This is me; Vicky Kaminski.

I just finished my first year teaching as an 8th grade ELA teacher in Appoquinimink School District.

Follow me on my journey as I create and reflect on a classroom environment that promotes creativity and critical thinking.

Learning environments are crafted very carefully using three levels of higher order thinking to ensure that students are properly equipped to engage in a community of thinkers.

First, students need content, context, lower order thinking skills, and the development of basic dispositions and abilities. Students need a solid foundation of basic information and mastery of basic conceptual skills before moving forward. In addition to simply recalling information, students must be able to "seek accuracy and clarity, be open-minded, restrain impulsiveness, take a position, and self-regulate" (King , F., Goodson, L., & Rohani, F. (n.d.). Higher Order Thinking Skills).

Second, students must use their conceptual knowledge and skills to begin making connections and inferences. This in effect, "bridges" the beginning foundational skills to the higher order thinking skills.

After achieving lower level mastery and bridging the information, students are finally ready to solve real world situations, synthesize the information and bridges to create a new understanding, and reflect on their own learning.

As students progress through the three key levels to developing higher order thinking, teachers must be cognizant of their teaching strategies and methods as their lessons provide students either negative or positive opportunities to engage in higher order thinking. Though students need support and scaffolding, teachers must be careful to not provide too much support. An over abundance of scaffolding can lead the students to become dependent on the teacher for answers instead of grappling with the information themselves. Therefore, teachers should avoid direct instruction and instead allow students to both ask and answer questions while providing specific and immediate feedback. Students should work in smaller groups with a focused and rigorous task. The smaller groupings allow for more intense discussions and can allow group members to take a more active role in the project so as to properly showcase their specific talents.

Technology should also be an integral aspect of higher order thinking teaching strategies. The use of technology allows students to collaborate with others and reason through evidence. These teaching strategies will allow students to become a part of the community of thinkers.

King , F., Goodson, L., & Rohani, F. (n.d.). Higher Order Thinking Skills)

Every student is unique and deserves my attention. I will never compare students to each other and will help each student reach their highest possible potential.

To develop a community of thinkers, teachers should: provide clear instructions, prepare sample products, prepare guiding questions, prepare multiple ways to explain an idea, keep learning goals and objectives clear, use visual and oral prompts, give specific feedback, convey enthusiasm, encourage new ways of thinking, challenge preexisting notions, provide opportunity for practice before creating a final product, monitor and adjust ineffective student strategies, provide choice, provide alternative methods for differentiation - all to help students critically think for themselves.

Setting the stage for critical thinking

Demonstrated and Modeled: Metacognition

Metacognition is the ability to think about one's own thinking. Teachers can model this by thinking aloud to show how they understand and reflect upon their own thinking. This is most common during read alouds, when approaching a complex text, or walking students through math problems, and science concepts. Teachers must also model confidence in a growth mindset for both themselves and their students to show that we should always be willing to reflect on ourselves and grow from our experiences. Students can demonstrate metacognition through self-monitoring, self-assessment, and outlining their steps for thinking. Assignments that require self-pacing should ask students to outline their thought processes and their plans for completion. This allows students to assess their work ethic and their time management skills. At the end of the process, students should honestly reflect about what went well, what they should have done differently, what they were proud of, etc. Most of the time, students are honest in their reflections and often reveal insights about their process that the teacher overlooked.

Demonstrated and Modeled: Creativity

Creativity is the ability to find connections and meaning amongst seemingly unrelated events and using those concepts to generate a unique product.

Creativity is demonstrated in the classroom by giving students freedom of choice for the way in which they express their understanding. Envrionemnts that promote creativity "deteriorate...fears, insecurities, and low self-esteem" (King , F., Goodson, L., & Rohani, F. (n.d.). Higher Order Thinking Skills). Students can chose the medium that makes the most sense to them so that not only are they being creative, but they are critically thinking about their understanding and how they can best use their skills to express understanding. Rubrics for creative products should focus on the content and the connections so that a multitude of projects can be assessed on one rubric. Creativity is modeled in the classroom when teachers show and dissect mentor texts as examples for creative writing, provide the necessary materials, when they encourage thinking outside the box.

I agree with your idea that _____ but I am wondering if you considered this....

I did think about that but I ruled it out because...What is your position on...

Demonstrated and Modeled: Critical Thinking

Critical thinking can be defined as either problem solving or the evaluation of evidence and results. Critical thinking is one of the hardest skills for students to use because it encompasses many other skills that students are still developing; goal-setting, reasonable thinking, evaluation, argument, analysis, inference, open-mindedness, and interpretation. Teachers can model critical thinking by explaining their own thought process as they approach a problem. A major component of critical thinking in my classroom is the ability to discuss and argue with others. To help students, I provide sentence starters and we fishbowl conversations. I require students to use the upper three levels of Blooms Taxonomy when creating their own critical thinking questions. Students come to understand that critical thinking questions need to elicit multiple responses. Students can demonstrate their critical thinking by engaging in socratic seminars and discussion circles based on their own questions. Teachers can also provide problem based inquiry projects for students to grapple with in small groups.

All thinking strategies can be differentiated for learners of varying abilities. When students engage in creative expression, lower level students may need a menu of options - a poster, essay, powerpoint, etc. - and a more structured guideline. However, gifted students may be given more freedom, less choice, and less structure. Though many gifted students struggle with this freedom as they crave structure, the freedom that creativity brings is a necessary skill for gifted students to develop. Success in the area of creativity leads to an increase in confidence and in desire to learn. When providing students the opportunity to engage in critical thinking discussions, lower level students need sentence starters, structured number of times to speak, question stems/pre-made questions, monitors to prevent repeated thoughts, etc. While gifted students still need preparation with question stems, I found that they need less supervison and prompts to keep the conversation going. Gifted students often possess the maturity to talk about controversial topics because they can make more meaningful connections and see the real world application.

Feedback keeps the learner informed about their learning. Students who receive specific and informative feedback are more confident in their abilities, have a stronger foundation to move forward, and are better able to reflect on their work. Informative feedback that is sincere and not vague is well received because the student feels as though they are earned it. They are more likely to remember specific feedback when working on other projects. This will help them regulate their thinking as they develop their own standard for success. Informative feedback points out weaknesses and errors that students may not have noticed before, which in turn, makes them aware of their shortcomings and what they can do to rectify it. The most important part of giving informative feedback is that students reflect on it and take meaning from it. In writing, students should comment on their provided feedback by asking questioning, explaining their thinking, and assessing what they will do differently in the future.