Check any list of the skills considered most important for life or career, and you can be sure that critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration will be at the top. Yet how often do we as teachers provide learning experiences in which students can actually develop these skills? During this half-day session, participants will use design thinking to solve a series of chess problems (no previous chess experience required), and create a collaborative problem-solving activity for their own students.
Participants will begin by engaging in a collaborative problem-solving activity with their peers, and experiencing some of the challenges and triumphs that are commonly experienced by their students. They will reflect with their colleagues on the most effective components of the problem-solving activity, and then use those components to design powerful learning activities for their own students, activities that will help their students to develop and strengthen the skills needed to solve challenging problems in their own content areas. Participants will also have the opportunity to share their problem-solving activities, and to give and receive constructive feedback with their peers.
Follow-up coaching sessions are avilable.
