Does Your Lesson Have At Least One C?

In planning activities for our students, the first place to start is to ensure that the activity has at least one C, and that C is not clipart.

Collaborate

The first thing I plan for when designing a lesson is “How will my students collaborate.” G Suite users this is almost a freebie. Google Apps are designed for collaboration. Click the blue share button and collaborate away! My favorite activity is to create ONE Google Slides and have all students in the class on the same Google Slides. I ask the students to put their name in the speaker notes. TIP: Control F is find. If students put their name in the speaker notes you can use Control F and type in the student’s name and jump to their slide.

Critical Thinking

“Live in DOK 2 and DOK 3, VISIT DOK 1 and DOK 4″ – Shelley Burgess

How much critical thinking is a student doing? Go beyond DOK 1 in an assignment. For DOK 1 (and many DOK 2) tasks consider making it DIGITAL!

• Quia
• Quizizz
• Formative
• Desmos
• Quizlet
• Socrative
• Sugar Cane

Make a Decision

One way to increase critical thinking is to make sure students are making a decision, even if it’s a small one. Combat learned helplessness by intentionally designing into the lesson some level of “figure it out.” Arrange student groups so that the layout encourages students to discuss together things they need to make a decision on.

Clearly Communicate Ideas

Communicate is not talking. Students should be communicating their ideas. This could be with no words. Can a student visualize their idea with a picture? One thing I love about students using Google Slides is they can add a text box to the slide to explain their thinking. Notice on the sample Farkle Slides there is a box for students to communicate their strategy. Communicating ideas is not show your steps or come up with the answer. It’s communicating the original thinking. For DOK 3, strategic thinking, problems the student should be sharing their multiple strategy approaches they needed to utilize.

Creative Thinking

Students all filling out the same worksheet and coming up with the same answer is not creative thinking. Creative thinking is also not a craft. How are students coming up with creative and unique solutions? Are all students doing the same thing? Submitting the same thing? This is not creative thinking. Ask students to include a creative decision in the activity.