The children shared their comments with others, from thirty schools all around the country.
Due to a heavy rain, the streets around the school were flooded. In Buenos Aires, the storm was just over, the children in the classrooms analyzed the reasons with their teacher why their neighborhood got flooded.
Gathered in small groups, they read different texts to get information from diverse sources. They read about global climate change, urban planning, social responsibilities and so on.Their teacher provided guide for them how to deal with new vocabulary, complex paragraphs, and context information. Then the groups shared with the class what they learned. The debate began… The teacher introduced questions which led to new questions, agreements and disagreements. The need for getting new information came up in order to come to a conclusion e.g. what about interviewing someone from the local government? what about looking for further details of information?
On the following days, the work continued. The children entered the website of the “Leer Critical Thinking Hands on Program”. The website has been developed by Fundación Leer with the support of the Open Society Foundations (OSF, www.opensocietyfoundations.org). They posted their first conclusions and shared their comments with other children from thirty schools all around the country which were also involved in the program.
Meanwhile, through an e-learning platform, a specialist from Fundación Leer provided help to the teachers: suggested lesson plans, reading strategies to implement with the children and techniques to coordinate the debates.
During this school year, Critical Thinking (CT) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)have become progressively the part of the everyday work of 30 schools, more than 60 teachers and 2500 children who participated in the program. Not without difficulties, a real learning challenge has begun and will continue in every school with teachers and children participating in the new experience.
Anabella Saks
Fundación Leer (Argentina)
www.leer.org.ar
capacitacionenlinea@leer.org.ar