The Importance of Critical Thinking in K-12 Classrooms, with Dr. Aleigha Henderson-Rosser

Full Transcript

Dr. Cristi Ford (00:00):

Welcome to Teach & Learn, a podcast for curious educators brought to you by D2L. I’m your host, Dr. Cristi Ford, VP of academic affairs at D2L. Every two weeks, I get candid with some of the sharpest minds in the K through 20 space. We break down trending educational topics, discuss teaching strategies, and have frank conversations about the issues plaguing our schools and higher education institutions today. Whether it’s ed tech, personalized learning, virtual classrooms, or diversity inclusion, we’re going to cover it all. Sharpen your pencils. Class is about to begin.

Kassia Gandhi (00:37):

Hello, I am your guest host for today’s episode, Kassia Gandhi. I’m the vice president of K-12 sales here at D2L, and today’s episode, we are going to be diving deep into critical thinking and technology in K-12 education and our K-12 schools. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Before I came to D2L, I was a K-12 teacher, and critical thinking was one of those skills that I found was absolutely necessary to build into every part of my classroom. So I told your regular host, Dr. Cristi Ford, that this was an episode that I need to do.

And today, with my guest, Dr. Aleigha Henderson-Rosser, who is an author, speaker, and the assistant superintendent with Atlanta Public Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, we are going to be touching on what critical thinking actually means in today’s schools in this post-pandemic world, how we look at innovative technology and ways to support critical thinking and all of the different elements that need to be considered both from a teaching level, a student level and from that system level. So welcome to Teach & Learn. Aleigha. Hello.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (01:45):

Hello. How are you? Happy New Year.

Kassia Gandhi (01:48):

Happy New Year. I am doing very well. So before we dive in, Atlanta, it’s hailed as the Silicon Valley of the South. You have a huge technology hub with tech startups, tech companies. I think it’s actually the 11th largest tech talent labor pool in the United States. So there’s so many different career opportunities in tech to be had. And I’m curious. How has that impacted the way that you think about students and how you’re preparing them for their future?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (02:20):

It seems like things have happened here so very fast, and being an Atlanta native, it has been very fun and rewarding to watch the city grow this way. We have an exciting movie industry here as well, Aztec. And as being the school district that is at the heart of the city, we really do have to take a look at what we’re preparing our students for.

And so if our students are here, they live here, they’re residents here, they’ve grown up here, we definitely want them to be able to take part in this ecosystem that has been built here in Atlanta, and we want them to thrive here and have careers here and not necessarily have to go outside of the state to support the tech industry and the entertainment industry that’s here. So there are a lot of different things that are at play right now in the district. We have a lot of great partners that we work with to make sure that our students are future-ready.

Kassia Gandhi (03:29):

And I think that’s so important, but also so special for Atlanta. I think there’s a lot of different districts out there across the United States and different areas that are just desperately trying to hold on to students and show them that there’s a pathway for them to stay in their hometowns, their home communities.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (03:45):

Yeah.

Kassia Gandhi (03:46):

But Atlanta is growing and booming, and I think that is an exciting ability to be able to train our students for that kind of diverse talent pool and diverse career pool.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (03:58):

Yeah.

Kassia Gandhi (03:59):

Let’s talk about critical thinking. Let’s start unpacking it a little bit. So I’m really curious, in your opinion, what is critical thinking, and why is it so important as you prepare students for their future?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (04:14):

Critical thinking is kind of like the word rigor, and depending on who you ask, you may have a very different answer, but I think we have to think… we have to teach children how to think. AI is thinking for them, right. They can Google anything. They’ve got all this data and information at their fingertips, but it’s only as good as the information that you put in.

And so if you can’t think critically about how to even use some of these artificial intelligence technologies that are coming about or what steps you need to take next, then you won’t be able to participate in this economy. You won’t be successful. And I think, though, if you think about the way that education has been situated for the past a hundred years, it’s pretty much been the same. The teacher is at the center. They are the sage on the stage, and they are the ones that are leading and guiding the learning.

And I was told long ago I’m a big professional learning advocate, and I love to participate in learning with teachers and leaders, but the person that’s doing the talking is the person that’s doing the learning. So when you walk into a classroom, and the teacher is the only one that’s chatting or talking or demonstrating, then you have to wonder what are the kids receiving and are they really grasping what’s taking place. So I think that critical thinking is just inquiry-based approaches to learning.

