Week 3

Making a frog jump!!

The importance in critical thinking and problem solving skills is evident in our day to day living. ‘Critical thinking is the ability to think critically and rationally. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking’(Powell, 2010).

This week’s activity was to creatively come up with a way to ‘make the frog jump’. The materials we were permitted to use included cardboard, sticky tape, scissors, rubber band and a picture of a frog. The activity was carried out in a paired group, and as a class we came up with many different and creative ways to make the frog jump. This activity needed us to critically think and analyse in order to solve the problem.

It is important to involve students with such activities, in order to learn problem solving through critical thinking. ‘Cognitive research is revealing that even with what is taken to be good instruction, many students, including academically talented ones, understand less than we think they do’ (Powell, 2010). This is due to constantly providing students with information rather than allowing them to search, analyse and solve problems on their own.