Inquiry-mindedness - The Critical Thinking Consortium

TEACHER RESOURCE #5Reinforce the strategy➤➤Introduce Credibility of sources (Student Resource#5). Review each of the elements:purpose, strategies, practise sample, and selfassessmentrubric. Encourage students torefer to this chart when using the strategy inthe future.STUDENT RESOURCE #5➤➤Invite students to apply this strategy to atopic or question they are investigatingfor school or to find credible sourcesof information to answer a personalquestion. For a sample use of thestrategy, see the nextpage. Assessing my ability to judge the credibility of sources➤➤If poverty is a topic you wish to investigatewith your students, use thematerial on poverty found in this resource,and ask students to identifycredible sources for investigatingpoverty within their community(Teacher Resource #6).Accomplished Good Basic StrugglingFinds evidence of credibility:I know where to look I find evidence but I can find some obvious It is really hard for me tofor evidence and I find sometimes I miss details evidence but sometimes it find evidence and I amevidence that is obvious that are important. Most is hard for me to connect not good at connectingand not obvious. I of the time I can connect it to the criteria.evidence to the criteria.can easily connect the the evidence to theevidence to the criteria. criteria.Asseses credibility of sources:I can easily identify I can identify credible I can tell when the most It is very hard for me tocredible sources of sources of information obvious sources are decide whether a source isinformation, including most of the time, but I credible but I often forget credible or not.less obvious sources. sometimes misjudge the to consider all the criteria.credibility of a resource.Tools for Thought 2008-09:3 46 © The Critical Thinking ConsortiumApply the strategy ineveryday teachingAssess studentunderstanding➤➤➤➤➤➤Encourage students to consider this strategy ineveryday situations such as:• selecting credible sources for answering a research question;• listening to people predicting future trends (political, economic, fashion);• seeking travel advice;• listening to an account of an event;• researching a product.Encourage students to refer to the rubric found in Student Resource #5 when self-assessing theirunderstanding of the concept.• Allow students to apply the concept two or three times without evaluation.• Guide students in interpreting and using the rubric to evaluate their own responses.• Encourage students to use the rubric whenever they use this concept.To use the rubric for teacher evaluation of student work, remove the phrase “I can” from eachdescriptor.Tools for Thought 2008–09:3 42 © The Critical Thinking Consortium