Kassia Gandhi (06:02):

I agree. I think so much around critical thinking in the classroom comes down to good pedagogy and how are we constructing ways for students to be learning by doing, learning by speaking to your point.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (06:13):

Exactly.

Kassia Gandhi (06:14):

Learning by playing. So from an assessment perspective, how are you working with your teachers, or what do you expect to see from teachers in Atlanta when they’re building assessments that are going to support critical thinking?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (06:29):

Oh, wow. That is a very deep question in that we’ve got our state assessments, and you have to really kind of get into this debate around if the assessments don’t change, does the pedagogy change? And so, we actually have to change the way that we assess students. We’ve got to move beyond traditional exams and quizzes and maybe start to incorporate some more performance-based assessments, but then our state assessments aren’t that way, right. So there’s a balance and some magic that our teachers have to do in the classroom so that you want to make sure that you get to authentic assessments like projects and presentations and portfolios in which students can apply their critical thinking skills.

But you also have to be prepared to just regurgitate the answer. You just got to be able to give the answer back and then bubble it in. But I feel like we get to that through authentic assessments. And I think sometimes teachers think, “Well, if I don’t see them answer the multiple choice question, then they won’t be able to do it on that state assessment.” So they kind of shy away from non-traditional assessments. But if we’re really talking about critical thinking and deep learning, then we’ve got to do our assessments different. Our curriculum team does a really good job of developing and using rubrics that really specifically address critical thinking skills.

So if you’re in a district and you’re leaving that up to the teacher, some teachers are going to do a great job at it, but some teachers are going to teach the way that they taught and the way that they know that they will be assessed, right. And so if we’re not considering how that teacher has been prepared to teach in this different environment, and we scaffold and help support them from a curriculum standpoint, from an instructional technology office, from an assessment office, then we’re going to continue to see us assess in the same traditional way, which means that teaching is not going to change.

Kassia Gandhi (08:53):

It’s that constant push and pull in K-12 where we know we have to do authentic assessment to prepare our kids for the future. We know we have to think about the way that we’re actually grading in a different way, but at the same time, you’re right. We have these structures in place, like standardized testing like having formal report card grades that are used for our secondary students to get entrance into colleges.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (09:18):

Right.

Kassia Gandhi (09:19):

That’s also preparing them for the future. And I appreciate that because I know that so many of the teachers I’m working with are constantly trying to figure out, “How do I play that balance?” And particularly in some areas, if I’m getting assessed as a teacher based on how my students are performing and I need to make sure that they’re performing well in standardized tests, sometimes I’m going to teach to the test, which is not-

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (09:42):

Exactly.

Kassia Gandhi (09:43):

… what we want.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (09:44):

And you mentioned the traditional report card. I can remember a couple of years ago, we kind of dipped our toe, we dibbled our toe a little bit into performance-based grading, and then performance-based report cards. You would think that we were prepared for that a few years ago. But I’ll tell you the biggest resistance to it was parents. It was the community because is my student an A student or not? I know what A student means. I know what B means. I know what a D student means.

But what this new nomenclature and the way you are describing how my student is a learner, I need to know if they are an A, B, or C student. And so we had a really difficult time kind of not convincing, but educating our parent community about performance-based grading and performance-based report cards. They weren’t ready. They weren’t ready. And so then we got into this thing where we were saying, “Well, A equals this, and a B equals this.” And then you realize you’re not doing a performance based report card anymore.

Kassia Gandhi (11:04):

You just change the grading achievement scale is all.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (11:07):

Yeah, that’s all we did. And so I just find that that’s interesting that when we even start to think about authentic assessments, critical thinking, project-based learning, and how we do things differently, we cannot leave out the parent and the community because there’s learning that has to take place there as well. School is unique in that everybody has been to school, right. We’ve not all been in a doctor’s seat.

We’ve not all been a sports… an NFL player, and so we can’t really speak to what happens in those different fields, but everybody feels like they can speak to what happens in school because everyone has been to school. And so when you start to change some of those traditional structures, you’ve really got to not forget that parent and that community base. And really, they should probably come along first before you start to make some of those shifts.

Kassia Gandhi (12:04):

I agree, and that’s certainly something I’ve seen a lot when we shift to something like a performance-based or a mastery-based assessment. You’re right. Parents, they were graded differently. And for them as well, they’re looking forward to the future, saying, “I just want to know that my kid has a 4.0 GPA, so I know that they’re going to get into a good college.”

