Building Powerful Thinkers
Cognitive teaching and learning approaches are grounded in several types of thinking: critical, creative, strategic, systems and design thinking. Educators will learn how to develop and harness these types of thinking to design engaging and meaningful instruction to help students develop their own creative and critical thinking, communication, and problem solving skills.
Critical thinking is the engine of learning. Whether teacher or student, critical thinking is needed to drive the complexities of the learning process.
Educators play a vital role in the development and acquisition of the following critical thinking skills, actions and characteristics that indicate students are 21st century learners: open-mindedness; engaging in problem solving; analyzing, reasoning and evaluating; reflecting on learning; collaborating with others; making real world applications; thinking critically and creatively; and communicating clearly and accurately.
Modules
Do You See What I Mean?
A Metacognitive Approach to Visualizing Thought
Viewing a problem or scenario from multiple perspectives or relationships is essential in the systems thinking required for making informed decisions or developing models and simulations. The day-long workshop demonstrates creative and engaging techniques to catalyze the process of understanding connections and relationships between values, variables, events or concepts. Educators will participate in activities to learn the techniques and then collaborate to develop and share ideas for lessons to be used in the classroom.
Unleash Your Creative Beast!
Whether designing a science fair project, an art installation, or launching an entrepreneurial venture, there are essential questions to ask and processes to follow. But even with the best set of systems and processes in place, problems and obstacles pop up to potentially derail a project. Developing and adopting a creative mindset and employing habits of mind help move an idea forward from a mere notion, past pitfalls and obstacles, to design inventive or innovative solutions.
Creativity can be learned and enhanced with time, practice and opportunities to apply new skills and ways of thinking. With this workshop, educators learn and participate in activities that demonstrate how to help students develop their creative mindset. The fun, engaging and collaborative activities can be transferred across any subject with any age student. This is the perfect workshop that can also help open channels of communication and strengthen curriculum development and instructional teams.