Prep Round-up! Term 3 - The Southport School

Thinking Skills ‘in Action’ – 5PThe teaching of thinking skills may be includedin the curriculum in a variety of ways. They maybe taught as skills within their own right under thelabel of critical thinking. They may be taught as areflective exercise on how thinking occurs withinand across the subject. At the beginning of TermTwo, students were introduced to the Thinking SkillsFramework that details the thinking levels (RevisedBloom’s Taxonomy), the ‘verbs’ that suggest whatthe students are ‘doing’, the ‘starter’ questions thatenable students and myself to devise questions,and Thinking ‘tools’ that are used by the students to‘act out’ their thinking.Over time, I have seen students develop a commonlanguage of ‘thinking’ that now pretty muchembraces what we learn. I was impressed withhow quickly the students understood the actualframework. Below is a sample of how 5P haveused the framework in Term Three.1. What would we do if FOP gave 5P $5000.00to build a project for the School?Firstly, the students worked on their own andlisted eight (8) projects and placed their list in anElimination Draw to determine what their ‘winning’choice would be. They then shared their choicewith the rest of the class. This created anotheropportunity to complete a whole-class EliminationDraw. Eventually the class came up with threechoices: 1. Rugby Supporter Stands 2. MobilePutt Putt Course 3. Paved Bicycle Track. In groupsof four, the students completed a Decision Matrixwhich helped them compare, analyse and selectthe better choice. Common factors such as cost,safety, availability to all students, environmentalconcerns and supervision factors were allconsidered. After using a ‘points’ system for eachfactor/choice the students came up with theirFINAL choice. As a group, they then researchedsuppliers on the Gold Coast and sent emails tothem asking for quotes.2. Design a 2010 poster for this year’s Book Weektheme ‘Story Bridge’ (metaphor for movingfrom the known to the unknown..new horizons)Firstly, the students worked on their own for 15minutes to design a poster, using a design programwith this theme in mind. After the time limit wasreached, they gathered into groups of four (4)to share their individual designs. The group thencombined their ideas to come up with one design(30 min). Group members then chose a ‘GroupRepresentative’ to remain with their design whilethe other three walked around to other groups toask questions about what they had achieved (3min at each group). Group members then cametogether for one last time to share what they hadseen from other groups to Refine their group designand eventually share with the rest of the class.Thinking Levels: Design – Evaluate – Analyse –ApplyThinking Tools: 1:4:P:C:R (1=First draft asindividuals, 4=Share your idea with a group of 4,P=Publish a combined design, C=Circle the othergroups and gather further ideas, R=Refine ideas &understandings and generate FINAL design.)Now that the students have this common languageup and running, I recently advised their parentsthat they would be receiving weekly Thinking SkillsTasks using similar thinking tools. At least half of theparents have completed this homework task andsome have commented on how using thinking toolshas helped them make important decisions. Forthose parents who haven’t handed in this week’stask......you have a detention this Friday!Andrew Philp (5P Teacher)Thinking Levels: Evaluate – Analyse – ApplyThinking Tools: Elimination Draw & DecisionMaking Matrix4