Designing lessons that challenge students to think outside the box and go beyond the surface level of subjects is a passion of mine. In a poetry lesson I attempted to get students to think about the idea of colour from the perspective of a blind person, and how it could be described without using our sense of sight. On an exit slip one student really showed me she was thinking about this topic on a deeper level:

In HACE, we studied advertisements as a class. Together we analyzed ads (such as the ones below) and looked for hidden messages, and tried to understand who the ad was for, who made it, and what their motives were. Students were then asked to find and analyze an ad on their own. In HACE, we also analyzed two different social media profiles, and students were asked to evaluate each as candidates for a potential job. This group assignment involved critical thinking as students were using their reasoning skills to evaluate each profile and use evidence to back up their opinion. Students were also engaged with this assignment because of the link to something they could relate to (facebook, twitter, instagram). This lesson was one I found online, and can be found here.

I also did my inquiry project on critical thinking. You can navigate through my Prezi on Critical Thinking below: