Critical Thinking

In week 2 of Dr. Zadina's workbook, she discusses the need to incorporate opportunities for students, especially older students, to develop the frontal cortex. She suggests giving students opportunities to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information in order to aid in the development of the frontal cortex. Last week in my algebra class, we learned how to solve quadratic functions using the quadratic formula. It is very easy to make minor mistakes when using the quadratic formula, so I wanted my students to be careful when substituting values in for the corresponding variables. I created a "find the mistake" task in which I stated that two students each found the solutions of the same quadratic function. I wrote down their work, but the work had errors which made the solutions incorrect. It was up to the students to find and explain the errors, determine if one or both of the solutions were incorrect, and show how to find the correct solutions. After the students completed the "find the mistake" task, I asked them to switch with a classmate in order to evaluate someone else's work. We discussed the answers and I asked for verbal justification of the errors that they found. We then anonymously discussed some of the explanations that students wrote down. I wanted my students to discuss what answers seemed to go above and beyond what was asked, and which ones failed to answer the questions.

The activity went really well. The students appreciated receiving feedback from their classmates and they told me that it would make them work harder so that they could receive all good feedback next time. They also wanted their work to be used as a positive example to the class. This was definitely an activity that I would incorporate again. I think it gave my students the opportunity to engage in various levels of critical thinking and it also reinforced the need to provide justification for solutions.