5+1 Teacher Training Program: Week 2

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This is the second week of the 5+1 teacher training program.

Last week, we started the English training program. We looked at the seven skills young people need to be successful in the future.We started the class by looking at agility and completed two exercises to reinforce the idea of mental agility.

Last week, we also looked at two sentences patterns: thesis and hypothesis.

Today, let’s look at the second idea: critical thinking.

CRITICAL THINKING

This we will do three things:

  1. Critical thinking exercises – solving puzzles and explaining the answers.
  2. Analyzing data, generating a thesis and hypotheses.
  3. Group discussion about the reading homework

LAST CLASS

We read and tried to find the answers to some logic puzzles.

During the work, I observed three kinds of personalities that emerged in response to a difficult situation:

  1. some people were excited and enjoyed the challenge;
  2. some people were passive but curious
  3. some people gave up, confessing “I’m not logical, creative” etc.

Let’s draw three conclusions from the puzzle lesson.

  1. Asking good questions, like “What if …” is a powerful tool that helps people find answers.
  2. Logical and creative thinking is a skill that can be taught.
  3. Many answers rely on keen observation or the use of conditional answers.

Keen observation. This is a skill which Edward de Bono tried to teach with his 6 Thinking Hats. Try this exercise.

READING: ART OF FAILURE

POSSIBLE HYPOTHESES

  1. the greater the explicit thinking under pressure, the greater the chance for failure
  2. the more experience we have, the less likely we are to panic under pressure
  3. the more powerful the stereotype threat under pressure, the greater the chance for failure
  4. the more we second guess under pressure, the less we use our intuition
  5. sometimes the harder students work, the greater the chance for failure

SAMPLE SUMMARY PARAGRAPH

Understanding panic, choke and stereotype threats is important because it helps us find and possibly resolve the real reasons for failure. Panic is failure caused by a lack of thinking. Panic occurs when inexperienced people are in stressful situations and lose short term memory.

Choking is failure caused by too much thinking. In stressful situations that require mental or physical smoothness. By thinking too much, we perform below our abilities.

Stereotype threat is a kind of pressure. In situations where people’s actions confirm a negative aspect of a group, people tend to think too much to avoid failure.

Failure can also be traced back to the test environment if it reinforces stereotype threats, Consider, for example, the impact on a poor student if a math teacher says to the class, “I’m sure you already learned this in a math academy.”