Critical Thinking and Questioning Strategies Matrix
As part of the learning process, questioning and critical thinking strategies allow students to progress in their learning. Instruction that encourages questioning and critical thinking engages students and supports the achievement of predetermined goals. As the teacher, you will be responsible for identifying standards appropriate for the curriculum, creating measurable objectives, and developing instructional strategies and assessments that align with the objectives of the lesson.
For this assignment, complete the "Critical Thinking and Questioning Strategies Matrix" to plan instruction for the grade level that corresponds with your field experience. Using the template, select three standards across two or more content areas and complete the following:
Develop one aligned learning objective for each standard
Develop one inquiry-based instructional strategy to encourage critical thinking skills and independent learning for each standard
Include three higher-order questions to engage students in critical thinking, challenge assumptions, and foster problem solving for each standard. These questions should :
Allow for multiple, open-ended responses
Encourage diverse thinking
Advance discussion in the classroom to solve problems
Promote problem solving of real-world experiences
Create one assessment for each standard that aligns with the standard and learning objective
Support your plan with 2-3 scholarly resources.
Critical Thinking and Questioning Strategies Matrix
Grade Level:
Content Areas (Minimum of two):
Standards
Aligned Learning Objectives
Inquiry Based Instructional Strategies
Higher Order Question #1
Higher Order Question #2
Higher Order Question #3
Assessment
Selected Standard #1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
* Learners should understand the process for solving problems. Students should appreciate why it is important to identify the process needed to reach a solution
* Students have a range of strategies for dealing with different forms of problems.
* Identify and adjust strategies needed to empower learners to become more interested in maths
* Develop the ability to persevere when problems are challenging
* Believe that problems can be solved
* Discover how to solve problems in a group. Students will work in pairs or small groups when exploring complex problems
* Prioritize over the process rather than the product
* Analyze the progress of the learners through an assessment that will test their ability to solve complex problems
* Ensure students understand the problem context
* Focus on understanding the problem first, then proceed to solve it. Learners need to understand a problem before they embark on finding a solution. This is an effective way of ensuring that they can come up with more appropriate solutions (Aydin Gü & Daltaban, 2021)
* Ensure learners can visualize the issue and solve it once they understand what is required
* Require learners to defend their methods and answers. Students should justify why they chose a particular approach instead of another one.
* Ensure the problems require a high level of perseverance
* Teacher to think about what the students may want to know or do before class
* Inform learners that there is usually more than one way to solve a problem.
* Ask big questions that have more than one answer
The answer is 10. What could the adding up sum be?
If the area of a rectangle is 25, what are the possible measurements of the rectangle?
Explain your method to the other students. Between your method and theirs, which one do you think is the most appropriate and why?
1. The table below shows the number of people who visited an art museum over three months
JanuaryFebruaryMarchChild739817Adult784320
a) How many people visited the museum in February?
b) Compared to January, how many more children visited the museum in February?
c) Who among children and adults had a large number visit the museum and by how much?
d) Which month experienced the highest number of visitors? How many more compared to the other months?
2. Consider 896 - 394, 1098 - 683, 8888 - 4444, 7065 – 4999, 9999–999 and 1000 –100
a) Identify the easiest and hardest subtractions sums and work them out.
b) Make a list from the hardest to the easiest and share them with your classmates. Give reasons for the order.
Selected Standard #2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively
* Enable students to consolidate their thinking into communication
* Communicate mathematical communication clearly to teachers and classmates
* Evaluate mathematical thinking to others
* Translate word problems into equations. Learners need to understand word problems and successfully translate them into equations.
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