Critical Thinking in Action

At the April Board meeting, Chris Doyle, 6-12 curriculum leader for social studies, Glenn Stockton (MS), and Christina Reidel (HS) presented a video of eighth graders and upperclassmen discussing questions related to the US Constitution. The exercise showed how students at the two levels demonstrate critical thinking. The students discussed the competing priorities of freedom ("securing the blessings of liberty") and security ("providing for the common defense"), justifying their opinions with historical examples. The twelve-minute video can be found here.

This presentation was the second in a series of "Curriculum Conversations" designed to show how the district faculty is addressing the higher order thinking skills that have become the focal point of Bronxville's three year "global initiative." (Science was the topic of the February presentation.) This year's work emphasized essential questions developed at the beginning of the year.

To what extent do our students think critically and creatively about the world around them and their place in it? Does your instructional plan encourage students to:

• Identify authentic problems and significant questions?
• Gather, analyze, and synthesize information from multiple sources?
• Apply what they know to generate new ideas, products, or ways of doing things?
• Make informed decisions or identify alternate solutions to complex, globally relevant problems?
• Take constructive action?

The K-12 faculty recently completed two conference days devoted to continuing this work. Eighty-nine percent rated the sessions as excellent, stating that "the work that was accomplished will have a positive impact on student learning." In addition, 78% of the faculty expressed strong agreement that "Creating instructional strategies and performance tasks that encourage student to develop critical think skills, creativity, initiative and responsibility are important tasks for my grade level/department to address at this point in time."