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (12:26):

That’s right. Yeah.

Kassia Gandhi (12:26):

I can see that for sure. I am curious as well to, let’s continue on that theme of keeping parents and students engaged in the classroom. When you are thinking about preparing students for these careers and 21st-century jobs and the types of technology that you’re exposing them to, how do you think about the entire system? And what I mean by that is, are you considering the technology and the social media and the tools they’re using at home? Do those overlap with the technologies that they’re using in the classroom? How do you grapple with this kind of ecosystem of technology-

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (13:00):

Oh.

Kassia Gandhi (13:01):

… and the internet that kids live in today?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (13:04):

Oh, really good question. One thing we noticed about new teachers, new teachers to the field, they come to us. They’re eager. They’re not necessarily afraid of technology. We know the students aren’t. But when we think about this ecosystem of technology that exists and software, our new teachers come to us. They know how to use TikTok. They are Instagram users. They are Snapchat users, which probably by the time this AIR Snapchat will be really old, but that’s what I am used to.

But they know they’re really proficient in social media and different apps on their phones. But if I were to say, “Hey, let’s think about how you are going to use an emerging technology to teach mathematics in your classroom,” they don’t have a clue. And so it is funny because sometimes that technology and that use that they do at home, parents and students and teachers, it doesn’t translate to the classroom because the classroom technology is completely different.

We want our teachers to engage in AI. We want them to use AR/VR. We want them to use virtual field trips. One of my favorite apps is Google Maps, and if I am a social studies teacher, I can’t imagine not using that every day in my classroom. We’re actually going to go visit the Wall of China… the Great Wall of China, we’re going to fly to it in Google Maps. And you would be surprised that in your normal everyday life, nobody’s necessarily using Google Maps. Google Earth is actually the name of the app.

And so I don’t think that is translatable. I don’t think that it crosses over necessarily because I think what we use in our everyday life is not what teachers use to help students get proficient. We have lots of different software tools. We have things that help students create and express themselves. And I don’t know that teachers in their teacher preparation program are necessarily taught to give students that kind of time, right. You’re more so taught to stay on pace, make sure you cover this content by this time.

And if I were to allow students an opportunity to create a rap that may go along with the plant cycle and then also construct some beats to go with that using a music software tool and then have the students record a video of it using augmented reality to show off the plant cycle, that’s something completely foreign to new teachers, mid-year teachers, and even teachers who have been with us for a while. That is not anything that they generally comprehend right off base.

And so I don’t think it’s translatable. I don’t think it crosses over at all, which kind of makes it a blank slate for us here in my department in instructional technology in that training has to be consistent. It has to be timely and relevant, and we have to stay on top of the cutting-edge technology that’s here, and that’s emerging, and that we’re incorporating it into teaching and learning.

Kassia Gandhi (16:38):

It’s an important piece. It’s the critical thinking of teachers to think about the tools they’re using. So often the technology can guide the teaching, but in the wrong way. And what I mean by that is, maybe I see a really cool app that I’m using at home. I want to use it in the classroom. If I lead with that, instead of leading with what are my end goals around the-

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (16:58):

Exactly.

Kassia Gandhi (16:58):

… learning outcomes-

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (16:59):

Right, right, right.

Kassia Gandhi (17:01):

… it’s a challenging piece. So you’ve talked a bit about how you’ve been supporting teachers through that with the training and giving them constant access to technology. I’m curious. You did something really cool at Atlanta Public Schools with the Ciena Solutions Challenge to give students access to more diverse digital tools. Can you talk to me about that? What did that look like?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (17:21):

What the Ciena Solutions Challenge gave us an opportunity to do was to really augment and design a classroom space that had all the tools that could be available for critical thinking use and for… with emerging technologies, and really designed this space that allowed our students to become designers, right. So they donated equipment. We’ve got 3D printers. We’ve got AR/VR goggles. Each student is given like a kit to work with to actually use all of these technologies to solve real-world problems and to iterate on different solutions that may impact their community.

It is funny. I just was thinking about the other day, we’re entering budget season, so anybody in K-12 understands what this process is, but I’ve got to think through differently around what the space looks like, not just the tech. And so if the technology, if I just throw that in a traditional classroom, but I don’t give you the right workbenches and tables for students to spread out and use a Glowforge machine, which is something else that the Ciena Solutions Challenge gave us.

