Evaluating Supply Chain Decisions: Balancing Risk and Business Priorities
Student struggle: Students struggle to anticipate how interconnected systems respond to disruptions and to balance competing priorities when recommending solutions.
Thinking practiced: Thinking under uncertainty and judgment through risk analysis, evaluating trade-offs, and making justified recommendations.
Activity: Students examine a fictional custom-computer manufacturer's supply chain, identify operational risks, and recommend improvements while considering business constraints.
Making Sense of Algebra Word Problems: From Language to Mathematical Models
Student struggle: Students experience anxiety with word problems and have difficulty translating written situations into mathematical relationships.
Thinking practiced: Transfer, application, and metacognition through interpretation, modeling, and reflection.
Activity: Students use a structured reading process to interpret a real-world budgeting problem, develop an equation, and explain their reasoning.
Understanding Social Categories: How We Classify People
Student struggle: Students may assume that familiar social categories represent fixed or universal distinctions.
Thinking practiced: Sensemaking and intellectual humility through classification, comparison, and reconsideration of assumptions.
Activity: Students develop a classification system, compare their decisions with other groups, and examine how categories are shaped by social and historical contexts.
Planning for Learning: Building an Effective Study Schedule
Student struggle: Students have difficulty organizing their study time and identifying effective learning strategies.
Thinking practiced: Metacognition and judgment through realistic planning, prioritization, and reflection.
Activity: Students create a weekly study schedule that balances different learning strategies and personal responsibilities, then explain and evaluate their choices.
Does Coffee Improve Exam Scores? Evaluating Causal Claims
Student struggle: Students confuse correlation with causation and may accept conclusions without examining the evidence.
Thinking practiced: Evaluating claims, identifying alternative explanations, and recognizing missing information.
Activity: Students investigate a news-style claim about coffee consumption and exam performance, identify missing evidence, and explain whether the claim is justified.