Eclectic Technology

"Failure is such an uncomfortable topic in education. We are very failure adverse and consequently risk adverse. It is often seen as unacceptable for students to fail and this avoidance of failure is not mirrored in the real world beyond the safe environments of the school.

I believe that we must use failure or getting stuff wrong as a tool for learning, that we must accept it as a part of the learning process, that we must use it to progress and develop. We should and must strive to succeed, but we need to allow opportunities for students to learn from their mistakes and in fact to provide opportunities for them to make mistakes."

"As a child, I grew up in a world that was dominated by left-brained thinking. Both my parents were in professions that required in-depth analytical thinking. The “rule” in my house was: “If you break something, try to fix it. Only THEN come ask Dad for help.”
Looking back now, I realize something I never understood then — what he had instilled was an ability to think critically. Along with creativity, collaboration, and communication, critical thinking is one of the four components of learning in the 21st century. Unlike the other three, critical thinking is often difficult to reduce to bite-size pieces of understanding and challenging to teach to others."

Read on for an example of teaching critical thinking with a first grade class as well as a look at 3 underlying components to critical thinking.