Queen’s
University, PME
PME
833 - Module 3
Critical
Thinking The Bigger Picture
Student: Tammy
Jinkerson
Professor: Gary
Rasberry
Date: October
19, 2018
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LESSON PLAN RE-WRITE ENHANCED
WITH CRITICAL THINKING
For
educational demonstration only-
Not
for use or sale with Type Focus branded material
ORIGINAL
LESSON PLAN FROM TYPE FOCUS MANUAL
LESSON
PLAN ENHANCED WITH CRITIAL THINKING
Lesson Plan
#8: Getting a Job
For educational demonstration only- Not for use or
sale with Type Focus branded materials.
Purpose:
To support students in gaining skills and experience in
critical thought about personality type, in self and others, and how this
critical awareness can contribute to a more effective job search.
Objectives:
·
To critically examine one’s own personality type
and it’s role in job search.
·
To gain a deeper appreciation of the types of
others within the community and the strengths and skills that can be “borrowed”
from others.
·
To give and receive support, encouragement and
professional challenge from group members acting as “type experts” from their
own personality.
·
To experience and to use different perspectives
to aid personal job search decision-making and planning.
·
To identify next steps for skill building in the
job search process.
Materials:
1.
Type
Focus Assessment Reports- including Job Search Planner
2.
Background information and descriptions of the
dichotomies to be used in an open-book fashion during the activities.
3.
Agreed upon Group Norms poster.
4.
Type Table for Group (as used in Introduction to
Type unit)
5.
Job Search Self Assessment handouts
6.
Green and blue index card (one for each
participant)
7.
Brightly coloured string
Activities
& Challenges:
Welcome:
·
Ask a volunteer to quickly go over group norms.
·
Remind students of these “habits of mind” in
critically thinking about their own job search and critically reviewing each
other’s job search efforts and plans.
·
Emphasize the benefits of being open-minded and
experimental.
·
Remind the group about the expectation to
encourage and support others within the community.
·
Comment that the job search market is complex
and there is no single formula that works for all. Remind the class that the benefit of a
support group is to figure out what is going to work best for you (advance your
thinking and actions) by trying new approaches and using the support, feedback
and advice of the group.
Challenge
#1: Make a Decision: Which is more powerful?
To introduce the topic in a light-hearted way, start by asking a couple
of silly questions of who would win “the battle”. Examples could include:
·
Pappa Smurf versus Garfield,?
·
Superman versus Darth Vader?
·
Phoebe Bouffet versus Monica Geller?
·
Grandpa Simpson versus Pebbles Flintstone?
Once you notice that most are joining in, then talk about job search
being something like a battle. Different
people are competing for the same job and there is usually one winner. The winner is the one that battles best.
Working in random groups of 5, discuss your personal perspectives on
following question:
In a Job Search Battle, which would be most likely to lead you to
victory?
Your personality
OR
Your skills in job search
Ask each group to discuss and “deliberate” (remembering to explain this
critical thinking process), by thinking about CRITERIA, EVIDENCE and coming to
a FINAL CONCLUSION. Groups can select an
individual or respond together with their criteria and conclusion.
Ask
if a student would like to be the battle recorder. Have the student record on flipcharts in
chart with columns marked CRITERIA, EVIDENCE and CONCLUSIONS. Encourage students to practice asking
questions and seeking clarification, remembering to model information seeking
behaviours.
Wrap Up: After discussion, close with message:
Our
personalities and skills are both important in the job search process. We will see that some job search tasks will
come more easily for some than others.
Some people are “naturals” because of their personalities. Others have learned from experience what
works best. Using a blend of both
personality and skill based-talents, you can analyze approaches and judge for
yourself which are most valuable to your job search efforts.
Challenge #2: Self Assessment
Put up poster of Type Table with
names of the community members in each of the 16 types. (This will provide a graphic organizer and a
thinking strategy for deciding on the peer mentors that offer the best
opportunity for the development of “shadow skills”.
Hand-Out 1 (Attached): Job
Search Self Assessment
Go through
the hand-out as a group, giving a brief overview of what each skill is and
how it is used in the job search
process.
·
Identify the skills that will be learned,
emphasizing the habits of mind that lend themselves to critically examining
community members’ own development needs.
·
Discuss which MBTI personalities might have
natural talents that aid in the process.
Ask for alternate perspectives.
·
Do you have the skill will come naturally to you?
·
Rate confidence level in the skill.
·
Individually identify people in the group who
can act as resources for acquiring the skill.
At the end of the self
assessment, go back and rank order the skills by the criteria- which will be
the most likely to get you a job quickly.
This may suggest a focal point for your efforts.
Wrap Up: Note that this
assessment will be kept to create evidence of learning and ensure peer and
teacher assessment of each skill to ensure competency.
