The room went dark as an overhead projector flickered to life in a classroom. A cluster of teachers leaned forward in their chairs, trying to make sense of the outline — Mickey Mouse’s shadow. The task: Explain how astronomers identify asteroids that no one can actually see. Some traced the curve of the ears, others squinted at the negative space, all of them trying to infer the shape of the object and where its parts were located.
This inductive reasoning activity — with teachers peering into the invisible — was one of the many activities teachers participated in at FUHSD’s newest professional development course. Just as astronomers piece together hidden objects from indirect evidence, students are encouraged by teachers who implement the PD’s teachings to explore beyond surface-level answers and learn to reason through critical thinking.
FUHSD teachers attended PD sessions on critical thinking at the district office, led by the district’s Curriculum Lead Team on Aug. 11, 26 and 27. The PD sessions focused on equipping teachers with the skills needed to develop students’ critical thinking skills with inductive reasoning and the question formulation technique — methods frequently used in physics teacher Jim Birdsong’s classes. Birdsong, who attended and gave a presentation at the PD, says the sessions were informative, adding that teachers were treated as experts and encouraged to build on existing knowledge.
“It’s a lot like a good class, in that there was some sort of direct instruction — someone at the front of the room talking about stuff and showing you stuff, and then time to discuss what you’re learning about with other people,” Birdsong said.
Some of the district’s PD offerings change themes each year. Coordinator of Curriculum and Teacher Leadership Welton Kwong explained that the Curriculum Lead Team is focused on leading PD on 21st Century skills including communication, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and problem-solving. Last year the focus was on communication and this year it’s on critical thinking.
“We decided to focus on critical thinking, because we think that it remains an important skill that students in our high schools should be familiar with and practice to get good at,” Kwong said. “Now that we have so much technology, critical thinking remains crucial for students in high school and beyond — in college, work and life in general.”
Additionally, Kwong says teachers felt that these skills were especially relevant for students who are constantly on social media or using AI. As a result, staff felt it was urgent to teach them to not just absorb content but evaluate and question it. Birdsong believes the ability to reason through unfamiliar material is one of the few skills that extends beyond high school.
“Students would just have this toolbox of ways to approach new information,” Birdsong said. “They can make sense of new material better if they can actively figure it out while the teacher teaches a lesson to provide further information. Therefore, inductive reasoning is an important skill. People being told what to think is an issue right now, so if you encourage people to criticize the information that they’re getting and think about it, that can help in all sorts of ways, not just in school.”
Sophomore Rohan Agarwal also noticed the district’s push for critical thinking reflected in how classes are already shifting away from rote work. Instead of rewarding memorization or formulaic answers, said Agarwal, teachers are increasingly designing assignments that require independent thought. Agarwal claims that the shift makes coursework more challenging but ultimately more meaningful.
“For example, in AP Computer Science A, it’s very easy as high school students to get sucked up into syntax, and mindlessly doing problems,” Agarwal said. “However, I think a lot of the teachers have structured their classes in ways where you cannot pass the class without having to think for yourself.”
While the workshops introduced new strategies for FUHSD teachers, they also affirmed some curriculum that already established such practices — for example, Birdsong’s AP Physics 1 and C classes. However, certain aspects of the rollout proved challenging. The training was held just before the school year began, a time when most teachers already had their curriculum planned, making it difficult to implement learnings from the sessions.
Despite those challenges, the structure of the sessions fostered a level of collaboration rarely seen among teachers, according to Kwong. The Curriculum Leads who ran these workshops intentionally mixed staff from different subjects during sessions, hoping to create room for cross-disciplinary conversations and interactions between teachers from different schools as well as subjects. Kwong states that the shared focus on critical thinking gave teachers from different backgrounds a way to learn from one another.
“Something we really enjoyed was that in the morning, for several hours, teachers were mixing and mingling with teachers for different subjects, which isn’t very common,” Kwong said. “English teachers got to talk to math teachers, and science teachers got to talk to social studies teachers. So it feels like a common language that we build and teach, regardless of the school and across the subjects. That’s something we’re very excited about.”
For Birdsong, critical thinking is key in his classroom. He emphasizes the importance of questioning results and applying different concepts in a variety of places.
“We had a kinematics cart lab, and obviously, there were some systematic errors in the data,” Birdsong said. “But, it got us to think and we concluded that the cart was pulled back before it was released, which is why the prediction was wrong. That moment really stood out to me, when we got to think about these concepts in the context of an actual cart moving, instead of some theoretical equations and diagrams.”
Kwong says critical thinking remains of the utmost importance in the modern world. According to Brookings, PDs bridge the gap between traditional schooling and 21st Century skills, which will better equip FUHSD students to thrive beyond the classroom.
“School is notoriously bad at promoting critical thinking,” Agrawal said. “But I think MVHS does a really good job.”
