“I help at school” worksheet – Lifes skills
- Let them watch their predictions play out
- Let them form theories, and immediately test and revise those theories based on observation
- Give them the right collaboration with the right “mind” at the right time
- Allow them to read with choice–without guidelines or external pressure
- Let them play with content or dynamic learning tools–no goals or prompting or rules (other than basic common sense, safety, etc.)
- Let them see the parts of the whole, and the whole of the parts
- Help them realize the interdependence between content and themselves
- Make sure they are motivated to know themselves
- Help them serve others, and learn to value themselves and their own human utility in the process
- Help guide them to write about something complex, personal, emotional, meaningful, or seemingly trite
- Teach them to meditate (seeing without thinking during, thinking about thinking after)
- Help them start with what they don’t know–this will guarantee that they think for themselves, as it provides each student with their own launching pad
- Allow them to navigate “unfiltered” sources of information
- Encourage them to begin to separate basic epistemology–the differences between information, knowledge, and wisdom, for example
- Help them attempt to transfer understanding (prompted)
- Allow them to attempt to transfer understanding on their own
- Encourage them to believe they can, and make the choice to not be denied
- Allow them to practice, practice, practice in the company of some kind of feedback loop
- Teach them to make mistakes without blame
- Help them explore something they see as mysterious, untamed, or socially “disallowed”
- Allow them to receive learning feedback from someone just beyond their own “level”
- Teach them to try to find the common ground between seemingly disparate positions
- Encourage them to think critically about the what others perceive as mundane
- Make sure they think frequently about complex ideas or situations
- Help them to realize everything is infinitely complex when you see information as a matter of perspective (this causes an endless chain of other realizations if they’re willing to consider it long enough)
- Encourage them to be bored and allow that boredom to “sit”
- Allow their mind to wander
- Encourage them to play video games or learning simulations
- Teach them to set goals with extrinsic or intrinsic rewards
- Help them sense an authentic need to know or understand
- Ask them what they stand for, and why
- Leave them alone
- Make sure they hear “something” in multiple times in multiple ways from multiple perspectives and voices
- Help guide them to recognize the nuance in other people’s thinking
- Help them to honor the limits of human knowledge
- Encourage them to operate within their Zone of Proximal Development–the ZPD of that student for that standard (which is really, really difficult to promote consistently)
- Make sure they have meaningful choices at every step
- Make sure they are given the support to self-direct their own learning
- Encourage them to make things
- Help them to see the value of their own performance
- Give them personalized direct instruction
- Allow them to hear a well-written lecture
- Help guide them to think about their own thinking
- Encourage theirs passions to lead them into spaces where learning can occur on its own
- Help them honor uncertainty
- Make sure they are able to establish their own relevancy for content
- Encourage them to ask their own questions–and then ask better questions
- Encourage opportunities for inquiry to meet a motivated mind
- Guide them to dynamic spaces characterized by people, thought, and creativity (rather than intricate policies, rules, and standards)
- Expose them to something worth doing, and is expertly gamified
- Help them to confront and internalize diversity and divergence
- Encourage them to revisit their past mistakes, thinking patterns, and moments of genius
- Guide them to seek self-awareness not content-awareness
- Help them to not take anything too seriously beyond playful curiosity
- Encourage them trust themselves to fail
- Allow them to see their own progress
- Guide them in studying patterns
- Make sure they can explain the significance of an idea, skill, or other academic topic
- Allow them to see or experience affectionate modeling
- Make sure they are mentored with love
Source: https://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/how-students-learn/
