Challenge Bank

The Critical Skills model of instruction builds powerful lessons in classrooms ranging from pre-K to post-graduate. The model combines experiential learning, problem based learning, and rigorous high standards within an intentionally created collaborative learning community, creating the classrooms that many educators imagine, but can’t quite put together. It is the how in answer to the what of powerful classroom practice. And it was created, continues to be created, by practicing classroom teachers.

The primary methodology in use is the challenge  a carefully crafted problem to solve which connects the curriculum to its real-world application. Challenges can be highly complex or quite simple, may take minutes or weeks to complete, and are driven by the state, local, or national subject area curricula as well as by the formative assessment gained via ongoing student reflection. Elementary students may grapple with the problem of selecting the largest apple to present to the principal following a field trip, secondary students might be seeking alternative energy transportation options for the district or creating a new grammar text using only a small set of short stories and newspaper articles. The exact challenges are as diverse as the teachers who create them and the students for whom they are created. But all share three components:

  1. The students engage
  2. The students exhibit their learning
  3. The students debrief their learning

Download sample challenges below (Word format).

Click here to view the Adirondack Challenges: student-centered, K-12 learning activities designed by classroom teachers to specifically help students learn about and develop appreciation for the human and natural history of the Adirondacks, as well as meet state and national learning standards.

Maximizing Math with Math Triath
Maryland Critical Skills Institute Participant Courtney Leard’s website dedicated to her Critical Skills math challenges.

TitleSubjectGrade Level
A Bilingual Story BooksForeign LanguagesMiddle School
A Letter to the EditorForeign LanguagesMiddle School
Amending the Bill of RightsSocial StudiesMiddle School
Ancient Native AmericansSocial StudiesMiddle School
Animal ExhibitsScienceMiddle School
Barn Restoration ChallengeSocial StudiesElementary
Barns of Today and Long AgoSocial StudiesElementary
Biography of the LandSocial StudiesElementary
Biography of the Land, 5th/6th gradeSocial StudiesMiddle School
Branches of US GovernmentSocial StudiesElementary
Building a School ModelSocial StudiesElementary
Citizens in a Global SocietySocial StudiesHigh School
CoffeehouseEnglishHigh School
Collaborative WritingEnglishMiddle School
Creating a field guide for macroinvertebratesScienceMiddle School
Creating wool baby hatsSocial StudiesElementary
Creative Writing: Fiction FondueEnglishHigh School
Early Explorers of North AmericaSocial StudiesMiddle School
Elizabethan SonnetsEnglishHigh School
Fahrenheit 451EnglishMiddle School
French Verb Tenses – Past tenseForeign LanguagesHigh School
Garden GeometryMathHigh School
Government and Personal LibertiesSocial StudiesHigh School
ImperialismSocial StudiesHigh School
Introduction to Hand ToolsCarpentryHigh School
Introduction to Power ToolsCarpentryHigh School
Local Field TripsSocial StudiesMiddle School
Math Skill BuildingMathMiddle School
Math Skills BasicMathMiddle School
Math Skills MultiplicationMathMiddle School
Mousetrap CarsScienceHigh School
Music as the Universal LanguageMusicHigh School
Music StylesMusicMiddle School
Name That Grammar Skill!EnglishHigh School
Name that Rock!ScienceElementary
Narrative WritingEnglishMiddle School
NH GeographySocial StudiesMiddle School
Of Mice and MenEnglishHigh School
Oral HistorySocial StudiesElementary
PaleontologyScienceMiddle School
Pattern ChallegesMathElementary
PE Muscle ChallengePEHigh School
Peterborough HistorySocial StudiesMiddle School
Pictue Book ModelingEnglishElementary
Planning & Implementing SnackFACSHigh School
Quilt GeometryMathMiddle School
Recycling ChallengeScienceElementary
Safety ProceduresScienceMiddle School
Salmon Brook WatershedScienceMiddle School
Scenario Challenge: 11th grade EnglishEnglishHigh School
Science & CookingScienceElementary
Senior Citizen FitnessPEHigh School
ShakespeareEnglishMiddle School
SlaverySocial StudiesElementary
Solar Power for SchoolsScienceElementary
South American Birthday SurpriseMathMiddle School
Spanish ExplorersForeign LanguagesMiddle School
The Great GatsbyEnglishHigh School
The trial of John BrownSocial StudiesElementary
Tornado ChallengeScienceMiddle School
Vermont Welcome Center Barn ReplicasSocial StudiesElementary
Vive le franVais!Foreign LanguagesHigh School
Vocabulary ChallengeEnglishMiddle School
Weightroom ChallengePEHigh School
Wildlife DocumentaryScienceMiddle School
Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, but how did they get there?Social StudiesMiddle School
WoolSocial StudiesElementary
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