The workshop focuses on critical thinking, its importance in today's information-heavy society, and strategies to enhance it in students through digital tools and active learning. Key points cover the definition of critical thinking, employer expectations of skills, and effective teaching methods for skill development. Resources for further exploration of critical thinking in education are also provided.

1. Dr. Julie A. Evans
Project Tomorrow
@JulieEvans_PT
Dr. Kari Stubbs
BrainPOP
@KariStubbs
March 25, 2018

2. PREP WORK!
www.brainpop.com - sign in to your student account
Click on “enter code” at top of page
Password is brainpop1
Here is your quiz code: CTDigital2

3. WELCOME TO THIS WORKSHOP!
Dr. Julie A. Evans
Chief Executive Officer
Project Tomorrow
@JulieEvans_PT
Dr. Kari Stubbs
Vice President
BrainPOP
@KariStubbs

4. GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER

5. Tweet with us! @ASCDconf #Empower18
@JulieEvans_PT @KariStubbs
@SpeakUpEd @BrainPOP

6. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

7. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

8.  What does “critical thinking” really mean?
What does that term mean to you?

10. What do
you see?

11.  What does “critical thinking” really mean?
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
Source:
Scriven & Paul, 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and
Education Reform, 1987

12.  What does “critical thinking” really mean?
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
Source:
Scriven & Paul, 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and
Education Reform, 1987

13.  What does “critical thinking” really mean?
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
Source:
Scriven & Paul, 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and
Education Reform, 1987

14.  What does “critical thinking” really mean?
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined
process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating
information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
Source:
Scriven & Paul, 8th Annual International
Conference on Critical Thinking and
Education Reform, 1987

15. WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT TODAY?
1. Information intensive society and economy
2. Accelerating pace of change
3. Employability

16. WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT TODAY?
▪ 72% of employers say critical thinking is key to their
organization’s success
o But only half say their employees are good
critical thinkers
▪ 93% of employers say a candidate’s competencies
with workplace skills such as critical thinking are
more important then their undergraduate major
Sources:
• American Management Study, 2012
• AACU Survey, 2013

17. QUIZ RESULTS
How important is critical
thinking for today’s students?

18. Skills % of District
Admin
% of
Parents
% of
Community
Members
Critical thinking and problem
solving
92% 88% 79%
Working with diverse groups of people 91% 77% 75%
Collaboration and teamwork 88% 78% 69%
Creativity and innovative thinking 74% 74% 67%
Technology skills 74% 74% 60%
Ability to work independently 76% 72% 73%
Communications – written skills 69% 66% 57%
What skills are most important for students’ future success?
Source: Speak Up 2017 Research findings
406,000 respondents nationwide

19. CRITICAL THINKING AS A WORKPLACE SKILL
http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/

20. WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT TODAY?
▪ 75% of employers want education institutions to
place a higher emphasis on these students’ skills:
o Critical thinking
o Complex problem solving
o Written and oral communications
o Applying knowledge in real world
situations
Source:
• AACU Survey, 2013

21. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

22. QUIZ RESULTS
What are the best ways for
students to develop workplace
skills?

23. What is best way for students to develop these skills?
Method % of
District
Admin
% of
Parents
% of
Community
Members
Get work experience – internships 77% 78% 75%
Participate in project based learning 75% 59% 46%
Use technology within classes 72% 66% 52%
Participate in school leadership 69% 63% 57%
Work on group projects in class 63% 59% 49%
Participate on a team – sports or academic 56% 66% 51%
Use technology outside of school 47% 50% 42%
Take CTE classes 46% 43% 44%
Source: Speak Up 2017 Research findings
406,000 respondents nationwide

24.  Best ways to help students develop those skills
Recommended strategies for classroom teachers:
▪ Do not always jump in to help students with answers
▪ Engage students in brainstorming about new activities
▪ Provides opportunities for questioning and inquiry
▪ Leverage activities that support classifying and
categorization, comparing and contrasting
▪ Enable connection-making – how does this influence that?
▪ Allow for peer learning, collaborative problem solving
Sources:
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills
• TeacherHub

25.  How digital tools can support your efforts in the
classroom
Let’s think about:
▪ Reflection activities
▪ Peer review activities
▪ Digital storytelling
▪ Content creation
▪ Small group activities
▪ Discussion forums
Source:
• Northwestern University Education Blog

26. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

27. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Our focus today:
✓ Categorization and classification activities
✓ Making connections between ideas and concepts
✓ Creating content as a way to apply knowledge to create
new meaning
✓ Inquiry activities and self-reflection that document thinking
processes

28. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
✓ Categorization and classification activities
Why important?
o Requires close observation
o Facilitates identification of features and attributes
o Sorting process exercises how to discover, understand and apply
rules to a problem
o Comparison amplifies understanding of differences and similarities

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30. © 2015 BrainPOP. All rights reserved. For information on BrainPOP trademarks & copyrights, visit
brainpop.com/trademarks.
Choose a Sortify data set
Play with a partner!

31. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
✓ Making connections between ideas and concepts
Why important?
o Seeing patterns is a key first step in the process
o As children get older, move from the concrete patterns to making
connections between abstract concepts
o Basis for creativity – finding novel connections and alignments
beyond what we see
o Develops cognitive flexibility

32. Helps the brain transform bits of information into knowledge or understanding
by creating and labeling connections and associations among ideas and
experiences we confront everyday.
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brainpop.com/trademarks.
Concept Mapping

33. Let’s Try One!
1) Login as student
2) Choose any BrainPOP Topic
3) Click Make a Map
4) Begin Mapping
5) If you’d like to share - click
submit
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brainpop.com/trademarks.
Make-A-Map

35. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
✓ Creating content as a way to apply knowledge to create
new meaning
Why important?
o Process of synthesis and interpretation with an audience in mind
o Promotes new questions, i.e., what is appropriate representation of
these ideas, how can I tell the story of my ideas?
o Applying knowledge to get beyond self
o Development of authentic learning experiences

36. Make-a-Movie
© 2015 BrainPOP. All rights reserved. For information on BrainPOP trademarks & copyrights, visit
brainpop.com/trademarks.

38. Digital Creator – Time to Explore:
Make-a-Movie or Creative Coding

39. CRITICAL THINKING SKILL DEVELOPMENT
✓ Inquiry activities and self-reflection that document thinking
processes
Why important?
o Critical thinking = evaluative thinking
o Learning that is active, persistent, self-directed
o Provides an emotionally supportive learning environment
o Promotes development of a growth mindset through self-reflection

40. • addition
• division
• multiplication
• subtraction
• factoring
• hypothesizing
• stats
• isolated variable
• deductive reasoning
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brainpop.com/trademarks.
Lure of the Labyrinth
What skills did we practice?

41. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

42.  Assessing competencies
How do you assess critical
thinking competency?

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brainpop.com/trademarks.

45. SnapThought
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brainpop.com/trademarks.
Sortify: Game
Assessment with GameUp
Sortify: Data

46. • Reflection
• Communication
• Process
• Assessment
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brainpop.com/trademarks.
SnapThought™

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brainpop.com/trademarks.
TimeZone X: Data Collection

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brainpop.com/trademarks.
The Quiz Mixer

50. WORKSHOP TOPICS
 What does “critical thinking” really mean?
 Best ways to help students develop those skills
 Leveraging digital tools for skill development
 Assessing competencies
 Additional resources for you
 Questions, comments, ideas

51. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
o Additional readings on critical thinking
o Links to games and activities from BrainPOP
o Copy of this workshop presentation
Link to sign up for extended trial of MyBrainPOP -
www.brainpop.com/go/explore
http://bit.ly/MakingCTReal

52. What do
you see
now?

53. “Without data,
you are just
another person
with an
opinion.”
Deming

54. Getting beyond opinion, myth and anecdote when
planning for effective technology use to help students
develop essential skills . . .
1. Tap into the Speak Up reports and infographics
2. Have your class, school and district participate in
the Speak Up Research Project

55. 1. Tap into the Speak Up reports and infographics
National Speak Up reports and infographics
Targeted and thematic reports
Digital learning trends
Mobile learning & social media
Games in the classroom
Blended learning outcomes
Presentations, podcasts and webinars
Services: consulting, workshops, evaluation and efficacy studies
www.tomorrow.org/speakup
@JulieEvans_PT @SpeakUpEd

56. 2. Have your class, school and district participate in
the Speak Up Research Project
Online surveys for:
o K-12 students – individual + group
o Parents – English and Spanish
o Teachers
o Librarians/Media Specialists
o School Site & District Administrators
o Technology Leaders
o Community Members &
Communications Officers
All class, school, district level data given back
to participating entities – with state and
national data for benchmarks – 100% free
service to schools and districts
Surveys open Oct 2018 - Jan 2019
Sign up to be your school contact at:
Gain new insights
about your
stakeholders to inform
local decisions
www.tomorrow.org/speakup/

58. Dr. Julie A. Evans
Project Tomorrow
@JulieEvans_PT
Dr. Kari Stubbs
BrainPOP
@KariStubbs
March 25, 2018
Thank you for joining us today!