Critical+Thinking+and+Problem+Solving

Many of us use project based learning and other assignments to encourage our students to practise critical thinking and develop their problem solving skills. However, some teachers believe that the constraints of standardized testing do not allow the time needed for project based learning. Therefore, I have included generic projects which are fast that will get your students practising these highly important skills. Many of the suggestions don't require much effort in you learning the new technology or teaching it. Tell the students they need to figure it out. Many of them will already know, and if they don't, they need to be resourceful enough to find out how. Students will have to continually learn to use new web applications and other software for most of their working life and beyond. =Blogs= Blogs are an excellent vehicle for discussion, debate, and higher order thinking. It should take you or a student less than 30 minutes to create a blog. If you don't have lab time to give your students, assign it for homework. If you are worried about access to technology, there are always the public library computers available after hours and labs in the school open at lunch. 1. Create a class blog and have students post responses to discussion questions 2. Have students create their own blog about a subject [|Rubric for evaluating blogs]