[00:00:00] Mitchell Brookins: When we talk about knowledge building, when we talk about knowledge acquisition, it's actually predicated on critical thinking.

[00:00:10] Ana Torres: This is Ana Torres, and welcome to Beyond My Years from Amplify. We know teachers never stop learning and we are here to help educators extend their reach. Each episode, we share research-backed strategies, and tried-and-true lessons from experts and experienced educators.

I am here with my amazing Classroom Insider, Eric Cross. What is happening with you, Eric Cross.

[00:00:37] Eric Cross: Hey Ana. I'm here and I'm excited to listen to another episode of one of your amazing educators

[00:00:44] Ana Torres: All season, we've been devoting every single episode to tackling a different real-life challenge that educators like you might face. And to ensure that we're picking topics that are real useful, Eric and I have spent some time speaking with educators around the country to get a sense of the issues that are on the top of your minds. That's what brought us to Kim Eich in Minnesota.

[00:01:10] Kim Eich: I teach at Oakview Middle School. We're part of the Anoka-Hennepin School District, which is the biggest district in the state.

[00:01:17] Ana Torres: Kim is a middle school science teacher, which I know made Eric very happy.

[00:01:22] Eric Cross: You know it does. I love my science teacher peeps.

[00:01:24] Ana Torres: And we asked Kim about the challenges that have been on her mind lately, and here's what she had to say.

[00:01:30] Kim Eich: Teaching our kids to think hard has been the, kind of the forefront of my mind at this point. And how to dig deep.

I think a lot of times they want us to just give them a study guide; give them the facts to retain.

[00:01:46] Ana Torres: So on this episode, we're focusing on how to really develop students' critical thinking. So Eric, why do you think this is a valuable topic?

[00:01:56] Eric Cross: Critical thinking is one of those topics that no matter what age you teach and what topic you teach, it's relevant and important. And really it's a skill necessary for making judgments and decisions in the world. I mean, if you can critically think, you can make much better decisions no matter what aspect of life you're in. And, uh, as teachers, it's our job to help equip students and how to do that. But it's not always easy to do.

[00:02:19] Ana Torres: Right. And critical thinking is something that we can use in our daily lives.

[00:02:24] Eric Cross: Absolutely.

[00:02:24] Ana Torres: And luckily for us, Eric, you know, the guests that we have lined up for today has spent a lot of time thinking about this very topic of developing students' critical thinking. So I'm going to bring him on and then we're going to reconnect and, uh, kind of unpack what he has to say.

How does that sound?

[00:02:44] Eric Cross: Sounds good. I'm looking forward to it.

[00:02:45] Ana Torres: Me too, Eric.

If you've been lucky enough to hear one of Dr. Mitchell Brookins keynotes around the country, you'll understand why he's someone I've wanted to feature on Beyond My Years since day one. I wanted him on the podcast Season 1, and I'm so excited that he's able to be on our Beyond my years podcast for Season 2.

So, Dr. Brookins is now among the country's leading thinkers and experts on literacy. And he has had a very fascinating journey to get to that position. After initially considering a life as a pastor, Mitchell made his way to the classroom. He's worked in Chicago public schools and in New Orleans. Whoop, whoop!

And he is also served as a teacher, a district leader of RTI, and literacy school administrator. And he is done so much more. Along the way, Mitchell has not shied away from taking on big challenges. I call him the real talk man. Okay? He always has this topic on the top of my mind. And so on Season 2 of Beyond My Years, we've been working with our guest to choose a common teaching challenge that they'd like to shed some light on.

The topic that Dr. Brookins has picked is one that I think is one of the most important, yet most challenging: how to help students develop critical thinking.

Welcome to the show, Mitchell.

[00:04:15] Mitchell Brookins: Thank you so, so much for having me. I'm excited to dive in and this is one of my favorite topics.

[00:04:21] Ana Torres: So let's just dive in because he is very passionate about this topic.

But before we get started, let's get you warmed up if that's okay, Dr. Brookins.

[00:04:29] Mitchell Brookins: Let's do it.

[00:04:30] Ana Torres: Do you feel like you're a seasoned educator?

[00:04:33] Mitchell Brookins: I love this question because in my mind, I don't feel I'm a seasoned educator, but I've lived through seasons.

[00:04:44] Ana Torres: Ooh. All right.

[00:04:46] Mitchell Brookins: And when I think about when I first got into teaching, I can't believe, like this is my 20th year.

[00:04:52] Ana Torres: Two decades.

