Mind Over Matter: Exploring Critical Thinking Skills

This curriculum is designed to collect data, analyze data, search for the truth, and think for themselves. This curriculum is also designed to support the social and emotional needs of today’s teen. Socially, this curriculum helps students and teachers build relationships with specifically designed interactions, activities, and lessons. Positive social interactions require healthy relationships. This curriculum is designed to get students talking to one another by using strategies targeting teamwork, collaboration, compassion, and empathy. Emotionally, students learn strategies to talk about, write about, and control their emotions. Critical-thinking skills are essential to a well-balanced, healthy, social, and emotional life. This curriculum is a back-to-basics guide to teach students to think by emphasizing higher-order thinking skills.

Your students are about to begin a fun adventure to learn critical-thinking skills, which will have a profound impact on their lives. Critical-thinking skills promote independent thinking, wise decision-making, problem-solving, and other life skills that will guide your students through real-life situations. The lessons in this book teach students critical-thinking skills in an engaging, encouraging, and entertaining way. Enjoy the adventure with your students.

Each lesson is designed to teach critical thinking skills using 5 Rs: 

•                Receive
•                Research
•                Restructure Thinking
•                Respond
•                Reflect

In each lesson, the students will:

Receive
People receive information every day in a variety of formats such as a phone, tv, radio, other people, and much more. Students are flooded with information, but what can they and should they do with all this information? The answer, in a lot of cases, is RESEARCH.

Research
Once students receive information, it may require them to conduct research to gain additional information. Research is done in a variety of ways. To research, students may interview, survey, or observe people. They may search for facts in books, journals, or on the Internet. The new information gained should provoke them to RESTRUCTURE their THINKING.

Restructure Thinking
Restructuring their thinking is what happens when students learn new information. Students’ thoughts are influenced by people and situations. Critical thinkers learn to pause when they receive information so they can take time to determine the best course of action to take with that information. After students restructure their thinking, then it is time for them to RESPOND.

Respond
Students receive information, research it, restructure their thinking, and then respond. The order is critical to avoid making hasty mistakes. Responding to the information following research will help students make informed decisions. Sometimes that decision may be not to respond at all, and that may be a very wise decision. After students respond, the last, but not least, step is to REFLECT.

Reflect
Reflecting on the entire process encourages analysis of the information received, the information learned, how thoughts were restructured, and the response to the information. Reflecting on the process will help students determine if their decision was wise or if it could have been improved. Looking back helps students to plan more effectively as they look ahead.

Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluating experience is the best teacher. Students must learn to evaluate what they experienced.

The repetition of these 5 R’s throughout the book reinforces the skills needed for students to learn to be critical thinkers who are capable of making wise decisions based on evidence rather than emotion.