Challenge #3: Considering Employers’ Perspectives
Pass out materials: One blue index care, one green index card and
several brightly coloured strings.
Ask students to review their
Type Focus Assessment Report. Ask
students to pick a comment from the report that resonates most with their
personalities and thoughts about the job search process. Students will record
the comment on the blue index card.
Ask to students to “step out” of
thoughts about themselves and more broadly think about employers. Tell students they will be drawing on what
they know from others who have gotten jobs or those who are successfully
employed. Have students decide on the
most important want/need/demand of local employers and write this on a green
index card.
Cards from the class will be
shuffled (in green and blue packs) and will be placed randomly across from the
comments of the opposite colour. Then
read the comments aloud.
Ask the students to take some
colourful strings and physically connect one of the blue and green cards and
offer a brief comment about how they are connected.
Wrap up: Reflect with the
class the wonderful connections and what a complex web that has been
created. Ask them to notice the
complexity of it all, but also the routes that allow us to cross over from
ourselves to employers in the real world of work.
Note that job search is about
critically thinking about yourself, and also anticipating needs of employers. Thinking about your own personality and
skills in a vacuum is not enough- in order to be successful we need to think
about employers and their needs. This
will allow you to persuade them to give you a chance.
Emphasize that job search skills
are learned skills and have different pathways to success. Explain that there are no set rules and that
we have to be able to accept some ambiguity in the process of job search as we
pursue success. Reinforce that this is
an important habit of mind for our group to be able to think, act and rethink
through challenges.
JOB
SEARCH SKILL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING TOOL
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Name:
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MBTI
Verified Type:
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||||||
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Job Search Skill
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Which types might be the best
resource for this
Why?
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Comes Naturally to me?
(Y/N)
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Current confidence level
1= lowest
2= lower
3= neither low or high
4= higher
5=
highest
|
Which group members might be the best resource supporting
my thinking and will challenge me to build skill?
|
Rank order in importance (which is
most likely to quickly lead to a job?)
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Artifact/ evidence submitted to
portfolio for peer and teacher assessment?
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Skill practiced in the real world?
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Persuasive
Writing 101
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Resume
Writing
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Cover
Letter Writing
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Networking
in Person
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Applying
Online
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Social
Media
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Cold
Calling
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Interviewing
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Thank
You Letters
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Interview
Follow up
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Informational Interviewing
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1-minute Personal Pitch
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ACCOMPLISHED
(3-4
POINTS)
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DEVELOPING
(2-3
POINTS)
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BEGINNING
(1-2
POINTS)
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NOT
YET
(0 POINTS)
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THINKING ABOUT SELF
|
-Demonstrated
ability to identify numerous strengths and weaknesses within personality and
job search.
-Proven
ability to judge most important personal assets and opportunities for
development.
-Selected
significant artifacts for personal portfolio that are thoughtful
representations of self.
|
-Demonstrated the ability to identify
some strengths and weaknesses within personality and job search.
-Proven able to judge some areas of
personal assets and opportunities for development.
-Has chosen multiple artifacts for
portfolio that reflect a new frame of understanding of self.
|
-Demonstrate the ability to identify
strengths and weaknesses in personality and job search when prompted by
leading questions.
-Able to judge personal assets and
opportunities in others.
-Has chosen at least one artefact for
portfolio showing a single understanding about self.
|
-Content not yet delivered
OR
-Student has missed this learning
opportunity due to absence or lack of participation.
|
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THINKING ABOUT OTHERS
|
-Consistently
demonstrated the ability to consider opinions of others.
-Proven
ability to anticipate multi-level about needs and wants- from the employer’s perspective
-Able
to respectfully debate issues and challenge others on both a give and take
exchange.
|
-Often
able to consider the opinions of others.
-Proven
ability to anticipate some needs and wants from the employer’s perspective.
-Able
to either debate or challenge others.
|
-Starting
to consider opinions of others as worthy of consideration.
-Beginning
to consider what employers may want and need.
-Able
to debate or challenge others when prompted to do so.
|
-Content not yet delivered
OR
-Student has missed this learning
opportunity due to absence or lack of participation.
|
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USING COMMUNITY AS A SUPPORT
FOR THINKING AND STRATEGIZING
|
-Regularly
seeks out others in the group for support, advice and strategy.
-Verbally
recognizes the strengths that others possess can be learned and leveraged for
the betterment of job search.
-Often
solicits input from others as criteria for making decisions overt within the
group.
|
-Sometimes
seeks out others in the group for support, advice and strategy.
-Comments
positively on the strengths of others and what can be learned for the
betterment of job search.
-Solicits
input from others as criteria for making decision making overt within the
group.
|
-Has
sought out other group members for support, advice and strategy at least
once.