Woo woo!

[00:04:54] Mitchell Brookins: And so when I stepped into the classroom, there were two African American teachers. They were both teaching third grade. And it was funny that the year of my student teaching was the year they were retiring.

[00:05:08] Ana Torres: Wow.

[00:05:10] Mitchell Brookins: And so when I think about seasoned teachers, I think about teachers who have lived through decades of experience, of instruction, from the politics swinging from one place to the next. But, although I'm at, I guess, I guess I'm at that, that halfway mark.

[00:05:28] Ana Torres: Right,

[00:05:28] Mitchell Brookins: Right?

[00:05:29] Ana Torres: You're there. You're there.

[00:05:30] Mitchell Brookins: I realize that I've also lived through seasons in which I love seeing children think; learning that I can actually impact children's trajectory, the knowledge they build, the way they approach texts.

I've lived through seasons where I had to learn how, when you've got 30 schools and that no one has tried RTI, they're going to need protocols and planning tools and they're going to need some accountability metrics to help them do the work. And I also learned that when you're a school administrator, you can't be confused as to what your identity is.

[00:06:13] Ana Torres: Mm, okay.

[00:06:14] Mitchell Brookins: People expect you to step in with voice, with passion, with vision, and direct the path. I've also lived through seasons, you all, where I've learned that the best PD is coaching. Having a teacher come in the room with me—I can go back to those moments; my ARISE teachers would tell you they would come into my office, I would have the projector screen up, I would have the book that they were reading plastered on the screen, and they would have to role-play how they would question the kids. And I would be the student. And I would give them all the curve balls because I said to them, I wanted them to be their best selves in front of children because I knew that if you built the competency of a teacher, you built a competence of students. So I've, I've just learned a lot and now I'm in this season where I'm learning that you know what the system needs support with system building.

[00:07:08] Ana Torres: Agree. Agree, Dr. Brookins.

[00:07:10] Mitchell Brookins: Many people just don't know what to do, what to say, and how to organize the work. And so if I were to answer that question wholeheartedly, I would just say, I am halfway there.

[00:07:21] Ana Torres: Okay.

[00:07:22] Mitchell Brookins: But, but I've learned, I've learned some things that now I know that it is my calling...

[00:07:29] Ana Torres: Ah.

[00:07:29] Mitchell Brookins: ...to be a capacity builder.

[00:07:31] Ana Torres: And can I say that that is the most profound answer I have gotten to that question of are you seasoned or not? And you know, he's already preaching here. So a person who has lived through seasons, is a seasoned educator in my book. Okay Mitchell? So yeah, you're halfway there, but you have so much knowledge and I do agree because I've been following you for a long time. Uh, you know, Mitchell knows that I've been a fan. Yes. You know, in your mind it's only 20 years, but those 20 years that you have been in this educational arena have been very impactful and very powerful.

We're going to kind of unpack that a little bit with this particular topic of critical thinking. Right? I think back to my own career, knowing how important it was and it continues to be, but not always knowing, Mitchell, how to do it well.

[00:08:23] Mitchell Brookins: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:24] Ana Torres: And you are the expert there. And I think you've already kind of went in that direction.

So let's, let's start talking. So helping students develop critical thinking. Why has that topic been on the top of your mind, right? And was there a particular moment or a particular student that helped you realize the importance of that topic?

[00:08:45] Mitchell Brookins: To be quite honest, it's been the top of my mind because we've, we've yet to attain that.

[00:08:50] Ana Torres: Ooh.

[00:08:51] Mitchell Brookins: When I walk into classrooms and I see high-quality instructional tiers that we deem, the discussion is still surface level. When I look at some evidence-based practices and people say, "Let's use these strategies for instruction," and it is usually just to get the gist, it's on my mind because I truly believe that when we talk about knowledge building, when we talk about knowledge acquisition, it's actually predicated on critical thinking.

And that critical thinking is not just a, "Oh, it's just a higher level task that we have kids..." It's the deep thinking.

[00:09:33] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:09:33] Mitchell Brookins: I actually believe that it's, it's, it's actually cognitive support. It's a mental act of process in which you acquire knowledge and understanding. And I don't see that happening at scale, and so that's why it's been on my mind.

[00:09:49] Ana Torres: You know, another profound answer, and again, your passion around it and what, you know, I call, I always kind of watch and I follow him on LinkedIn and he's literally touring the entire country around this specific topic. So with that. Mitchell, if you surveyed most educators, I'm sure they would say that helping students develop critical thinking is a goal.

