“This was the best money I have ever spent on a teaching tool.” ~ a teacher in Wisconsin
Students learn to analyze content to find trends.
Imagine a construction worker who doesn’t know the name of a screwdriver or a doctor who can’t remember what to call your neck. It’s pretty hard to communicate well without knowing the 👄 Language of the Discipline!
Students will learn to focus their thinking on the unknowns within a topic.
Students will learn how to think through the lens of ⚖️ Ethics.
Students will learn to analyze a topic and look for rules.
Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.
No topic is an island! With the 📚 Across Disciplines prompt, students note connections within and across multiple fields.
Want to get students thinking about how a topic has changed or might change in the future? The ⏳ Change Over Time thinking tool is just what you need!
In this video, we introduce the 👓 Multiple Perspectives prompt of Depth and Complexity.
Students will learn to analyze information and uncover patterns (and broken patterns).
Students will learn to work with the depth and complexity prompt 🌻 Details.
Use ↔️ Paradox to introduce students to the idea that something can be wrong and right or true and false at the same time.
With 🔄 Convergence, students are looking at how multiple ideas come together and interact.
With ⏸️ Parallel, students will think broadly, looking for similarities to topics across content areas.
With ⏬ Contribution, we’re asking students to look at how a single factor impacts the topic.
With ⏺️ Origin, we are focusing students back to the beginning of a topic or idea.
Students will examine their classmates frames, note patterns, form an opinion, and then think from two more perspectives!
First, students browse their classmates frames from the previous task. They pick a prompt that their classmates used. They note similar categories in classmates’ responses.
Next, your students will pick a criteria such as “most powerful” or “most unexpected” and write about which category from Step 1 best fits that criteria.
Finally, they will choose two new perspectives. One that agrees with their choice from Part 2 and one that disagrees. These perspectives can be real people, characters, or even inanimate objects.
Students upgrade their bland research questions using prompts of depth and complexity and then create a sequence of questions using concepts from Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Students pick a topic and create 3 – 5 questions.
They upgrade those questions by adding in a prompt of depth and complexity.
Students develop a sequence of questions by asking a compare and contrast question plus a question that requires them to make a decision.
Students will use Change Over Time or Multiple Perspectives to look at themselves in new ways.
Students will introduce themselves using any four of the elements of Depth on the Frame graphic organizer.
First, students will draw out their frame.
Then, you’ll choose four of the eight prompts of depth. I’ve made videos for each.
Students use each of these four prompts to write about specific traits.
Optionally, you can have them make a second frame later if you’d like to use all eight prompts.
Students will analyze how a character changes across a story using the prompts of depth and complexity.
Students will study the styles of Dickens and Hemingway and then try to write like them.
First, students analyze the writing of Hemingway and Dickens. What makes their styles different?
Next, they’ll re-write Dickens in Hemingway’s style.
Now, they re-write Hemingway using Dickens’ style.
I share my final example.
Students will note how two events are connected through their causes and effects.
Students will choose an event (from history, in a story, or in their own lives) and brainstorm effects which are unresolved problems.
Now, they’ll note how those effects from the first event can be causes of later events.
Students will practice thinking from the point of view of famous philosophers as they analyze characters and figures from history.
Students begin with Socrates’ belief: ignorance was the root of problems and education was the key to solving ignorance.
Next, they practice with Aristotles’ philosophy that problems come from unbalanced relationships
Then they’ll think like Descartes who believed that we should always begin by doubting things.
Finally, students examine a problem using the lens of Confucius: children should respect and honor their parents and parents must care for and protect their children.
Students will learn to spot limited, valuable resources in any situation.
Students learn that “wealth” can go beyond mere money. They look for wealth, and inequality, in a simple story.
After sharing my thoughts on wealth in simple stories, students begin to look at wealth in a topic they’re studying in school.
Students will write a big idea explaining when order is better and when chaos is better.
Students will choose five related topics and write about when order is better and when chaos is better.
Then, they rank the five topics from most chaotic to most orderly.
Then they write a big idea, summing up their findings about when order or chaos is better.
Students will categorize examples of Order as “written” or “unwritten.”
Students brainstorm examples of order from all areas of life.
They categorize each example as “written” or “unwritten” order.
They pick an important unwritten school rule and formalize it, designing a poster to display.
Students explore the idea of indirect power – which can be both visible (a lighthouse) or invisible (magnetism).
Sure, a Blue Whale is huge. But does a tiny krill have more power?
Your students will investigate statements like: Power leads to change, Power comes in many forms, Power can be used or abused.
Students will group examples of power based on how fast, slow, loud, and quiet they are.
First, students will brainstorm fast and slow examples of power using four scenes.
Next, they will categorize those same examples as loud or quiet.
Finally, they will group examples into four categories and then add new ideas they think of.
Students will decide if invisible things can be more powerful than visible things.
Students will brainstorm visible and invisible power based on four scenes.
Next, they continue their brainstorm, this time bringing in any examples they can think of.
Finally, they take agree or disagree with this statement: “Invisible power is more powerful than visible power.”
Students will categorize examples of “conflict”, create a big idea about conflict, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Students simply brainstorm as many examples of the theme as they can think of onto a circle map. Encourage dozens of ideas. This is best done with a large group.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
Finally, students can look for examples across different areas or subjects that support this new big idea they created.
Students will categorize examples of “change”, create a big idea about change, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Students simply brainstorm as many examples of the theme as they can think of onto a circle map. Encourage dozens of ideas. This is best done with a large group.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
Finally, students can look for examples across different areas or subjects that support this new big idea they created.
Students will categorize examples of systems, create a big idea about systems, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Students simply brainstorm as many examples of the theme as they can think of onto a circle map. Encourage dozens of ideas. This is best done with a large group.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
Finally, students can look for examples across different areas or subjects that support this new big idea they created.
Students will categorize examples of Power, create a big idea about power, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Students simply brainstorm as many examples of power as they can think of onto a circle map. Encourage dozens of ideas. This is best done with a large group.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about “power” using at least some of their labels.
Finally, students can look for examples across different areas or subjects that support this new big idea they created.
Students will apply the statement, “Change leads to more change” to multiple topics.
Students will consider which examples of order are natural and which are constructed.
First, students think of examples of order that is either natural or constructed by people.
Then, they consider three specific examples of order: addition, families, and the English language.
Finally, they create a spectrum and place their examples based on how natural and how constructed each example is.
Students will become familiar with the statement, “Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems.”
Students will become familiar with the generalization “Systems Are Made up of Other Systems.”
Students will become familiar with the statement, “Power can be unseen, but its effects are always visible.”
Students list examples of how invisible power has visible effects.
They note which effects are positive and which are negative.
Then they rank the invisible power based on how positive or negative the effects are.