Author: Terrell Heick

A Basic Framework For Teaching Critical Thinking In School by Terrell Heick In What Does Critical Thinking Mean?, we offered that ‘(c)ritical thinking is the suspension of judgment while identifying biases and underlying assumptions to draw accurate conclusions.’ Of course, there are different definitions of critical thinking. The American Philosophical Association defines it as, “Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas. It involves being active (rather than reactive) in your learning process, and it includes open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, and the ability to examine and evaluate ideas, arguments, and points of view.” But…

by Terry Heick Simple premise, as titled: what sorts of ‘things’ make teaching unsustainable, and what sort of advice can help teachers reflect on these ideas to mitigate any damage and make the profession more enjoyable, and thus sustainable. 10. Grow a healthy and useful professional learning network. See also 10 Reasons Every Teacher Needs A Professional Learning Network Human connections sustain humans. 9. The school year is a marathon, not a sprint. And this should have significant implications for instructional design–spiraling, for example. Some ideas students can ‘get’ right away, while others will take all year. Continuously spiral those…

by TeachThought Staff Inquiry-based learning is an approach to learning guided by students through questions, research, and/or curiosity. An inquiry-based learning strategy is simply a way to facilitate inquiry during the learning process. It might be useful to think of ways to suppress inquiry to emphasize the strategies that might be used to promote it. Years ago in the (tongue very much in cheek) 12 Ways To Kill A Learner’s Curiosity, I said that limiting choice, thinking in black and white, and focusing on answers instead of questions were just a few ways to stifle inquiry and curiosity. In Strategies…

by Terry Heick As a follow-up to our 9 Characteristics of 21st Century Learning we developed in 2009, we have developed an updated framework, The Inside-Out Learning Model. The goal of the model is simple enough–not pure academic proficiency, but instead authentic self-knowledge, diverse local and global interdependence, adaptive critical thinking, and adaptive media literacy. By design this model emphasizes the role of play, diverse digital and physical media, and a designed interdependence between communities and schools. The attempted personalization of learning occurs through new actuators and new notions of local and global citizenship. An Inside-Out School returns the learners, learning, and ‘accountability’…

To grow, teachers must be able to reflect critically on their own performance. Education is ‘actuated’ by teachers. It makes sense, then, that education should also be able to reflect critically on its own performance as well.  Currently, this occurs through the comforting precision of analysis and numbers. The language of math, data, and statistics provides a universal language that (ideally) resists rhetoric and insists on facts. This also provides a footing for research and natural anchoring points for the kinds of strategies we use to improve our schools.  To be whole, however, this critical reflection–this self-criticism–needs to be qualitative…

by Terry Heick Reflection is a fundamental tenet of learning; it is also, therefore, a fundamental part of teaching. Why it happens is a matter of humility. But how and when it happens–and with whom–is less clear. This is partly because there are multiple sides to reflection–length, width, and depth. A Z-axis. It is whole. As a kind of definition, to reflect means to look back at how something ‘went,’ and see it for all of its available parts and patterns: Causes and effects; comparisons and contrast; strengths and weakness; its characteristics; how close it came to what you were…

by Terry Heick What are the different types of questions? Turns out, it’s pretty limitless. I’ve always been interested in them–the way they can cause (or stop) thinking; the nature of inquiry and reason; the way they can facilitate and deepen a conversation; the way they can reveal understanding (or lack thereof); the stunning power of the right question at the right time. There’s a kind of humility to questions. Someone who doesn’t know asks someone who might. Or even someone who does know (rhetorically) asks someone who doesn’t to produce an effect (rhetorically). There’s a relative intimacy between someone…

by TeachThought Staff We make lasting connections through play, but the role of play in learning is an idea that continues to meet resistance. Part of the reason could be tone. We like our learning serious, intentional, and academic. This is reflected through a parallel insistence on an outcomes-based learning system where learning objectives are determined and assessments are written before hand, and subsequent instruction is revised based only on data taken from said assessments. (See “10 Ways Data Can Sabotage Your Teaching.”) And the entire process itself is based on a pile of industrialized and de-personalized “learning standards” that,…

Tone As A Cause And Effect Of Learning by Terrell Heick In 20 Words That Can Affect How Students Think,, we said “Tone affects how students see themselves and their role in the learning process. In fact, a student’s own ongoing internal dialogue and thoughts about themselves and their self-identity as learners isn’t just a ‘factor’ in learning but one of the single most important factors.” This is central to the principle and practice of Social-Emotional Learning (and strategies for social-emotional learning). It might be useful to take a quick look at some of the key ideas and underlying assumptions…

by Terry Heick I first encountered the 40/40/40 rule years ago while skimming one of those giant (and indispensable) 400 page Understanding by Design tomes. The question was simple enough. Of all of the academic standards, you are tasked with ‘covering’ (more on this in a minute), what’s important that students understand for the next 40 days, what’s important that they understand for the next 40 months, and what’s important that they understand for the next 40 years? As you can see, this is a powerful way to think about academic content. Of course, this leads to the discussion of…