Like, like me, right? But what are the common errors that a lot of us make? Or what are those misconceptions that you've seen that get in the way of meeting that goal? I think we all know the importance of it, but we don't know, like to your point, we don't know how to attain it. I think it's because we haven't been taught how to do it. So that's my opinion.

[00:10:33] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah.

[00:10:33] Ana Torres: But what do you see? What do you see?

[00:10:35] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah, I see that some of those common misconceptions is, "Well, if you just create the conditions, it'll happen. So let's give kids a hard task. Let's give them a little time to wrestle with it, and then this thinking will just occur." And I have found that it doesn't really work because what you thought was going to be productive struggle, the children are now drowning.

[00:10:59] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:10:59] Mitchell Brookins: And so it's not just the task. And so I think that's where we, we've missed a boat. I think we need to think about, what is the true definition. Right?

[00:11:10] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:11:10] Mitchell Brookins: Because if you understand that—when I think about critical thinking, my first word is cognition. Cognition, again is about the process of acquiring knowledge, the process of acquiring, understanding.

And so what I want to see in classrooms are, during discussion, teacher, how are you scaffolding students understanding?

[00:11:34] Ana Torres: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:35] Mitchell Brookins: Not just what happened in the story, but what are the ideas about these moments of the story?

[00:11:42] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:11:42] Mitchell Brookins: And then when they give you that limited answer as they normally do, I want to see you nerd out with the student, ask them all those probing questions, and pull, tease it out. It's funny because another thing I've seen as a misconception is many people will say, you know, "it's too much teacher talk, too much teacher talk." And I say, "it really isn't the teacher talk." Like, during academic discussion, I'm not expecting the teacher to be quiet. I'm expecting the teacher to orchestrate thinking.

[00:12:13] Ana Torres: Correct.

[00:12:13] Mitchell Brookins: I need to know that you hold the pacing of the discussion, you know when to slow the class down, and let's think about this critical idea. You know when to ask that probing question that makes kids think, "Hmm, deeper insight." Like I'm looking for those discourse moves that teachers make.

And so I think the misconception is, teachers should be quiet and give wait time. And I'm like, it's not about counting seconds, it's about pacing discourse.

[00:12:43] Ana Torres: Yes. And I liked what you said, you said you have to orchestrate that. It is not, you have got to be intentional. You've got to know. So a person like me, let's say I'm a teacher, a brand new teacher, I didn't acquire that skill. It was a lot of trial and error for me, right?

[00:13:00] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah.

[00:13:01] Ana Torres: I knew it was important, but it was, I didn't have anyone to truly guide me in the right direction. So I can honestly say I had a challenge with that.

[00:13:10] Mitchell Brookins: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:10] Ana Torres: So if you know a new teacher out there that's listening to this Dr. Brookins, and wants to be more effective...

[00:13:17] Mitchell Brookins: Yes.

[00:13:17] Ana Torres: ...in developing these critical thinking skills, where should they start?

[00:13:22] Mitchell Brookins: I would say step one, if I'm an ELA teacher, step one is you have to internalize the text that you're teaching. You actually have to know what is the concept, what are the ideas, what are the critical understandings that we're supposed to be intensively thinking about? Right?

[00:13:37] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:13:37] Mitchell Brookins: That's step one because I can't lead a discussion, I can't help you internalize information if I don't even understand the enduring understandings. Right? So that's step one, novice teacher, spend time with the text, love the text, deconstruct the text. Next thing I would do is this, I would actually identify what is the most challenging part of the text where we're going to have to slow down and think. Right?

[00:14:06] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:14:07] Mitchell Brookins: We're going to slow down at this moment. This is where I'm going to give, not just wait time, think time. And I'm, I'm going to think to myself in this moment, "what are the two questions?" Like, that's the other problem, we spend too many times making 50,000 text-dependent questions?

[00:14:25] Ana Torres: Right?

[00:14:25] Mitchell Brookins: And sometimes you need to have those two or three prioritized questions.

[00:14:29] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:14:29] Mitchell Brookins: Determine what two or three questions you're going to ask kids to make them identify the language and the text that would help them then unearth critical ideas. Right? So your questions are more craft questions.

[00:14:44] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:14:45] Mitchell Brookins: Right? And then I think that next step is to really think through, in your mind, at what moment are you going to give children the space to process the knowledge?

