21st Century Skills/ Critical Thinking

It's been a while since my last post. I'm coming back with Lates insights on 21st Century and Critical Thinking for Schools, great teachers, mentors and Students as well.

Do you know about the 4 key principles of Students - Centered Learning and how they work ?

Principle 1
Learning is personalized - This happened when a teacher know his and her students, have strong relationship with them and can meet the students where they are in their development .

Principle 2
Learning is competency - Based
This is about the information and skills that the students have experience or mastered not just moving for a Curriculum . In a competency based system, students can proceed at their own pace in every subject enabling teacher to respond to individual needs, interests and challenges .

Principle 3
Learning happens anytime , anywhere - Students will often make important discoveries about them and the world around them when they learn beyond the tradition of school day. And outside the tradition of the school walls, Learning doesn't start and stop when we hear the bell rings.

Principle 4
Students take ownership - As a teacher, please don't make a decision about students without students because they play a direct role in their own success, actively engaging with process to ensure the impact is lifetime and meaningful.

For students - centered Learning to work, all four of these principles must work hand in hand together. It is called " Re - imagining Education ".

@ Helen Onyemalu NLB
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What do you understand about the term " Education in the 21st Century".

When we talk about education in the twenty first century, we are looking at " Students - Centered Learning ". We are no longer in the traditional era of teaching and learning . Our model of learning much 'Change' we need to re - modelling the teaching and learning .So if you as a productive, active and creative teacher but still using old ways of teaching I tell you!! Develop and upgrade yourself so that this aged computer generation ( Learners ) will not challenge and throw you off balance. You have to discover, explore, make research and read books to come up to the standards and quality embedded skills with classroom strategies.

Students - Centered Learning :
It helps to incorporate the students skills and interests into the learning process making their experience more personalized and involving the students into their ( his/her ) own future.

What makes this work ? "Principles" yes that is the answer .

@ Helen Onyemalu NLB
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To be continued in the next slide.

Help your students or learners pick out a solution to a problem . There may be more than one solution, help your students or learners to see what's good about their work and what can be improve upon.
Engage with your students or learners and ask three W.W.W questions > What Worked Well ? How can this be even better ?
Use this to help your students or learners to work at their 'Highest Level' . Our world is changing rapidly, what do we need to invent to make our lives better ? How will we solve our problems of pollution, erosion, environmental quality and the rest of them ? Teaching our students or learners how to use what they know in new ways will help them become creative thinkers of the future as we teach 21st century skills with confidence.

@ Helen Onyemalu NLB
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Simple strategies to implement creativity in your classroom.

First of all -- Expand the possibilities.
Post this question in your classroom.
-- Is there another way we can do this ?
You as a teacher can use this in many ways. Let's imagine your students or learners are studying "Shapes" ask them
-- How do we make shapes?
We can show it visually by drawing a painting shapes. We can describe it verbally as shapes in words such as : it's round, it's square, it's triangle etc using gestures. We can even make it physically with our fingers, our hands or our arms.

For building speaking and listening skills, learners can use their imagination for word place, dialogues and other projects. They can create visual words, have their own words and personalize the content.

Remember : Creativity means taking risks. Your students or learners feel that they must be correct all the time. They may not try out new ideas. Let them know that trying new ideas, asking questions and making mistakes are a natural part of learning.

To be continued in the next slide
@ Helen Onyemalu NLB
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How do you use creativity in the classroom ?

As part of 21st century skills, What is creativity ?
There are many creative people who serve as a role models for the students. These people look at things in new ways from a different perspectives as we say " THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX"
They created something valuable for the world.
As teachers/ Educators we can develop and nurture creativity in our classroom.

What promote creativity is "A QUESTIONING CLASSROOM" where teachers and students ;
-- Value diversity.
-- Ask unusual and challenging
questions.
-- Make new connections.
-- Represent ideas in different
ways- Visually, physically and
verbally.
-- Try fresh approaches and
solution to problems and
-- Critically evaluate new ideas
in actions.

To be continued in the next slide.
Onyemalu NLB
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4. An illogical conclusion : Is a flawed reasoning that is simply not logical. If I try to make my conclusion based on the point that;
(2+2=5) two plus two equals five, I have an illogical conclusion because Mathematically we know that;
(2+2=4) two plus two equals four.
When we are walking with our students on their critical thinking, we need to
1. give students practice in both deductive and inductive reasoning. We also can
2. give students practice in identifying flawed reasoning.
So with these all, students will always know the type of reasoning they are actually using and they know if the reasoning is effective or not.

Remember to like, share and comment.

Helen NLB
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A client asked me ; What is Flawed reasoning?

Today I am going to throw a little light on using flawed reasoning in teaching students critical thinking.

Flawed reasoning is a type of reasoning that we all ( the teachers and educators) have to avoid. Even if we are to use it. Below are the best and examples of flawed reasoning that we may want to teach our students.

Examples of the flawed reasoning:
1. A contraction: Is a type of flawed reasoning in which two opposite points are claimed to be true but it is not logical for these two points to actually be true at the same time.
2. A circular argument: Is a flawed reasoning in which the conclusion is also one of the supporting points. So in order words, in a circular argument,a conclusion is used to support itself.
3. A false analogy: Is a flawed reasoning in which an analogy is used that is illogical. An analogy is when two objects are considered to be similar and they share similar properties. So they have to support an argument because of the similarities of these properties. A false analogy is when two objects appeared to be similar but they are actually different with respect to particular property being used in a reasoning.

Helen NLB
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To be continued in the next slide.

6. You can ask students to complete a lengthier works in writing or speaking that put together multiple frame works or sub skills that I put down here;
A) For low level students: you can ask them to write a single paragraph that makes a particular argument and using a particular structure.

B) For intermediate students: you can ask them to write for example a three paragraph essay.

C) For high level students: you can ask them to write a multiple page essay. You can also ask them to write or do a short presentation that demonstrates their position and their argumentation on different topics.

There are a lot of activities we can use in receptive and productive skills to help our students both learn critical thinking and to apply it to their academic work.

Helen NLB.
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