALYSIS How might I best represent what I have learned?(charts, graphs, narrative description) How does this data jive with what Ive read about this topic?

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust

Lesson plan study

How am I setting up the environment for critical thinking?

What questions must students answer? What tasks are they asked to complete?

Chart grouping certain types of questions, tasks, etc.

Video of classroom discussions

What happens in class? How do students respond to the lesson? What issues arise?

At what points do students seem engaged with critical thinking? When do are they noticeably or unexpectedly not engaged in critical thinking?

Narrative

Assessments

What skills and ways of thinking do students demonstrate? What do students think we are talking about/learning about? How do they feel they are growing? What do they like? What is most useful to them?

What skills have students mastered?

Some kind of analysis of what students were/were not able to demonstrate Narrative analysis

Student journals

Students opinions

Student interviews

(same as above)

(same as above)

(same as above)

CM and PM written observations

What does this look like to an experienced educator?

What does this look like to an experienced educator?

Narrative analysis

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust

THE BIG PICTURE [IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR PRACTICE what have you learned? What will you do differently as a result of your inquiry?] (No surprises make sure that whatever you suggest here has an antecedent in what you list above)

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust

Placemat for Inquiry Development adapted version from 2003 by Teachers Network/Rust