[00:15:00] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:15:01] Mitchell Brookins: I, I say this because if you want things to be stored in long-term memory, research says that situational model can only happen when the reader integrates their prior knowledge with the content. We're so busy trying to rush the lesson then giving the brain the moment to encode the information.

So you've got to give kids that take; a moment and reflect.

[00:15:24] Kim Eich: Exactly. Exactly. Wow. You've given us already, I call them wisdom nuggets, Mitchell, three wisdom nuggets of where to begin. So teachers, I think the key thing too, and that was profound for me, is I've got to know the text, I've got to familiarize myself. And you know, Mitchell and I are kind of geeky in that way of like, we want to unpack it, we want to be able to understand it and know what those questions, those deeper thinking questions are as we engage with students.

If nothing else, that's a great step one., But thank you for those other strategies. So I know that we're specifically talking literacy and that's our space, right? We're talking ELA, but I imagine that those same steps can broaden lessons in other subject areas too. Would you agree?

[00:16:13] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah. I, you know, even if you were to take this other subject areas, you know, one of the things that we think about critical thinking, I often think about the quote by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, where he talks about the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Critically is about multiple ideas. And you can hold those multiple ideas well, in, in these other spaces. We need to use graphic organizers.

[00:16:40] Ana Torres: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:40] Mitchell Brookins: Graphic organizers lets the reader, the thinker, the scientist, the historian, prioritize critical information. Right? It makes it concrete. Even more, you can use advanced organizers. And this is the difference; advanced organizers, they have prompts to them that take the reader, the thinker through queries of questions, because we don't want you to stay at the surface code.

[00:17:05] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:17:06] Mitchell Brookins: We're trying to get you to the root. And so I'm going to, I may have a graphic organizer that has maybe four questions that say, "Okay. First start with summarize." "Now, tell me the critical idea here." "Now, why did that happen?" "Now, so what?" And then, "Why does that matter?" So in those other content areas, we can use graphic organizers to first make sure that students know, what's the critical information that they have to remember?

And then we can use advanced graphic organizer to take children through the thinking processes to get them from the surface code all the way down to insight.

[00:17:39] Ana Torres: Well, and you know, even with that, the way you've explained that is that there are kind of our general organizers that we are very familiar with. Right? But those advanced organizers too allow for us to get to, you know, the complexity of the text. Right? And I can only imagine with, you know, as much as you've done this kind of work, looking into this topic, your excitement about supporting teachers to get to that point of feeling comfortable in this space. Right?

[00:18:09] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah.

[00:18:09] Ana Torres: What are some strategies, and speaking of, I know you're, you know, you do your tours, but I know you're in districts and schools and in individual classrooms. What are some of those strategies that you've seen be the most effective?

[00:18:22] Mitchell Brookins: Hmm. I would actually just double down on what I shared. Um, the teacher who understands how to hold discussion.

[00:18:32] Ana Torres: Okay.

[00:18:32] Mitchell Brookins: Right? It's not Ping-Pong. It's not question and answer. This is the difference. I can tell when a teacher is trying to assess students versus when you're really interested in what they have to say.

[00:18:46] Ana Torres: Oh, powerful. That's a t-shirt, hashtag. Right?

[00:18:50] Mitchell Brookins: Right? The, the questioning is very different.

[00:18:53] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:18:54] Mitchell Brookins: Because see, when you're a critical thinking teacher, like, we don't, like, we know we just read the passage. Right? We got that. We're trying to interpret and make meaning in this moment, and so I'm trying to tease out what you know, I want to share what I know, and let's collaborate and, and, and see if we can make sense of this together.

It's the questioning. So when I see questioning that really probes, that's how I know I'm in a classroom where a teacher honors students' thinking, because it is an honor to hear what children have to think about.

[00:19:27] Ana Torres: Oh, wow. What a perspective, Mitchell. It's an honor.

[00:19:30] Mitchell Brookins: So that's like, that's why we're here, right?

We're here to have this moment in time with this text. And then I would say, again, doubling down on the other point, these complex texts are very dense.

[00:19:43] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:19:43] Mitchell Brookins: And so the teacher that takes time to deconstruct a sentence, diagramming the sentence and breaking it apart so that we get the core idea. "Oh, you're doing it right."

I love when I see that. I also love when I see the teacher that says, "Hold up. You know what? This is a lot of information. Let's stop and reread it over and over again. Let's do some fluency with it. This is tough stuff." Right?

