CMS offers critical thinking class to challenge high-level students

Special to the Daily Jeffersonian
·3 min read
Students in the critical thinking class at Cambridge Middle School play strategy games to work on their critical thinking skills.
Students in the critical thinking class at Cambridge Middle School play strategy games to work on their critical thinking skills.

While school, and especially math and science, can be difficult for some students, there are students who enjoy and even thrive when challenged in a STEM or project-based learning environment.

That is why Cambridge Middle School started a critical thinking class for qualified students in sixth and seventh grades. “The idea behind this class was to challenge our high-level kids and to help extend their thinking, to make them think outside the box a little bit more,” said critical thinking teacher Kellie Spratt.

Spratt and Matt Green each teach about 10 students, who attend the critical thinking class for 30 minutes each day before or after their lunch period. During that time, they work on activities or projects that are typically hands-on in nature and require the students to rely on their own thought processes to complete.

“The point is to make them guide the instruction themselves,” said Green. “I tell them something and step back and see where it goes. If it is going in the right direction, I don’t tell them anything, and if it is not, I try to guide them to where they need to be.”

Spratt’s sixth-grade students recently completed a project where they designed their own app. Students worked in pairs or small groups to design a purposeful app.

“They had to come up with a problem and design an app that would provide a solution to that problem,” Spratt said. “They create pictures to show what the app would look like, identify an audience, set pricing, and develop a strategy for selling the app.”

When they finished, the students were given a choice as to what they wanted to do next, and the seventh graders chose to design their own board games. When completed they played each other’s games and provided feedback about what they liked and didn’t like.

In the seventh-grade critical thinking class, students participated in a shark tank activity where they came up with their own inventions, made a prototype, created a presentation, and tried to sell their idea to the sharks in the shark tank.

“This took a long time because of all the steps,” Green said. “But we had Mr. (Heath) Hayes and staff from the office listen to the presentations as Mark Cuban does. I wanted them to ask tough questions of our students and they did. The kids seemed to like it.”

Students in the critical thinking class at Cambridge Middle School display the posters they created as part of a class project.
Students in the critical thinking class at Cambridge Middle School display the posters they created as part of a class project.

One of the activities involves using materials like those found in the building game called K’nex to build structures. One student in Green’s class constructed a Ferris wheel. The hands-on projects help students with their mechanical engineering skills and putting things together.

“They seem to enjoy it and it’s pretty relaxed,” Green added. “I want them to take it seriously, but also, I don’t want them to stress about this class. I want them to jump in and not be afraid to make mistakes. They have a safety net, so they know they are not going to get hurt. We just want them to try their best and see where it can go.”

Spratt agreed with Green’s approach saying, “They come in focused and enjoy trying to figure it out.”

Submitted by John Charlton with Cambridge City Schools

This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: CMS offers critical thinking class to challenge students