They’ve got to have a place almost like a maker space built into the classroom where there’s just tidbits and different tools because I don’t know what I may need, right, if I’m building, if I’m solutioning, if I’m creating. And so I’ve got to have access to a lot of different things. So I’ve started to rethink, and the Ciena Solutions Challenge has helped us to do that, rethink what a classroom space should actually look like. There should be flexible seating.

Kassia Gandhi (19:14):

You talk about how everyone’s been in school, so everyone thinks they know how to be a teacher, which I mean, I felt that as teacher, like you’ve seen a part of the role. Sure. But-

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (19:24):

Right.

Kassia Gandhi (19:25):

… the other piece is, I mean, I’ve spent my whole life in education. I’ve been blessed to be able to work with so many different school districts and schools across North America. I haven’t spent time in other industries, so I don’t know what the newest technologies are. I don’t know what’s going to be happening 10 years from now, but my students need to. So I love that you’re bringing in those industry partners to really flip the way that we think about preparing our students for the future.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (19:49):

Mm-hmm.

Kassia Gandhi (19:51):

You had a book that you published, the Quick Guide to Simultaneous, Hybrid, and Blended Learning. And in that, you talk about the need to look at our K-12 classrooms and reimagine them based on the contextual pieces that are happening. So those boundaries of our classrooms are constantly flexing based on everything else that’s happening around us.

And for me, and I know this is a hot topic right now, there is no better example than what’s happening with artificial intelligence and the need for us as teachers and educators to think about artificial intelligence and how it’s impacting our classroom and how we support our students in critically using it. So can you talk to me a little bit around what work you’re doing right now to help your students critically use AI? Because, let’s be real, they’re going to be using it. We can’t say don’t.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (20:43):

Oh, absolutely. And I’m so glad you said that. Let’s be real about it. I’ve been in this role for a while. I’ve been an instructional technology geek from the beginning of Google. I literally was a beta tester for Gmail. So when people see my personal email, they’re like, “Well, how did you get that?” I’m like, “I’ve been around for a long time.” So I’ve kind of literally witnessed the evolution of technology from the PalmPilot right until what we have now.

And Google was very… it was almost the same identical reaction when Google entered the scene. And there was even a news story here locally that talked about students Googling answers and whether or not, if you can imagine now, whether or not their diploma would be worth the paper that it was written on because students at that time were able to Google answers. And it was really kind of an uproar.

I mean, we had to prepare a response to did the student really learn it? Do they really know it? You can’t even imagine that argument now, right. And so I feel like AI… that’s where we are with AI. We’re right here where teachers are going. We need to block it. We need to turn it off. What kind of filters can we use? And I will say, initially, to help students and teachers get comfortable with it, we toyed with the idea of just let’s just block it and make sure that we know what to do first. I tell you what, you can’t. You can’t.

Kassia Gandhi (22:28):

Yeah.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (22:29):

If you block ChatGPT, something else is popping up, right. If you block the Magic School Bus, which is another kind of AI tool, something else is coming up. So you can’t. And there is not a tool that’s out there that can filter and understand what AI is being produced daily to be able to block and filter it. And so if we don’t embrace it, and if we don’t find a way to incorporate, use, and teach it responsibly, we’re going to get left behind. Just like when Google came out, we had to adopt it and embrace it. And so one thing we’ve done, and we just did it right before our Christmas break, is I had an AI course for our principals and our district leaders.

And here in my department, we’ve been using it for about a year. We’ve been playing with it and some of the open AI tools that are out there. And when we showed our… one of the most powerful lessons that we did was we took a data set and we put it into an AI tool. And we asked the AI tool to create a letter to parents using this data and to explain the data. And of course, the letter generated, and everybody’s in the room, everybody in the room, their eyes just got really big like, “Oh my God, this is awesome.” And so I think if we show them how to harness the power of it and to use it for good, but also be honest and talk about some of the pitfalls, and we did that.

We showed examples of how, “Hey, this actually may not work well if you’ve got students that have to write papers consistently all day and you’ve got six or seven papers that are due to show them that they know about this particular novel or this book.” Yeah, kids are going to use AI to write those seven-page papers. So we also have to think about what we’re asking students to produce, just like you have to think about what your daily activities are, when is AI appropriate for those activities, and when they are not. And so we talked a little bit… The session was only about 75 minutes. We probably could have gone on for half the day. That is how much people are yearning and eager to learn about it.

