Admission to Teacher Education Program

Teaching Standards

Critical thinking or problem solving skills can be described as skills in which a person can look at a situation or problem and work through it to find the solution . A good example of critical thinking skills is the way detectives solve crimes . They begin with a crime scene at which they gather evidence . The next step is to evaluate all of the evidence and solve the crime . These kinds of skills are very valuable in all aspects of life and are important for children to learn . When teaching these

skills to children , it is important for teachers to remember that all children are different . Although there are some generalized ways to teach the skills , it is important for all children in a classroom to be involved and that each child has the opportunity to use and develop the skills . Some of the best and most effective ways to reach the majority of children include hands on learning , group projects and game play with scenarios

The majority of children can learn though activities such as experiments . Science class is often very popular , because it often involves mixing chemicals to see what the results are . When the results are something interesting such as a color change or bubbling out of the beaker , the child is more likely to remember the results than if they simply read about the interactions between the chemicals . Children especially those in elementary grades , tend to get bored if all of their learning comes from books or lectures . When teaching children of this age it is important to provide activities in which children can learn by doing . This can be used in almost any subject . In math , a teacher could provide children with blocks , beads , or anything else that could be counted . Each child would be provided with several of the items . The teacher then presents math problems such as four plus five . The children then would learn to begin with four blocks then add on five more blocks to get the answer of nine . In reading class , the children can either act out a story or make a puppet show out of it . Even children who often struggle in average classrooms , usually learn more and retain more of what they learn though hands on methods . Many studies have been conducted over the years about the best ways to encourage learning and retain the information for longer periods of time . The results consistently show that both children and adults retain information better when they are actively involved in the lesson

A second proven method for teaching children problem solving skills is to use a team approach . In this situation , the teacher divides the class into groups . The members of the group must then work together to either develop answers to questions or solve a problem . This is effective in teaching children problem solving skills in two ways . The first way is it gives the children a chance to discuss issues , which many of them will...