It Is a Self-Made Work of Students with Creativity and Originality

Mind Map

Objective:

The use of Mind Map can enhance memories of students of the learnt concepts and better use of their brain as a memory system. Mind Map also shows a clear relationship between concepts.

Characteristics:

It is a self-made work of students with creativity and originality

It is illustrated through a combination of tools like colorful graphics, words, pictures, diagrams which can enhance the visual memory of students

It shows a clear relationship between different parts of a large piece of information.

Teaching Strategy:

Teaching materials: History of Travel and Tourism in the East and the West since the roman Empire Period

Teaching activities:

Introduce briefly the topic by going through the text-book.

Ask students to outline the key concept and words in each paragraph or topic and find out themselves or as a class the relationship between them.

Explain and demonstrate briefly how to use the mind map to link up the relationship of the outlined key concept as a class.

Exercise:

Ask students to present the mind map as an in-class activity on their own and assign as homework.

Evaluation:

Through homework and term-test to determine how much and how well students have absorbed the taught concepts and materials.

South Tuen Mun Government Secondary School

An Introduction to Critical Thinking for Secondary One

Critical Thinking:

A person who thinks critically can

(a)ask appropriate questions,

(b)collect relevant information,

(c)sort through this information,

(d)reason logically from this information, and

(e)come to reliable conclusions.

Furthermore, he is willingto change hisconclusion as he continues to re-examine new information.

Scientific Method is an application of critical thinking. Scientific Method:

(a)Making observation

(b)Asking questions

(c)Making hypothesis

(d)Doing experiments

(e)Drawing conclusion

Discussion:

A student tried an experiment. He found that a beaker of hot water could dissolve seven spoons of sugar. He also found that a beaker of hot water could dissolve only six and half spoons of salt. He then concluded that water could dissolve more sugar than salt.

Think critically on his experiment and suggest improvement to his experiment.

Distinguish between the opinions and facts in materials presented in TV, newspapers..etc.to judge whether the information is reliable or not.

(a) Facts can be checked to be correct or not.

(b) Opinions are usually based on personal beliefs and are open to debate.

Distinguish the following:

Paul has a height of 1.6 m.
President Bush's visit to China will improve international relations.
Corporal punishment is the most effective method in preventing crime.
Seatbelts can help reduce injuries.
Kelvin is a handsome boy.
Seventy percentages of S.1G students failed in Integrated Science.

critical thinking批判思考 appropriate合適的 relevant有關的 information資訊 logically合乎邏輯地 reliable可靠的 distinguish區別

opinion意見 fact事實 debate辯論 international relations國際關係 corporal punishment體罰 effective有效的 injuries損傷

4. Some examples of non-critical of thinking:

(a)Emotional thinking: relying on emotion and feeling to search for and discover knowledge.

(b)Wishful, hopeful, and subjective thinking: relying on personal interests and beliefs.

(c)Close-minded thinking: unwillingness to consider new facts and ideas or use them in new and creative ways.

(d)Accepting ideas without questioning.

(e)Guessing without considering facts.

(f) Over-generalization: Clever people are always correct. Good people are always good.

(g) Holding to extreme or black and white positions: Everything is either good or bad.

5. Application of critical thinking to daily life.

Discuss:

(a)Non-critical thinking: "Mr. Au Yeung cheated me in my composition grade. He weighted contents more heavily than grammar. So he gave me a low grade"

Critical thinking:

(b)Non-critical thinking: "Before women entered the work force, there were fewer divorces. That shows that a woman's place is in the home."

Critical thinking:

6. Exercise:

(a) Write down two examples of opinions and two examples of facts in daily life.

(b) Write downtwo examples of non-critical thinking and the related examples of critical thinking.

7. Internet:

Search from the Internet for more information on critical thinking.

emotional感情的 subjective主觀的 creative創造的 over-generalization過度的概括 extreme偏激的 work force勞動人口

divorces離婚

Appendix

Using Super Memory Skill in Geography

(1) Introductory Activity

- A series of number with increasing difficulty are shown on the blackboard.

‘17182’ (5 digits)

‘17182041’ (8 digits)

‘171820419553’ (12 digits)

‘17182041955372106409’ (20 digits)

- Students are asked to memorize the numbers and recall them in order.

- Discussion on the difficulties in memorizing long number / list of words.

(2) Introduction of Super Memory Skills

- The method of Association /Story Method is introduced.

Association is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to an image of remembering it. Although it is possible to remember lists of words where each word is just associated with the next, it is often best to fit the associations into a story.

- Demonstration of Association / Story Method

The 20 digits (17182041955372106409) are linked with association images in the following scene:

‘One (1) Sunday (7) night, May felt so bored that she went out for a walk alone (1). On the street, she found an old man (8) who sale fruit and she brought two (2) lemons (0) from him. Then she looked around (4) and found an (1) unfriendly dog (9) making terrible sounds (55) that frightened her……………’

(3) Application of Super Memory Skill in Geography

- Characteristics of Tropical Rainforest is taught.