[00:20:06] Ana Torres: And there, and there's nothing wrong with that, right? Like saying, "Hold on, let's back up."

[00:20:11] Mitchell Brookins: There is nothing wrong with that because I gave you a complex text. I came in knowing that we were going to be doing some complex thinking anyway.

[00:20:19] Ana Torres: Exactly.

[00:20:19] Mitchell Brookins: I wasn't here to rush. I'm not here to rush. And that's, that's how you know you're in a classroom with critical thinking because we're not rushing the conversation. We're enjoying it.

[00:20:29] Ana Torres: Can you give me an example or tell me a story—because I know you're a storyteller, Dr. Mitchell Brookins—of a time where you saw success using one of those strategies and steps you mentioned.

[00:20:40] Mitchell Brookins: Many of you all probably, I don't know if you've read the book, Rules. It's a story about, um, students, a child who has a learning disability.

And all the rules you have to learn to, to be, you know, to show up in public and, and be, you know, be accepted. And I'll never forget the classroom discussion where we had the students debate, should students with learning difficulties actually be in a general ed classroom or not? And I'll never forget when the kids were talking about that day where they said, "Well, in the book..."

Like, they got to really learn about how this person was different. They saw that person's gifts. And so, you know, and in the book, the, the student actually who had a learning disability actually did the task.

[00:21:27] Ana Torres: Right. Right.

[00:21:28] Mitchell Brookins: When I heard kids say like, "So yeah, they could be in the classroom because like if you help them and they still do it, like that's a good thing."

And, and I'll never forget the one boy that raised his hand and said, "So is, that like why we have all different kind of kids in our room?"

[00:21:44] Ana Torres: Mm, that oof! What a beautiful moment.

[00:21:47] Mitchell Brookins: That is the moment of success for me because it, it went from interpreting the text, the meaning of that text to then moving to, "oh, so that's what we've learned about life."

[00:21:59] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:22:00] Mitchell Brookins: So I've seen that. I, I've seen the, the, on the eighth grade classroom in New Orleans two years ago, where they're reading a story about bullying and they had to identify, you know, what was causing the student to have so much guilt and the, the young girl who said, "Well, we just learned about bystander guilt. Maybe that's what she's experiencing. And that's why she's feeling guilty in the story." And so that's another success moment where you start to see kids move knowledge from one classroom, bring it into this classroom, and they use it to help them understand this text in this moment.

[00:22:39] Ana Torres: That's when it's powerful, right?

That's the power of really doing that right.

[00:22:45] Mitchell Brookins: But it can happen when you have a knowledge-building curriculum and the adults in the room are saying, "Hold up for a second. We want kids to be making these powerful insights. How are we having a curriculum that builds that knowledge of that?" Because, hate to say this, you all I, I, I know we think that critical things about higher level thinking. You can't get to a higher level if you don't have the knowledge.

[00:23:09] Ana Torres: Agree.

[00:23:09] Mitchell Brookins: So if no one has knowledge, there is no critical thinking. Because you don't have anything to reflect on. You can't do what Dr. King said, "intensely reflect on it," because you don't have knowledge of it.

So the adults got to have a knowledge-building curriculum. They've got to strategically think about, what are we building them to think about and how?

[00:23:29] Ana Torres: Yeah. So the, you know, the phrase that we do here, you know, high-quality instructional materials isn't just a little stamp you, it's important to have that.

[00:23:39] Mitchell Brookins: Yes.

[00:23:39] Ana Torres: So thank you for sharing that.

And so, you know, hey, we had Dr. Mitchell Brookins sharing a lot of his wisdom nuggets and a lot of knowledge here. Thank you so much for that. And so, before we wind down, because you know, I could literally talk to you all day.

[00:23:57] Mitchell Brookins: I love talking to do you,

[00:23:58] Ana Torres: Your voice is soothing. I so enjoy talking to you.

We're going to have to do a part two of this, and so I'll talk to my producers about that, Dr. Brookins.

[00:24:05] Mitchell Brookins: I love it!

[00:24:05] Ana Torres: So as we wind down, we've got some quick questions we're asking of all of our guests, and it's actually called Wisdom Nuggets, which you've dropped quite a few already. But we're going to do this and see how many we can do in about two minutes.

[00:24:20] Mitchell Brookins: Let's do it.

[00:24:20] Ana Torres: You ready? Okay. If you weren't an educator, what would you do for work?

