Stretch and Challenge7 strategies to grow students who can think for themselves from tomorrow morning

Strategy 1: Demystify higher order thinking• How many students can

work out how to use a new mobile phone without a teacher?

• How many students can evaluate a football match or episode of ‘X Factor’ without a teacher?

• Students use Bloom’s every time they choose a sandwich! Tap into their pre-existing skills

Bloom’s Higher Order Skills

4 Analysis Compare & contrast the performance of Liverpool & Man

United this season

5 Synthesis Generalise about the standard of England’s performance in Euro

2012

6 Evaluation

Evaluate Alex Ferguson’s

contribution to football

Idea: Link Bloom’s to students’ existing thinking skills in fashion,

football etc. Show them they think all the time

Strategy 2: Encourage students to have ideasIdeas Flow

In groups students need to generate as many ideas as possible no matter how improbable – it’s what leading Research and Development Teams do

DialecticStudents come up with an idea: the thesis. Students come up with an opposite idea: the antithesis. Now they need to try to put the 2 together to get a better overall idea: dialectic

Ideas MappingWhat does the idea look like? Can students map it out? Does it have sides or a shape, or different layers?

Strategy 3: Use De Bono to develop team discussion

Colour Team Role

White What information is available. Keeps to facts

Red Instinctive gut reactions

Yellow Positives and benefits

Black Cautious and conservative

Green Creative and investigative

Each member of the team is given a role. In the discussion that follows they must only contribute in that role. In future discussions, team members can swap roles. Every role must be filled to ensure that the discussion is addressed from every angle.

Strategy 4: Show students how to think in patterns Line Up Game: • Students are given a category

e.g. book, animal, person, landform, invention

• Each student has to select an example of this category

• The students then have to line up in an order e.g. most important/ significant/ dangerous

• The students have to justify their choice

Post It Game: • Individually, Students have to

write single words on post its to describe something e.g. a city, an author, an event. They need to have as many ideas as possible

• They can then share their post-its with their team, removing any replicated post-its

• The team have to decide on 3 categories under which to organise their post-its, and how to organise them within these categories

• The team have to justify their choiceDon’t rely on ‘diamond’ card sorts.

Let the students arrange the cards in a way that they can justify.

Strategy 5: Enable students to think ‘out of the box’PMI:

Students are given an idea: what if humans could fly, what if we banned cars, what if school was voluntary. They need to come up with as many pluses, minuses, and interesting thoughts on this idea as possible. This could be played as two or more teams

Odd One Out: Students are given 3 subjects e.g. Germany, Britain and France, or Red, Blue and Green. They have to find as many odd ones out as possible between 3. Again, this could be played as two or more teams

Strategy 6: Get students to think criticallyDevil’s Advocate

Students have 1 minute to argue one side of a case. They then have to argue the opposite side

Counter-intuitive arguingStudents need to try to argue from the opposite side, or turn an argument on its head. Can they think sideways, or diagonally?

Strategy 7: Help students to think more deeply

Casserole thinkingSet an idea as a homework for students to spend a week, or holiday, thinking about, reflecting on and pondering. The best thoughts and ideas can take time to grow

Ideas OnionLike an onion, an idea has many layers. Encourage students to probe, ask questions, and dig deeper, coming back with new layers to the idea