What is Critical Thinking:
Critical thinking is the process of thinking about ideas or situations in order to understand them fully, identify their implications, make a judgement based on criteria, and/or guide decision making. Critical thinking includes skills such as questioning, predicting, hypothesizing, analysing, synthesizing, examining opinions, identifying values and issues, detecting bias, and distinguishing between alternatives. Students who are taught these skills become critical thinkers who can move beyond superficial conclusions to a deeper understanding of the issues they are examining. They are able to engage in an inquiry process in which they explore complex and multifaceted issues, and questions for which there may be no clear-cut answers.
Critical Thinking Template: Developed by the staff at Elmdale
Critical thinking sample questions:
We will post questions and projects throughout the year.
Here are a few good news stories, combinations of EQAO and Critical Thinking.
September 9 2013 -
This one-page guide, suitable for any grade level, provides easy-to-make changes that turn common questions into powerful probes for deeper thinking.
http://tc2.ca/uploads/PDFs/TIpsForTeachers/ten_tweaks_for_questions.pdf
Schools on the Journey of Learning:
Elmdale was selected in the spring to participate in the Schools on a Journey of Learning interview. Every year, EQAO visits a number of schools to talk to educators and see how EQAO data are being used to inform discussions and planning for student achievement. For each release, EQAO aims to profile schools in each region of the province, in public and catholic boards. Overtime, EQAO profiles school communities from each school board. Schools are identified based on school improvement overtime. They are schools whose trends in student achievement on provincial assessments show that successful programs and strategies are being used in those school communities. It is the trend overtime that is most important, not any particular year’s results. The profiled schools are at various stages in their journey of learning but are all representative of dedicated school communities.These schools are notable for their leadership, proactive initiatives, data-driven strategies.
Television Interview with Garfield Gini-Newman
We find Garfield Gini-Newman very inspiring!
Garfield was interviewed on CTV last September 13th 2012. His clip focused on critical thinking, of course, and even engaged the interviewer in a decode the puzzle challenge. Elmdale was mentioned and several of our parents saw the clip and were talking about it. In his clip, however, he focused on the school wide critical task of helping choose a car (he saw this when he came to visit Elmdale as it was posted in the main hall). He was also interviewed on CBC and he will let us know when that is airing as, in it, he speaks more extensively about our work at Elmdale.
We are very proud of ALL that the staff team is doing to "tweak and fortify" our practices to incorporate critical thinking across the curriculum!
Here is the link to the Youtube clip. Garfield and Elmdale YouTube clip