[00:24:25] Mitchell Brookins: It would be an event planner. I, I love the whole, my, my cousin let me plan her wedding this year. I planned parties and things like that, so I get all like geeked up about giving people experience and ambiance and organizing that.

[00:24:42] Ana Torres: I love it. What's one resource that you recommend for educators?

[00:24:47] Mitchell Brookins: Anything of cognitive science? Um, I'm really into like, retrieval practice and so anything with that Science of Learning piece?

[00:24:55] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:24:55] Mitchell Brookins: Um, I don't know if y'all have heard of Making Words Stick, orthographic mapping.

[00:25:00] Ana Torres: Yes. Yes.

[00:25:02] Mitchell Brookins: Seven Mighty Moves, Redesigning Small-Group, RTI, MTSS, Stephanie Stiles, like all these different books.

I don't know, I can't really choose. I'm like, I'm a voracious reader. Um.

[00:25:14] Ana Torres: Yes he is.

[00:25:14] Mitchell Brookins: I'm always on Google Scholar and trying to read all the empirical studies. Okay. Um, so I don't know.

[00:25:19] Ana Torres: That's a lot. So people will have a lot to choose from because you are a very multifaceted person. So what's your favorite fictional show, movie, or book that's about the teaching profession?

[00:25:33] Mitchell Brookins: To be honest with you, if you take me back to my childhood. Bewitched.

[00:25:40] Ana Torres: Okay, y'all, Bewitched. Okay.

[00:25:43] Mitchell Brookins: I always, for some reason I was always into magic, I wanted to be like a warlock, all that kind of stuff. Like crazy. Just power. Magic.

[00:25:51] Ana Torres: Here's the, here's an important one that I also, you know, want to make sure that we get to.

On your tough days. because you know, in, in this profession, in any profession that we have, tough days. Right? What reminds you of why you're passionate about education?

[00:26:07] Mitchell Brookins: Hmm. I tell the story all the time, but it's, it is just, it's, I'm always just reminded of the calling of the work, right? And so I've told this story before.

When I think about this work, I think about Tiajh.

[00:26:24] Ana Torres: Okay?

[00:26:24] Mitchell Brookins: The fifth grader that I, as a school leader, I decided that he would no longer read at the kindergarten level. And so in, in a year, he moved to the fourth grade reading level and I was his tutor. But I think he taught me more than I taught him. Um, so, I give everything to him because he's the reason.

[00:26:46] Ana Torres: You're giving me goosebumps.

For a lot of us, this work is more than just a profession. It's, it's a calling, like you mentioned. It's, I've always seen it as a ministry, but that, you know, again, that's another show that we can have and talk about that, Pastor.

[00:27:04] Mitchell Brookins: It is.

[00:27:04] Ana Torres: All right, Mitchell, that's all the time we have, but before we go, we like to give our guests an opportunity to shout out either their home district or a district that's very near and dear to your heart.

Would you like to do that?

[00:27:19] Mitchell Brookins: You know what, I'm going to shout out, actually, new schools for New Orleans.

[00:27:25] Ana Torres: Woo.

[00:27:25] Mitchell Brookins: We have a, we have a leadership program now with over 40 school leaders, and we are putting our attention on adolescent literacy, bringing it full circle. And I'm just proud to say that I'm working with educators where we are trying to disrupt the system.

So yes, I had to just give them that shout out because this is hard work when you try to bring structured literacy to grades six through 12. Um, so yes.

[00:27:54] Ana Torres: Nothing wrong with causing good disruption.

[00:27:57] Mitchell Brookins: Yeah.

[00:27:57] Ana Torres: So I'm going to leave that with that. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Like I said, I couldn't wait to get you on this season.

Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom. Let's do this again, sometime.

[00:28:12] Mitchell Brookins: We shall.

[00:28:14] Ana Torres: Thanks, Mitchell.

That was Dr. Mitchell Brookins. He's currently an educational consultant who supports teachers, school administrators, and district leaders. We'll have a link in the show notes to connect with him on LinkedIn.

Well, all right, Classroom Insider, Eric Cross, is back with us.

[00:28:37] Eric Cross: We're back.

[00:28:38] Ana Torres: You're back. So you've gotten a chance to listen to my conversation with Mitchell, right?

[00:28:44] Eric Cross: I did. That's good.

[00:28:45] Ana Torres: So what do you think?

[00:28:47] Eric Cross: Yeah, I think there's an art and science to teaching and I think that they're two kind of different things and I, I love getting into the, the science of teaching. Like what are the nuts and bolts of critical thinking?

