PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Decisions on Deadline
This collection contains two lesson plans and an interactive game that will facilitate discussion and deepen understanding of the complex issues raised in the documentary film, A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Decisions on a Deadline Collection: "A Fragile Trust"
This collection contains two lesson plans and an interactive game that will facilitate discussion and deepen understanding of the complex issues raised in the documentary film, A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: The Hungry Games
Cookieness Evereat needs your help to win The Hungry Games. Hone those executive functioning skills by practicing patience and strategies when you have to wait for something. Stop and think about what comes next in patterns and sort...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Detective Elmo: The Cookie Case
Critical thinking is the spotlight here as you help Detective Elmo save Cookie Monster and crack the cookie case!
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Virtual Professional Learning Series
Our Virtual Professional Learning Series is created for teachers-by teachers-to bring together content experts and educators from all backgrounds. With an emphasis on fun, engaging, accessible, and free tools for classrooms, these...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Alma's Way: Think It Through
As Alma learns about families, friendships, and communities, she discovers that sometimes challenges and conflicts arise. In those moments, Alma stops and "thinks through" the situation. Then, she knows what to do! Support critical...
Arizona State University
Art Lesson: Should Art Be for Art's Sake?
A lesson plan where the teacher presents the five traditional theories of art (formalism, instrumentalism, imitationalism expressionism and institutionalism.) Students review Chicana/o and earlier protest art from an instrumental point...
Indiana University
Indiana University: Science vs. Non Science
This mini-lesson at the Evolution and Nature of Science Institute site from Indiana University provides a criteria by which students can evaluate an idea or explanation for scientific credibility.
Amby Duncan-Carr
Following Directions and Making Comparisons
This quiz, which can be completed and scored online, involves two important skills - following directions and making comparisons. Students compare a series of names or numbers, then follow directions for recording what they find.
Joe Landsberger
Study Guides and Strategies: Problem Based Learning
Learn both the rationale for problem-based learning, and a simple model of the steps a student can follow to address and solve a problem through logical, critical thinking.
California State University
California State University, Northridge: Amazing Egg Drop
Teams must protect a raw egg from an eight feet fall with a container they designed. To construct the container teams must use only materials given to them in a bag and must do it in an allotted time frame. Lesson plan includes a...
Chateau Meddybemps
Chateau Meddybemps: Animal Riddles
Who-am-I riddles that have young learners using clues to figure out what kind of animal is being described. "I have wings but I'm not a bird." "I can breathe through a hole in the top of my head." Simple language and colorful...
FNO Press
Fno.org: Inspired Investigations
An article at From Now On about how to help students do better research by changing the focus of research assignments and teaching students to ask essential questions. Some suggestions include using mind mapping, and using Inspiration to...
FNO Press
From Now On: Questioning as Technology
This article supports the concept that "Without strong questioning skills, information technologies contribute little to understanding or insight." Links provided to learn about and use the main types of questioning techniques.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Introducing Jane Eyre: An Unlikely Victorian Heroine
Contemporary criticism of the novel, the conditions of Victorian women, and Bronte's decision to publish the novel under a male pseudonym form the focus of this lesson plan.
Harvard University
Scratch Ed: Computational Thinking With Scratch: What Is Computational Thinking?
A Computational Thinking curriculum guide which develops fluency with computational concepts, practices and perspectives.
Digital History
Digital History: An Intro to the Study of History: The Four Questions [Pdf]
How does one study history? Find four basic questions that historians use to examine events in an effort to explain them and put them in historical context. By examining the Battle of Lexington and Concord, students can practice using...
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Nctm: Figure This: Math Challenges for Families
NCTM offers sections on Families & School, Families & Math, Families & Homework, and more. Has links to brain-teaser problems ranging in skill from very easy to challenging. Click Take a Challenge or Challenge Index for...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Emily Dickinson & Poetic Imagination: "Leap, Plashless"
This lesson introduces students to Emily Dickinson's poetry which often reveals a child-like fascination with the natural world. Students examine how she writes perceptively of butterflies, birds, and bats and uses lucid metaphors to...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Colonial Broadsides: A Student Created Play
In this lesson plan, students will consider "Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play." The plan includes worksheets and other student materials that can be found under the resource tab.
Yale University
Detective Fiction: Focus on Critical Thinking
Through the use of reading crime fiction, this lesson plan helps to refine critical thinking skills and problem solving strategies which are important for the development of 21st century skills.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?
Learning critical thinking skills can only take a student so far. Critical thinking depends on knowing relevant content very well and thinking about it, repeatedly. Here are five strategies, consistent with the research, to help bring...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Cross Disciplinary Proficiencies: American Diploma Project Benchmarks
Students must graduate from high school with not only a firm foundation in mathematics and English, but also with the ability to approach with confidence new and unfamiliar tasks and challenges in college, the workplace and life....
Shodor Education Foundation
Shodor Interactivate: Lesson: Angles
This upper elementary and middle school lesson plan introduces the concept of acute, obtuse and right angles. Also, as the instructional activity proceeds vertical, adjacent, alternate interior and alternate exterior angles are explored....