Critical Thinking Readings and GWAP

Part 1
So far, what I already know about critical thinking is that I use it everyday in school and when encountering any type of problem. I feel like critical thinking strategies are so smashed into my brain that I don't even realize that I am using them. When being asked to pinpoint strategies for critical thinking I would include: understanding all parts to a situation, and learning the who, what, when, where, how, and more importantly why to a question. The video clip asked which is better: give a man a fish? Or teach a man how to fish? This was a very familiar passage to me because my parents used this approach to helping the less fortunate. Part of what the video was trying to say was that critical thinkers are more capable of making independent decisions.

As an educator, I want to know how to teach critical thinking skills to my students. I was blessed with having amazing teachers in middle school and high school who nailed critical thinking into my head. Those skills prepared me to handle college classes and be engaged in my learning. I want to know at what age children really are capable of being critical thinkers, and how to better incorporate those skills into all aspects of learning. As shown in the video, critical thinkers ask questions and seek evidence. I believe that this promotes more curious learners who will be excited about learning.

I am a bit nervous about my lesson planning, being that its my first time "playing" teacher. I definitely want my students to learn how to think critically when they are learning. I have to try and connect that into the plans by making sure the students are doing more than just memorizing facts. Maybe at the beginning of a section I can ask open ended questions to get students to try and come up with their own answers to questions, based on what they already know. Also, after presenting the information, again, assign open ended questions regarding what they were just taught. These questions would include definitions first, to make sure they knew the material. Also, the questions would then go further, asking for explanations about the material, and why, and try to make connections with other things they have learned. I would even let these questions be opinion questions, just as long as they could use evidence from the material to back it up.

Part 2
I had never heard of GWAP before this class and was a little bit confused when I first got there. Basically, you are playing games, with some partner you can't see, online. These games show either a video, and image, or a music clip, in which you and your partner must try and get a matching tag for the image or clip. This is supposed to help computers try and think more like a human. This concept scared me a little bit and made me think of robots taking over the world once they became smarter than humans. It was a cool tool though, that really got me to try and describe things in simple words, so that other people would understand them.

I'm not exactly sure how I could use the GWAP in my lesson planning. I would be teaching sciences, so maybe in some way, I could get pictures of different internal organs that students would have to type in keywords about the picture. I guess by making them try and get their partner to think of the same word, it would make it more of a critical thinking activity.