Tales from the Classroom: How I’m Using Common Core to Build Critical Thinking

Back in September, I decided to teach my kids how to use the tools of geometry: compasses and protractors. I figured I could give the tutorial in a day and then move on, but the entire experience quickly turned into a mini-nightmare. It turns out that using these tools isn’t as intuitive as I’d thought. They require you to critically analyze a problem to determine what and how to use them, follow a five-to-seven-step process, and then explain your answer. Needless to say, I’ve spent considerably more time this year teaching how to use these tools than I’d anticipated.

If I’m honest with myself, I know that my kids probably won’t need to use a compass or protractor five or ten years down the road. They probably won’t even remember the difference between a compass and a protractor. But they will need to be able to look at a problem, break it down into its components, and use what they know to come to a solution. As a result, I always try to keep in mind that problem-solving and critical thinking are the most enduring things that I can teach them, and that strengthening those skills should be the end goal of any lesson or unit.

This is why I continue to support the Common Core standards: I’ve seen how they empower me to focus on critical-thinking skills with my kids. The standards aim to be “robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.” I believe that the most important thing the standards do is to empower teachers to teach the skills so necessary in the global economy. I’ve experienced the power of the standards in this regard in three key ways in my classroom.

1) Reduction in number of standards. The Common Core standards dramatically reduce the number of standards that must be taught, freeing up time to push students deeper into concepts—and, in doing so, bring them to deeper levels of understanding.

For example, let’s go back to geometry. Under the old Tennessee Standards, we had more than 120 learning objectives to teach our students each year! Under Common Core, that number has been reduced by two-thirds to approximately 40. Policy makers have done this by streamlining the required objectives, which removes additional secondary subjects—such as probability, which fits in better with algebra and statistics.

This has several implications for a critical-thinking course like geometry. Fewer objectives means I can take the time to present challenging problems to my students, and allow them to struggle with and come to a personal understanding of these concepts over a period of days and weeks. The streamlined objectives mean that I can design my lessons and units to continually draw on previously learned skills to solve problems.

2) Deeper understanding of content. It’s not enough for me to teach my students the equation for a circle—now they have to derive it (i.e., be able to find it) themselves. No longer is it enough for them to simply know what a tangent line is or what it does. Now they must be able to construct one for themselves using geometric tools like protractors, compasses, and rulers.

You might be thinking, OK—how does creating a tangent line equate to critical thinking skills? I was asking myself this very question at the beginning of the year. But this skill requires a considerable amount of background knowledge, as well as an ability to think critically about processes; the ability to self-select and correctly use tools in the appropriate way and in the appropriate situation; and the ability to efficiently and neatly complete a small project. If all these skills aren’t real-world applicable, I don’t know what is.

3) PAARC and Smarter Balance. Under the standards’ accompanying testing consortia, PAARC and Smarter Balance, tests go beyond simply answering A, B, C, or D. They include several new open-response components that require students to explain their thinking. Students receive points for both selecting the correct strategy to solve the problems and for correctly showing their work

And unlike with multiple-choice exams, students are rewarded for their process—even if an answer is incorrect. For example, a student my make one wrong calculation in proving two values equal, but if she can correctly state that the values do not come out to be equal, she may still get points for demonstrating her ability to correctly think critically about the situation. As such, I need to ensure that I am truly teaching my students to think critically about how to solve a problem and present their work.

Does all of this require new standards or new tests to accomplish? Of course not—the best teachers do this every day in their classrooms. But the new format used by PAARC and Smarter Balance provides an accountability mechanism that was not there before. It ensures that all students will be held accountable for not only their answers, but for their thought-process and problem-solving strategies.  And this requires that we as teachers teach not only the content, but these skills as well.

The standards are by no means perfect. We should continue to refine them and improve them as they are implemented. But they represent a refreshing departure from the old way of doing things—drill and kill. And they help me to drive my kids toward the higher-order thinking skills that will be required of them later in high school, in college, and in their careers.

By Jon Alfuth

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