Luxuriant / canopy / drip-tips / shade-lovers
Evergreen / undergrowth / straight / Mosses
layered structure / buttress roots / climbing plants / Lichens
Emergent / waxy / creepers / ferns

- A list of vocabularies on the characteristics of TRF is given to students.

- Students are asked to learn and memorize the words by using the Super Memory skill.

- They are also required to apply the skill in other topics of Tropical Rainforest and Pollution.

S3 Chemistry – Problem Solving in Chemistry

Problem Solving For Science Students

Step 1. Analyze

The aims of this step are:

1.To understand the problem and to create a mental image of the problem

2.To extract the given data and to understand the nature of the unknown

3.To estimate an answer to the problem

Step 2. Brainstorm for a plan

At this step you should aim at finding relationships by which the unknown may be related to the known.

Step 3. Calculate, if any

At this step the route found in step 2 is used to calculate the solution.

Step 4. Defend by checking and presenting a solution

At this step the aim is to:

1.Make sure that the solution obtained in Step 3 is acceptable.

2.Present the solution in a reasonable format.

Step 5. Evaluate

The problem is solved, a satisfactory solution has been presented: what has been learned?

Problem 1

You are provided with a mixture of potassium nitrate and calcium sulphate compounds.

Compound / Solubility (Room temperature and Pressured)
Potassium nitrate / Soluble in water
Calcuium sulphate / Insoluble in water

Suggest a possible way to separate the pure compounds from the mixture.

Problem 2

The following mixture contains three substances: table salt (sodium chloride), sand and iron filings are mixed up. Suggest a possible way to separate each of them.

Problem solving steps in the problems:

Problem 1 : you are provided with a mixture of potassium nitrate and calcium sulphate compounds.

Compound / Solubility (Room temperature and pressure)
Potassium nitrate / Soluble in water
Calcium sulphate / Insoluble in water

Suggest a possible way to separate the pure compounds from the mixture.

Step 1 – Analyze

The students can observe a mixture of potassium nitrate and calcium sulphate which are both white in colour. They cannot simply separate the two compounds by sorting.

The students are also provided with information on the solubility of these two compounds. They should relate their problem-solving answer with this information.

The students should make use of the solubility and suggest solutions to the problem.

Step 2 – Brainstorm for a plan

The students know that the two compounds have different solubility.

The students should suggest that they dissolve the mixture in water and one compound (potassium nitrate) is soluble whereas the other one (calcium sulphate) is not.

Then the problem of the students is to separate the solid from the solution. They relate their chemical knowledge to the physical separation method for separating solid from liquid – filtration, decantation, centrifugation. By observing the solution and the solid, they should discuss the pros and cons of each method and then arrive at the solution – filtration.

Then the problem of the students is to get back the insoluble compound, calcium sulphate from the residue – the solution would be through drying; and to get back the soluble compound from the filtrate – the possible solutions should be evaporation and crystallization, the students should discuss the pros and cons of each method then arrive at the solution – evaporation would give powdery form of solid whereas crystallization would give crystallized form of solid.

Step 3 – Calculate

Calculation is not required in this method. (If the initial mass of each compound is given, the students can suggest by weighing the final mass of each compound and discussing, calculating the percentage of loss of solid in the process.)

Step 4 – Defend by checking and presenting a solution

The students should write up how they carry out the laboratory and the apparatus used.

Step 5 – Evaluate

The students would carry out their laboratory work based on their write up.

They can then observe whether their solution works or not, suggest the limitation of their procedure and further improvement of the procedure.

Finally the students would write up a report on the result, discussion and conclusion. They should also describe what they have learned in the process of the project.

Problem 2 : The following mixture contains three substances: table salt (sodium chloride), sand and iron filings are mixed. Suggest a possible way to separate each of them.

Step 1 – Analyze

The students can observe a mixture of table salt, sand and iron filing. Although these three solids appear differently, it is difficult to sort them out by hand.

The students should also discuss some of the properties of these three solids and then suggest possible ways to separate them. (If students cannot relate the problem with the solution, teachers can hint on the separating one solid from the other two first and hint on the useful properties such as solubility and/or magnetic property.)

Step 2 – Brainstorm for a plan

The students know that the iron is magnetic, while sand and salt are not; sand is not soluble while salt is.

The students should suggest that they can remove iron from the mixture first by using a magnet.

The students should suggest that they dissolve the remaining mixture in water and sand, being insoluble should remain as solid while salt, being soluble, forms a solution.

Then the problem of the students is to get back the insoluble compound, sand from the residue – the solution would be through drying; and to get back the soluble salt from the filtrate – the possible solutions should be evaporation and crystallization, the students should discuss the pros and cons of each method then arrive at the solution – evaporation would give powdery form of solid whereas crystallization would give crystallized form of solid.