-Has
made at least one reflective comment about another’s strengths and potential
to contribute to the betterment of job search.
-Has
solicited input from others, as connected to criteria for decision making at
least once, with or without prompting.
|
-Content not yet delivered
OR
-Student has missed this learning
opportunity due to absence or lack of participation.
|
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USING NEW MODELS AND TOOLS FOR
FRAMING JOB SEARCH
Examples:
Type-Tables, flow carts, idea
webs and Venn diagrams
|
-Often
reflects back to tools of critical thinking that support job search thinking
and planning.
-Regularly
connects tools to decision making
criteria for decision and next steps in job search.
|
-Sometimes
reflects back to tools and models that support job search thinking and
planning.
-Shows
models connection to the criteria for decision-making and judgement in next
steps in job search.
|
-Can
reflect, with prompting and encouragement, models that support job search
thinking and planning.
-Can
explain the connection of criteria to decision- making and judgement in next
steps in job search.
|
-Content not yet delivered
OR
-Student has missed this learning
opportunity due to absence or lack of participation.
|
Critical Thinking for Personal Growth
I’d like to begin by explaining that most of the teaching
that I do is with adults in pre-employment, life skills and experiential
learning. This means that the focus of
the critical thought is often “self”.
Applying critical thought process to the content of self can be a
complex and raw process. It helps to
have strategies and a supportive community to support students while they think
things through in their lives.
I have found that I am really good at creating a community
of critical learners. Case and Balcaen
point to some ways that demonstrate a community critical thinkers, like having
students who participate willingly, feel valued and safe and who explore
alternative perspectives (Supporting a Community of Critical Thinkers,
92-95). I find it a struggle to put my
finger on exactly what I do to foster this community and the sense of “owning
your experience” that comes along with it.
I think what makes the biggest difference for me stems from my
counselling background: I know how and
when to pose questions that dig deeper into my students’ emotional
underpinnings and I am able to live with the ambiguity of a multitude of
answers that represent truth for the student.
Evoking emotion can often be a double-edged sword, because
not all emotions make for the open-mindedness needed for critical
thinking. When students are highly
emotionally charged, it can trigger black and white thinking and faulty thought
patterns. However, if my students aren’t
emotionally connected they won’t be invested and then get into a passive
spoon-feeding mode that reminds them of past classroom experiences. I have observed this shutting down potential critical
thinking. One of the ideas that really
works for me follows the Life Skills Teacher Training strategy of beginning
class with a stimulus and evocation to give the students the emotional “hook” that
is needed to engage them in active critical thought. Questions like “Tell me a time when you had
difficulty with a boss or co-worker and why this was difficult for you”. Evocation strategies get students off the
fence and into the conversation so that we can have the starting point for
critical thought about their workplace issues.
It sounds so simple, but non-judgemental listening (and modelling
listening) is another key to nurturing critical thinking. I remember my grandmother and how she used to
say, “Tammy, you have two ears and one mouth for a reason… remember to use them
accordingly”. Teachers who model helps
students to see the teacher being open to new ideas and perspectives. Having studied “solutions-focused
counselling”, I know that students and clients can often become stuck in their
problems. I have often observed this in
spiralling downward amoung the many issues they face. One suggestion I offer for our group’s
consideration is the power of solutions-focus when applying critical thought to
self. It is a subtle distinction but, by
shifting the critical thought to solutions, rather than problems, students have the opportunity to reap the
rewards of critical thought about self in personal power and betterment of life. Allow me to make this a bit more concrete:
A student goes out into placement and feels that his boss
and coworkers don’t like him. We might
try, as a community, to discuss the habits of mind of solution-focused critical
thinkers may have, like being open to ideas, avoiding black and white thinking
and not jumping to conclusions. This
points the way forward, rather than steeping the student in negative feelings
about self.
Critical thought should be applied to all subject matter,
but when that subject matter is personal growth, it takes a bit of tweaking and
emotional intelligence. My main point in
this post is that critical thinking is not mechanical and value-free. Sometimes it is raw. Attending to the emotional side of the whole
person makes it safe enough to join other students in a community of critical
thinking and eases the process of learning new critical thinking habits,
strategies and decision making that is can create personal growth.
References:
Case, R., &
Balcaen, P. (2008). “Supporting a community of critical thinkers.” In: Case, R.
& Clark, P. (Eds.). The Anthology of Social Studies: Issues and
Strategies for Elementary Educators, Pacific Educational Press, Vancouver.
Case, R., &
Daniels, L. (2008). “Teaching the tools to think critically.” In: Case, R.
& Clark, P. (Eds.). The Canadian Anthology of Social Studies Volume
Two: Issues and Strategies for Secondary Teachers, pp.74-85. Vancouver, BC:
Pacific Educational Press.
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