Practice: Use and Create Cognitive Strategies

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Inventors create and use cognitive strategies and tools to stay open, disrupt patterns, and find gaps.

Hana (teacher): What happens when we try scary things?

Lucas (age 5): You find out that things might not be scary anymore.

 


Children’ inventive thinking is supported when adults…

  • introduce and make visible concepts and strategies from different disciplines to support critical and creative thinking
  • invite children to invent their own conceptual tools or thinking strategies
  • make strategies children are developing in the classroom visible so they can be used by the community and further developed
  • create their own conceptual tools or thinking strategies that will support children’s thinking and metacognition

Teachers’ inventive thinking is supported when they…

  • engage in an ongoing practice of teacher-research
  • create planning tools that support them to facilitate children’s developing thinking
  • make learning visible through a practice of documentation
  • prepare the classroom environment based on their observations of children’s conceptual development and social relationships

Cracking Open Words

Use this tool to show children that things that appear simple are actually complex when multiple perspectives are welcomed.

View PDF

What Else Could It Be?

Use this tool when children need a nudge towards uprooting assumptions and transitioning to a more open mindset.

View PDF

Growing Compassion

Children crack open a word and develop a theory that has relevance, power, and reach.

Classroom Video

What Else Could It Be?

Inventiveness is supported when doors are opened wide to possibility. This video shows children (ages 3-5) playing the game, What Could It Be?

Classroom Video



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This Practice is guided by Principles

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