The Collaborative Classroom: Building Analytical Thinkers in Elementary Reading

This workshop focuses on equipping elementary educators with strategies to foster critical thinking and analytical skills in reading instruction. Participants explore the connection between collaboration and critical thinking, and how purposeful questioning, active participation, and metacognitive practices can deepen student engagement with texts. The session emphasizes the use of higher-order thinking questions, essential questions, and thinking routines such as “See, Think, Wonder” and “Circle of Viewpoints” to promote deeper comprehension. Through examples, activities, and reflection, teachers learn how to structure classroom interactions so that all students actively engage, think critically, and support their reasoning with evidence.

• Limited student engagement and uneven participation in classroom discussions.
  
  
• Insufficient opportunities for students to practice higher-order thinking and analytical reasoning in reading.
  
  
• Difficulty integrating collaboration and metacognitive strategies into everyday instruction.
  

1. Designing and Implementing Higher-Order Questions: Participants will learn how to plan and scaffold questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy to encourage deeper analysis, evaluation, and creation in reading tasks.
   
   
2. Fostering Active Participation and Collaborative Thinking: Participants will gain strategies to ensure all students contribute meaningfully, including total participation techniques, active learning routines, and structured peer discussions.
   
   
3. Integrating Metacognition into Reading Instruction: Participants will develop skills to model and guide self-questioning, reflective thinking, and the use of thinking routines to help students take ownership of their learning and thinking processes.