Case Study C: Critical Think

The Challenge:

According to Jane Barrer, a New York City Media Specialist working in the public school system, “children are in danger of being “standardized-tested” out of all creative and critical thought processes.” She contends that, “a population who has not been taught to ask (and effectively respond to) questions is a population in trouble.” Without the proper implementation of the 21st Century learning and thinking skills across the curriculum, today’s students (or better yet, our future leaders) will not be prepared to adequately function in an ever-changing and technologically fast-paced society. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the nation’s leading advocacy agency for integrating these skills into education, identified and organized the skills needed for effective 21st Century Learning. Even with this information, the main challenge for educators was a lack of knowledge on how to successfully integrate and assess such skills and a strong need for instruction and information on how to implement 21st Century Skills in the classroom.

The Solution:

The EdVenture Group, a non-profit organization specializing in professional development opportunities that help teachers develop the skills needed to be effective 21st Century educators, developed a 45 hour graduate level asynchronous online course that educates teachers on the 21st Century Learning Skills and Objectives and their incorporation into curriculum. The multi-method approach for designing, developing, and disseminating the online course included collecting subjective and objective data. The EdVenture Group conducted interviews and administered surveys to collect information from practicing teachers that guided the content and structure of the course.

Research and data from teachers indicated an uncertainty on exactly what 21st Skills are, how they are different from the skills presently taught in the classroom, and how they are evaluated. Some teachers also indicated difficulty in the creation of questions that extract critically considered student responses beyond the evident conclusions expressed in text books and classroom lectures. Critical Think focuses on helping teachers create lessons and thematic units that required students to expand inquiry and critical thinking skills using activities that require students to classify, demonstrate, evaluate, interpret, predict, and translate information.

The goal of Critical Think is to help teachers identify and understand the six key elements of 21st Century Learning, understand and apply Bloom's theory of developing higher levels of thought processes to everyday classroom teaching, create a “classroom ready” thematic unit including all of Bloom’s higher level skills and all core subject areas, and develop an authentic 21st Century assessment tool to appraise students’ understanding of particular concepts.

The Outcome:

Fourteen educators enrolled in the pilot of Critical Think , including Jane Barrer who revealed how her classroom teaching strategies have changed since completing the course. Ms. Barrer stated that, “teaching children how to access information efficiently and how to evaluate information critically” should be done “within the context of the classroom curriculum, thus giving it relevance.” Since completing Critical Think, Ms. Barrer says every lesson in her Library Media Center has integrated various 21st Century Skills that involve some degree of critical thinking. Some concrete examples include:

• Asking students to interview one another, question, and comment about family backgrounds or other experiences they bring to the class.

• Having students interpret literature, current events, history, art and music encountered on a regular basis.

• Requiring students to make connections or identify similarities and differences to other items of interest, or subjects of study.

The course participants shared ideas for using the strategies learned in the course in their teaching. The online record of the discussions created a repository of ideas and resources that participants can take back to their classrooms. Critical Think participants were also introduced to 21st Century assessment tools, such as rubrics, blogs/forums, and collaborative exercises. As a result, teachers were able to create thematic units that promote critical thinking and include a 21st Century assessment tool. Post evaluations and course reflections show that Critical Think helps combat the issues many teachers believe to be inhibiting when attempting to integrate the 21st Century Skills branded vital to the success of today’s students.