One of the great benefits of OERs is their philosophical alignment with inquiry-based and project-based learning, essential tools in developing critical thinking skills in students. Managing meaningful inquiry-based assignments, however, can be a challenge due to the time-intensity of instructors reviewing written student work.
Typically, critical thinking skills are practiced in three steps: students read or watch materials, they write down their thoughts and then teachers review them. The trouble is that reviewing written assignments is one of the most time-intensive teacher activities. That process is important, of course, for longer more substantive writing projects, but for guiding critical thinking it is just a bottleneck.
With Ponder, we have broken apart the idea generation and the writing, making it possible for a teacher or professor to review each of their hundred-and-fifty students' critical reactions to assigned readings before class every day.
Ponder is also a social platform for students to collaborate and discuss through, and because it is used across subjects from ELA to social studies, STEM content literacy to foreign language, it becomes a cultural fabric for your school. Because it can be leveled from elementary school through graduate school, it is something they can use across grades as they grow older, in study groups and for fun.
Ponder can be used on any text or video that a student can browse to. Though it evolved pedagogically in traditional classrooms here in the US, its flexibility and scalability have made it relevant to a broad array of educational scenarios around the world.
In this session we will review our findings from the efficacy study at the university level this past year, the focus group work we have done around our flipped-video interface this Spring, and best practices from schools and universities around the world using Ponder.
