Critical thinking tools go beyond memorization and teach independent thinking skills
Teachers prepare their students for higher levels of learning in both school and later life
Teaching students to become skilled thinkers is a goal of Mentoring Minds!
Critical thinking is not an inborn skill in all people, and it is most important to remember this when students are young and beginning to learn the skills that they will take with them through school and beyond. If students are to experience success in school and perform well on standardized tests, they must possess independent and creative thinking skills that will allow them to learn, think, and develop their knowledge on their own and without the direct guidance of a teach or classroom environment.
Mentoring Minds offers teaching strategies for educators to construct high-quality lessons, activities, and projects for students to learn and develop their critical thinking skills. Graduating beyond mere rote memorization, Mentoring Minds teaching strategies engage students and teachers together in meaningful activities, lines of questioning, different levels of thought, and higher-order thinking.
Mentoring Minds critical thinking tools include: Critical Thinking Wheel, Critical Thinking Strategies Guide, Student Critical Thinking Wheel, Critical Thinking Questioning Stems, and Power Strips.
The Critical Thinking Wheel gives teachers simple yet effective tools for use in the classroom. By using the tenets of Bloom's Taxonomy, this wheel encourages critical thinking for various subjects and levels. The wheel also defines the different levels, offers "power words" for use in lesson planning, prompts for inciting lines of inquiry, and other general teaching strategies.
The strategies guide offers ways to engage students with higher-order thinking and active connection with their own learning path. This guide is a powerful tool when it comes to promoting critical thinking in students, as well as when there are instances of struggling learners. Teachers can identify students that might require unique approaches to their learning and behavioral skills using the Response to Intervention (RtI) approach. By targeting students who may have trouble in a conventional classroom environment, teachers can ensure that all their students receive the best instruction possible.
Mentoring Minds Power Strips are drawn directly from Bloom's Taxonomy and are another effective tool for teaching critical thinking skills in students. These open-ended, color-coded strips address each level of the taxonomy and provide hundreds of suggestions for every subject and grade level.
Critical Thinking Wheel
The Critical Thinking Wheel provides educators quick and easy accessto critical thinking tools to use in the classroom based on Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- Suggests questions that can be used to plan quality lessons
- Moves learning beyond the memorization level
- Offers questioning stems to solicit information at lower levels and higher levels of thought
Click here to learn more about the Critical Thinking Wheel
Now available in Spanish!
Critical Thinking Strategies Guide
The Critical Thinking Strategies Guide provides educators a tool to assist in the development of higher-order thinking and to actively engage students in learning.
Learn more about the Critical Thinking Strategies Guide
Student Critical Thinking Wheel
The Student Critical Thinking Wheel is a resource used by
students to develop and improve questioning and thinking
skills. The wheel offers students quick-and-easy access
to critical thinking questioning stems based on Bloom’s
Taxonomy. Other questioning stems and thinking signals
are provided to assist students in reflective thinking,
creative thinking, and problem solving.
Learn more about the Student Critical Thinking Wheel
 Critical Thinking Questioning Stems
Critical Thinking Questioning Stems are cards that provide a wide array of questions and prompts to promote critical thinking in the classroom. Teachers can use these cards to move learning beyond the memorization level.
- Improves comprehension through the use of higher-level questions
- Provides prompts to develop, review, or extend conceptual knowledge
- Builds a knowledge base of content using the lower levels of questioning stems
Available levels: 2-5 or 6-12
Click here to learn more about the Critical Thinking Questioning Stems
Mentoring Minds offers products for teachers and students related to Response to Intervention implementation, critical thinking, math, vocabulary, reading, classroom management, and writing.
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