Enrichment is not merely about doing fun things. It should never be just a project-of-the-week. It must be about getting students thinking in new and interesting ways. Here’s how!
Content Area: Cross Curricular
Divergent Questions (How To Ask ‘Em)
How to ask Divergent Questions and ensure that your students are thinking rather than merely remembering.
Thinking From Anything’s Perspective
How a small change, with very little effort on the teacher’s part, leads to a delightfully complex task that can will get students thinking.
Why I don’t include “Explain Why” in Questions
I used to think that adding “explain why” to the end of a question somehow made it higher-level. But now I see two problems in asking students to “explain their thinking”.
Beware “Real World Problems”
Why I stopped looking for “real world” problems and started aiming for “interesting.” The real world is often tedious and annoying. Interesting never is!
Thinking Hats and Lunar Survival Skills
How Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats helped me solve a problem with my favorite group discussion task.
Phrases to Open Up a Discussion (Lunar Survival Skills Part 2)
One of my favorite open-ended, creative activities becomes even better with careful phrasing on my part. These three questions will help you be the facilitator of a discussion, rather than the authority.
Four Types of Questions You Can Ask
Asking questions is such a basic tool of teaching, yet how many of us have ever been taught to ask good questions? In this opening to a series about questioning, we’ll explore how to get students asking each other questions.
First Levels: Sentence Starters
As silly as it may sound, providing sentence stems or “fill in the blanks” can give your kids the scaffold they need to achieve a higher level of success.
Start A Lesson With A Music Video
I love collecting intriguing images and videos – things that stop me in my tracks and pique my curiosity. I always figure that if it fascinates me, students would probably be interested also. Often, these visuals work as wonderful hooks for a lesson you need to teach.