I’ve been in a workshop yesterday and today with Diane Paynter, learning about Classroom Instruction That Works. Today we delved deeper into the Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers strategy to look at complex reasoning strategies such as Constructing Support and Analyzing Errors. See Dimensions of Learning p. 162-179 or so.

As always, I’m thinking about videoconference applications to what I’m learning. It seems that these ideas could be used to refine the “debate” videoconference template. One class could present something using the specific Constructing Support complex reasoning process and the viewing class could be Analyzing Errors. (It’s analyzing errors in thinking, that is, not the steps in the skill.) Then the classes could swap and the other class presents. This template could be used on many issues, especially in social studies and science.

There’s also the Analyzing Perspectives method of complex reasoning. In the class we took the issue of cloning, and brainstormed all the people who would have a perspective on the issue. We came up with 10-12 different groups of people and then wrote what they group of people might think for a “yes” position or a “no” position. It’d be interesting to have two classes present four perspectives each on an issue that is as convoluted and controversial as cloning, and then discuss it further after the presentations.