#MTBoSBlaugust Critical Thinking Strategies in the Math Classroom (Activities included!)

How do you encourage critical thinking in your classroom?

Critical thinking involves powerful verbs!
• Compare/Contrast • Classify • Categorize • Differentiate • Distinguish between/among • Evaluate • Justify valid reasoning • Analyze

For example a card sort activity could support thinking from each of the verbs above!

I love the Lead4ward strategies that were shared in some training I participated in a year or so ago. Check these out!

I chose a few of the strategies and created activities for a unit on the attributes of Quadratic functions.

He Said/She Said ... instructions and example ... link here for G Doc.

Odd One Out ... instructions and example ... link to Google Doc here.

Two other examples ... see instructions in the LeadForward file above.

Picture It

Problem Solving Strategy

Notice in each of the four examples students are talking math.  They are analyzing a prompt, but they are not just finding a solution.  Instead they are creating their own statements, justifying their thinking, recording questions, writing steps for themselves.

Will you share ideas for critical thinking activities in the comments??