This unit integrates Bloom's levels of cognitive understanding with Howard Gardner's eight domains of intelligence to provide a framework for individualized instruction combining critical and creative thinking. Utilizing these theories in the classroom instruction allows differentiated instruction for learners with special needs as well as gifted students, thereby reinforcing independence and choice in their educational process. Although this unit is designed for fourth and fifth graders, it can be easily adapted to any grade in any social studies or writing class. The activities in this unit can be used if the class is studying a specific time period in history or as a way to combine writing in a content area. The curriculum encourages an overall understanding of what it is like to be a historian, faced with the challenges and questions that arise as one puts together a group of clues to imagine the story of an artifact.
Teaching children to become effective thinkers is increasingly recognized as an immediate goal of education. Schools not only provide students with knowledge and information but also they need to teach them how to think. Research indicates that students who have developed and used critical thinking skills learn more effectively.
A study done by Carlo Magno concludes that when students use underlying metacognitive skills and strategies, they increase their ability to learn.
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Metacognitive thinking is simply thinking about our thinking. Thinking is made open and accessible where teachers often model their own thinking. The thinking process is usually a private activity, so modeling makes it more visible. "Visible Thinking" from Harvard's Project Zero is a product of numerous years of research focused on thinking and learning. These studies support the importance of "alertness to situations that call for thinking and positive attitudes toward thinking and learning." They state that "children and adults think in shallow ways not for lack of ability to think more deeply but because they simply do not notice the opportunity, or do not care. As a result of their studies, they have concluded that good thinking involves abilities; attitudes and alertness. They have developed a Visible Thinking Approach that makes students thinking visible to themselves, to their classmates, and to their teacher, so they are more engaged. When thinking is visible, students are not involved in rote learning but exploration. Teachers are able to assess students' prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding.
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Thinking like a historian requires critical and creative mind. Yale professor John Gaddis describes in his book,
The Landscape of History
, how historians use "thought experiments." By this he means, that historians must use both logic
and
imagination when trying to piece together history. "Historians use the laboratory that's in their mind to reconstruct past processes from surviving structures"
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Historians may start with an artifact or even memories through a diary with which to try and reconstruct the past. This unit is designed to provide students with such a laboratory, in which they can engage in "thought experiments" using both their critical (logical) mind and their creative (imaginative) mind.
The unit will begin with building background knowledge on what constitutes an artifact and what it has to do with history. Throughout the unit students will be exposed to a variety of artifacts, familiar and unfamiliar. The resulting discussion will introduce them to the idea of asking questions about historical artifacts and creating the story about them, essentially being a historian. This unit will take the students from the micro- exploring an object as an artifact-- to the macro- the culture or world the artifact is a part of.