Bringing MELS to Colombia

On Monday, my host teacher Sandra asked me if I would be willing to give a one hour presentation to teachers about inquiry and/or critical thinking. Each of those topics are incredibly complex and I quickly texted some amazing MELS teachers for ideas about how to present these concepts in a way that was meaningful...in Spanish! When I asked for more details about the meeting location and number of teachers I slowly began to realize that the intimate gathering I had imagined was actually fifty teachers in their cafeteria. I was actually running their weekly PD session.

After receiving thoughtful emails from Hillary, Melissa and Hilary, I started to outline a plan. I decided to focus on how to promote critical thinking in the classroom.

In true MELS style, we would begin the session with an initiative. I told each group of teachers that they were stranded on a desert island and had to choose five out of fifteen items that would help them survive. They needed justify their selection of each item. To their credit, the teachers kindly translated my Spanish and jumped into the activity with lively debates all around. Each group then eagerly presented their choices. I then showed them a diagram of Bloom´s Taxonomy and asked them to identify which pieces they had to use in their activity - did they need to remember things, evaluate choices, analyze options, etc. Once again, teachers shared their thoughts and identified the top part of the pyramid as the space where critical thinking happens. Finally, we did a gallery walk where teachers answered the questions, ¨What are examples of critical thinking in your classroom?¨and ¨Why is critical thinking important?¨ Teachers discussed their responses and were excited to have a follow-up meeting with me about other activities or strategies they could use to increase critical thinking in their classes.

Overall it was a wonderful experience - the teachers were generous with my Spanish, excited to engage in conversations about critical thinking and interested in learning more. It was great to bring a little bit of MELS to Gimnasio Cantillana.

Teacher responses to the gallery walk