Top 40 Hits!

1. Top 40 Hits! Rebekah Davis Alison Scarlett Nancy Thomas Alamance-Burlington School System Strategies, Games and Activities for Engaging Students’ Critical Thinking

2. Fast, Furious, Forty! • Can it be done? • Fifty minutes - forty critical thinking strategies, games and activities! • Many are content specific, so learning targets will already be in place. • For general content, think FOUR Cs.

3. Creativity Problem Solving as a “Perplexed Expert” Open to ideas and innovation Questioning Original Design Use Imagery Manage Multiple Information Streams Interpret Subtleties Oral, Written and Non-Verbal • Collaboration • Engaging Strategies • Communication Work Effectively In Teams Innovate in Response to Demands Share Information Share Responsibility Make Necessary Compromises Problem Solve Make Decisions Quickly, Intuitively Think Strategically Evaluate Quality of Information Visualize: Decipher, Interpret, Detect Patterns • Critical • Thinking

4. Because no matter how advanced their brains, AIG children are still children!

5. Play – Jenkins blog quote by Scott Osterwell • “When children are deep at play they engage with the fierce, intense attention that we’d like to see them apply to their schoolwork. Interestingly enough, no matter how intent and focused a child is at that play, maybe even grimly determined they may be at that game play, if you asked them afterwards, they will say that they were having fun. So, the fun of game play is not non-stop mirth but rather the fun of engaging of attention that demands a lot of you and rewards that effort.” (Jenkins, 2006)

6. Tips for Making Connections in the Classroom • Have students help you make some of your materials • Learning Targets for your content area strategies and activities should match your currently posted LTs. • And if it’s a game…put 4Cs learning targets in the game boxes you use.

7. Which strategies could I use? Letter Equations (Genius Test?!) Circle of Knowledge Smart Mouth (can play without actual game) USE THE CLICKERS IF YOU HAVE THEM!! Smartboard Jeopardy Word TacToe Vertical teaming for acceleration (PreAP) Brain Dump Vocabulary Stories with holes/brain teasers High Leverage Questioning The Game of ScattergoriesCatergories/card version Sort it out Hundreds Board Riddles Race to the Top (computation) Math Stars with bulletin board game Integer Roll (played with colored dice; computation practice and actual game) Integer Bingo The Factor Game Grabble (critical thinking) Smartboardmultiple choice review game for table groups (without clickers) iPod/iPadapps – flow, questimate Scrabble tournaments, highest point words Scavenger Hunts (math practice/any subject or can ramp up the questions) Magic squares Mad libs Content area Jenga Pentominoes Literature Circles Seminar Discussions Bananagrams Story Cubes Quick Word You’ve Been Sentenced Swish Haikubes Pentago Zip It Kabam Anomia Fifteen Puzzles (math/logic)

8. TPCASTT Poetry Analysis Form

9. When can I use games? After benchmarks, EOGs – when I am not supposed to “teach” For a “reward”—INSTEAD of showing a video As a center –tell the kids what skill they are targeting so they can tell visitors A time “filler”—a speaker cancels, another teacher is running late and you are finished, etc. When there is no outdoor recess or no specials—and you can pull individual students who need to complete work For enrichment or regrouping time – AIG kids who are ready for more complexity can put their brains to work so you can target those with needs

10. Resources for Games • More Games • SIM*SWEATSHOP • Askew Game • Haywiregroup

11. What are 21st Century Skills?