And I’m talking about our school leaders, our principals, the finance people down the hall, our HR team. And these were the groups that we were doing the training with. And so we kind of tried to talk about in your daily work in nutrition in the nutrition department, give us the ingredients, and AI can come up with a menu for you. And so we kept trying to make it relevant to their work enough so that we’ve now gotten requests for each individual department and our team to come out and say, “Hey, give us a little bit more about this whole AI thing.” So I think the first thing was to break down the mystery of AI and also show how you can use it in your daily work. And hopefully, this will bring to light how your teachers and students can use it. And I think it has. It has done that.

Kassia Gandhi (25:54):

We’ve talked about so much today. We’ve talked about critical thinking, we’ve talked about technology, we’ve talked about AI. If you had to give an educator one piece of advice around how to use technology to support critical thinking in the classroom, what would it be?

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (26:11):

That’s interesting. And I think you actually… Well, you know, I think it’s give yourself some grace. This is new. And if you are giving yourself grace to try new things, then the students will give you grace. They’re just excited that you’re excited to do something different. I just remember, as a science teacher, when I would set up my lab the night before, and you’ve got everything just so. I’ve got my Bunsen Burners out. I’ve got my beakers out. The spatula is here, everything is laid out, and the students will come into the classroom and go, “Aah, it’s lab day.”

You can just see the excitement on their faces. If you are doing something different in the classroom that will engage them on a different level, and it doesn’t come out perfectly, it’s okay. Give yourself some grace. Apply that grace, and the students will do the same for you. If I didn’t have enough something for the students to do, they didn’t chastise me. Guess what? They were like, “Oh, it’s okay, Ms. Rosser. I will just go over and work with this particular student because you are short 10 of whatever it is that I’m trying to get them to do or to dissect or to participate in.” They were so amenable in those moments, and they helped me make the lesson better.

And so I think our students are looking for us to be engaged in different ways, and they will respond in that way. And so it’s okay if it’s not a perfect lesson. It’s okay if you have to do it a second time. I still feel bad for whoever was in my first period in science because they were the test rabbits, right. This is where I’m going to try this out, but I’ll have it perfected by third period. But my first-grade class, we learned together. My first period class, we learned together. We did it together, we moved together, and we grew together. And so if you’re just going to take a risk, it’s okay. Give yourself grace and keep going.

Kassia Gandhi (28:27):

Thank you so much. And I think that’s going to resonate so well with so many educators. We are all learning together. We always are. That’s why we’re in education.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (28:34):

Right.

Kassia Gandhi (28:34):

We love lifelong learning.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (28:36):

Yeah.

Kassia Gandhi (28:37):

Well, Aleigha, thank you so much. This has been such an amazing conversation. So many insights, so many valuable lessons that you’ve learned and that you’ve shared back with our listeners. So I really want to thank you for your time today.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (28:49):

Oh, it’s been amazing. I’m sure we could keep talking for hours, but, it’s just an amazing topic to keep going. There’s so much to be explored here. And so thank you all for even thinking about this as a topic to get out to our teachers because it’s very important. It’s critical.

Kassia Gandhi (29:08):

It is. To keep up with the work that Dr. Aleigha Henderson-Rosser and her team are doing around critical thinking and technology. Make sure to follow Atlanta Public Schools on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, @APSInstructTech. That’s APSInstructTech. Or you can follow Dr. Aleigha Henderson-Rosser @ahrosser. That’s A-H-R-O-S-S-E-R.

And thank you to all of our Teach & Learn listeners and to curious educators everywhere. You can follow us on social media as well on the X platform, LinkedIn, or Facebook at D2L, and you can find our YouTube channel at Desire2Learn Inc. You can reach out on social media, share your thoughts about this episode with us, and also let us know any upcoming podcast topics that you want to hear. Maybe we’ll have Dr. Aleigha back to talk about something different.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (29:58):

I’d love to. That’d be great.

Kassia Gandhi (29:59):

All right.

Aleigha Henderson-Rosser (29:59):

Thank you.

Dr. Cristi Ford (30:01):

You’ve been listening to Teach & Learn, a podcast for curious educators. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company helping organizations reshape the future of educational work. To learn more about our solutions for both K through 20 and corporate institutions, please visit wwww.d2l.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. And remember to hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with all new episodes. Thanks for joining us, and until next time, school’s out.