Like how do you do that? That's what I took some, some takeaways from.

[00:28:58] Ana Torres: Yeah, and, and Mitchell had quite a few, you know what I call wisdom nuggets here. So I'd love to hear what your takeaways are.

[00:29:07] Eric Cross: Yeah. The first one is, is teaching critical thinking by modeling how to think differently. Showing students how to think.

And by doing that, we're slowing down, we're helping with meaning-making, sense-making, we're asking "why," we're not just asking "what." And this often happens in like reading activities. So we can, we can do this by planning moments when we're, you know, you do class discussions and you intentionally slow down and, and guide students through that meaning-making.

So for example, like you're doing a novel and instead of asking for plot points and factual questions and recall questions, probe students to reflect on a character, on a person's like motivation. What was their motivation? What do you think they were feeling when they were going through this? That allows students to draw on their own experiences and bring that in.

And we know that cognitive science says deeper learning happens when students can connect the new knowledge to their prior knowledge. And so simply replacing a factual question with a debatable question. Do that, like, doesn't matter what subject you're doing.

[00:30:01] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:30:01] Eric Cross: I mean, I, I do bio, but I'm throwing all kinds of debatable questions about genetic engineering. But you could do the same thing if you're reading books, you know, novels and things like that. And then practicing think alouds. That allows you to show students what critical thinking can really look like. And I, I have a lot of fun doing that, but that simple application gives a great example for students.

[00:30:21] Ana Torres: The importance of modeling, I think can't be like overstated. So, you know, we talk about that all the time, but Mitchell really kind of broke that down and emphasized how important that was. And I remember as a fourth grade teacher being told, "Oh, they're too young. They're not going to be able to really know how to do that."

And those debatable questions that you mentioned. Students can do that with the right modeling.

[00:30:45] Eric Cross: Right.

[00:30:45] Ana Torres: So thank you for, um, bringing that to the forefront. I know you have another one, Eric, so let's unpack and talk about your second takeaway today.

[00:30:54] Eric Cross: Now, the second one is, is more when you're leading these discussions and having that purpose and asking open-ended questions, pacing the conversation, and, and steering students towards insight. And this is where, you're like a quarterback or a conductor, or for some reason I thought of, you know, impromptu jazz, you know that jazz, and you're a, you're, you're a New Orleans girl.

[00:31:13] Ana Torres: Yes. Oh yeah.

[00:31:13] Eric Cross: You like, you know, like that, that I am not a musician. But when I listen to that jazz, that's just like, it's like freestyle rap, you know? It's just like on the fly. That's kind of like how it is when you're doing classroom discussions. You don't know what a student's going to say. And you need to have these questions, these open-ended questions in your back pocket so that when they do pop up, you can reply or respond to them in time, whether it's in, in simple moves like this, say, say you're having a discussion and you're talking with the students and it's you and them. That can be really intimidating for students.

[00:31:45] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:31:46] Eric Cross: So one move that I'll do is when I ask a question, I'll say, "Hey, before anybody raises their hand, turn and talk to your partner and talk about this for two minutes. And then, I'm going to call on somebody." Maybe you'll use wheel of names, maybe you have a protocol. "You're either going to tell me what you said or what your partner said."

[00:32:05] Ana Torres: Love it.

[00:32:05] Eric Cross: And that gives access to both students. So now I'm either practicing a listening skill or my thinking skill or a speaking skill.

And it, and you know, that hits on so many different, different levels right there. And so instead of like rapid fire questions, we can lead this whole class discussion, allow multiple interpretations to come in, asking questions like why does this matter versus, maybe like a question that just is an obvious yes or no answer, or a factual answer.

So I think planning open-ended questions in advance, that goes back to what Mitchell was saying about knowing the text.

[00:32:34] Ana Torres: Yes.

[00:32:34] Eric Cross: So knowing when to do that.

[00:32:35] Ana Torres: Exactly.

[00:32:36] Eric Cross: And then, you know, using those anchor charts or using those graphic organizers to help students write their thoughts out and then pausing, and giving students a chance to really engage with those questions.

[00:32:47] Ana Torres: Yes. That takeaway is something that I also took away, that intentionality piece, but also that pre-planning piece, right?

[00:32:55] Eric Cross: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:55] Ana Torres: Just being ready to know that you might have to pivot, right?

[00:32:59] Eric Cross: Mm-hmmm.

[00:32:59] Ana Torres: And so I really appreciated him saying that. So, I, again know that you have a third takeaway. I mean, now Mitchell had a lot.

