Peaks and Troughs
Peaks and Troughs
By Janaki Narayan
One of the most exciting assignments I had in Brindavan was to guide a senior class through
a Critical Thinking Activity every week. These are a few pointers from my teaching
experience with that class.
Critical thinking is a higher order thinking skill. It is the ability to judge or discern going
beyond basic observation and memorization of facts. A web search will clarify that “it
involves the ability to analyse and interpret data and use facts and evidence to arrive at a
solution to an issue.”
One of the strategies used in critical thinking, among many, is group discussion. I would
encourage children to think about a problem from different perspectives and hopefully see
merit in another person’s perspective also. This skill is essential for problem solving which
will stand them in good stead in future too.
Most of the time , the students participated enthusiastically. Sometimes, though, there
would be a silence as students were stumped as to how to proceed. I needed to understand
this well to help them. I remembered from my own school and college days that every group
discussion had “peaks” and “troughs” . The “peaks” represent periods of high engagement
and a noisy atmosphere. The “troughs” are times when there is a sudden lull in
engagement.
When a discussion hits a ”trough”, it’s the role of the class teacher to facilitate a return to
active discussion. There are several ways to do this
Ask a series of open-ended questions connected to the topic to help students come
up with responses. This is to discourage passively receiving information. Maximum
learning happens when there are enquiring minds.
Teach students the difference between fact and opinion and provide examples
Pair students up to enable collaborative learning and thereby induce confidence
Prevent domination of the class by one student by specifying names initially, so that
students take turns
If the students find the discussion too tough, use chunking technique to break the
topic into smaller, manageable parts
The teacher can also introduce another angle to the discussion as a thread students
can develop on
Remind students to be respectful to their peers, and not to belittle them, whatever
points they raise, however trivial
Students should be encouraged to listen to another point of view also attentively
and actively
Summarize all learnings on the blackboard and ask the students to reflect on them
further.
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