Creating Seemingly Unrelated Analogies Want to encourage students to find unexpected connections across content? Here's a quick framework based on the most important terms from both bits of content.
Introducing Ourselves With Depth and Complexity and Frames A go-to activity to introduce the prompts of depth and complexity to students while they also introduce themselves to their new classmates.
Introducing Universal Themes and Generalizations Generalizations, big ideas, abstractions, universal themes... they are designed to help our gifted students learn. However, what I didn't realize was that they would help me teach!
Combining Depth and Complexity Prompts into a Generalization Let's start with a puzzlement, ask kids to generate an abstract statement, and then find evidence that their statement works across several different areas.
Lunar Survival Skills We're supposed to rank fifteen items according to usefulness if we were stranded on the light-side of the moon. The items range from pistols to powdered milk. Some seem useful, but are actually worthless while others seem unnecessary on earth, but are actually vital when stuck on the moon. However, the structure of the activity as a website is not optimal. Let's improve this and make it an awesome problem–solving exercise for our class.
Focus on Thinking, Not the Product When I was a new teacher, you would have seen some pretty fancy products hanging in my room, but if you stopped to consider how my kids thought about the content... well, often my students just restated facts that I had already told them.
Concept Formation: A Model for Inductive Thinking Here's are the steps for running an inductive lesson based on Hilda Taba's model of Concept Formation. Plus a sample lesson about the Nile River.
Help my students remember these confusing terms! If you want students to memorize, you can't aim for memorize. You have to aim higher – and then memorization comes along for free.
Going Beyond “Define These Terms In Your Own Words” "Define these terms in your own words" may contain depth and complexity… but it's neither deep nor complex!
Matching Flowers and Pollinators How to add a couple of Analyze-level tasks to this Synthesize activity.