I think I could. I took about five or six. So let's talk about your third takeaway, Eric.

[00:33:14] Eric Cross: Yeah. So the third one is building student knowledge first. Pre-teaching key ideas, like before, um, you want them to engage in deeper thinking. I think Mitchell talked about this where he said, "Look, they have to have a foundation, they have to have the knowledge."

[00:33:27] Ana Torres: Exactly.

[00:33:28] Eric Cross: You know, if we look at Blooms or, or those, those frameworks, we want to get to these higher levels of, of rigor or higher levels of thinking, but it has to be built on a foundation. And when we connect that to something meaningful, the knowledge and the learning gets deeper. So before asking students to analyze and interpret something, build on their background knowledge, help them establish the vocabulary and academic language, give them context.

For example, there's a book called, Wonder, by RJ.. Palacio, and in, in the book, there's, it's a, it's about a young boy who has Treacher Collins Syndrome, which is a craniofacial difference. And let's say you're going to read that with your students. You know, introducing the concept one, and this is where my science teacher aspect's going to come out.

[00:34:13] Ana Torres: Okay.

[00:34:14] Eric Cross: What are craniofacial differences? I mean, students see this all the time. People are born differently. They have different, you know, different physical features.

[00:34:20] Ana Torres: Right.

[00:34:20] Eric Cross: Maybe showing like an age-appropriate video first. And then an interview with somebody who has this condition. And then talking about some of the vocabulary words that are going to come up.

Um, and then maybe some of the words that have to do with a theme like inclusion, bullying, empathy, uh, kindness. And this is where I find this next step is really where I find that, I get the deepest, the biggest hook. And this is when it connects to students' lives.

[00:34:44] Ana Torres: Yes. Exactly.

[00:34:44] Eric Cross: And you can do this in a discussion or journal prompts.

And so one thing that I, I might do, and I, and I, this is what I heard kinda Mitchell alluding to, is asking the question, "Have you ever felt different or been treated unfairly because of something about you?" Now we all have, right? And especially students. "Has there ever been a time when you felt like something was unfair?" "Write about that."

[00:35:03] Ana Torres: Right, right.

[00:35:04] Eric Cross: And at that point, "Is there a time when, when you actually felt supported?" So there's, there's positive questions you could ask too. Right? But we always, the negative ones always hit really hard, but the positive ones are, are good to have too. This primes that emotional pump for students so they can have that deeper emotional engagement.

If you're engaged emotionally, that's going to help you be engaged cognitively. When I have emotional buy-in—and this, this is for all of us—like, when I have emotional buy-in in a situation, I am going to be more, my, my mind's going to be more into it. And I, and I think if we go back and I do a throwback to like Susan talking about prior knowledge, you know.

[00:35:37] Ana Torres: Correct. Correct.

[00:35:38] Eric Cross: This, this is a theme that you see and it's just asking the right question can help you, help you tap into that. And so that was the third one.

[00:35:45] Ana Torres: Yes. That pre-teaching is key and I appreciated him also, um, bringing that to the forefront as well. And so amazing, amazing wisdom that Dr. Mitchell Brookins brought to this episode about critical thinking. And so let's just do a quick recap of my Classroom Insider Eric Cross's takeaways. So number one, teach critical thinking by modeling how to think deeply, it is a process; two, lead those discussions that you have with students, lead them with purpose by asking those open-ended questions; and three, build that student knowledge first, you know, pre-teaching those key ideas. Eric, as always, it is so great to talk to you and unpack our episodes. See you next time. Okay,

[00:36:36] Eric Cross: Sounds good. See ya Ana.

[00:36:39] Ana Torres: Thanks for listening to Beyond My Years from Amplify. Next time we're diving into the importance of discovering or rediscovering passion and purpose, as well as honoring who you are as an educator.

I'll be joined by Daniela Anello, CEO of DC Bilingual Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

[00:36:59] Daniela Anello: One of the things that became really, really clear for me was that I needed to be in a place where I could be my full self, like demonstrating all of the identities that make me who I am.

[00:37:09] Ana Torres: That's coming up in two weeks.

You can find show notes, transcripts, past episodes, and lots of resources to help you extend your reach at our website, amplify.com/beyondmyyears, I'm your host, Ana Torres, our Classroom Insider is Eric Cross, our music is by Andrew Smolin. Until next time, please remember to reach out and say thank you to a seasoned educator who has shaped your life.