Teaching and technology are a potent mix in the classroom of Lynne Coté, a high school biology teacher. Coté likes to describe herself as "wired"-both energized in her teaching, and teaching in a classroom equipped with 37 laptop computers. One key to her excitement-and to an effective use of this technology with the science curriculum-is the suite of thinking tools from Intel® Innovation in Education. The online suite includes Visual Ranking Tool, Seeing Reason Tool and the newest, Showing Evidence Tool. "These tools are so powerful. They align perfectly with the way teachers should be doing things-developing projects that are student-centered and involve higher-order thinking," says Coté, a Senior Trainer for Intel® Teach to the Future, who teaches in Tucson, Arizona.

Coté uses the Visual Ranking Tool to ensure that her students understand the relative importance of elements in biological systems. This tool enables students to organize items into hierarchical relationships and demonstrate rationales for the rank orders they create. For example, when Coté's class studied biomes-life communities occurring in different ecological environments-she assigned student teams to create lists of items required for organisms to survive within different biomes. The students then ordered the lists from most-to-least important, justifying each choice. Later, the teams compared and discussed their lists.

Coté uses the Seeing Reason Tool in a similar manner-to ensure that her students understand how different elements in a biological system influence each other. Seeing Reason allows students to create maps showing causal relationships in a system. Students can show multiple relationships between components of the map, illustrating the relative importance that different causal factors carry in an outcome. Coté uses this tool, for example, in teaching relationships between photosynthesis and cellular respiration, cellular respiration and energy, and muscles and exercise.

Showing Evidence-A Powerful Thinking Tool
Intel's latest tool, Showing Evidence, is Coté's favorite, and that of her students. This tool enables students to construct well-reasoned arguments, defended with credible evidence.

Last year, teams of Coté's students chose to study one of eight controversial biotechnology topics: reproductive technology, privacy and confidentiality, cloning, patenting genes, genetically engineered plants and animals, gene therapy, DNA forensics, and genetic testing for inherited diseases. Each team researched a topic, and constructed arguments supported with evidence.

The Showing Evidence Tool helped the students "see" concretely whether they had supported their claims. They shared their conclusions with other teams, thus exposing the whole class to all topics. Later, based on their research, they drafted congressional bills relevant to biotechnology.

During this project, students were so engaged that they used Showing Evidence from home, and were still talking about the project six months later. Several students, who had strong opinions, changed their position based on compelling evidence they uncovered themselves-a first in Coté's 17 years of teaching. Next year, Coté plans to use the tool to teach a section on evolution.

Coté, who teaches the Intel Teach to the Future Workshop on Teaching Thinking with Technology, hopes teachers in all disciplines will see possibilities for using the thinking tools in their classrooms. English teachers can teach students how to organize and write entire papers using Showing Evidence, she suggests. Social studies and government teachers can use Visual Ranking as a means for discussing elections and the relative importance of different issues to different candidates. "All of the tools are wonderful, and every teacher could use them," says Coté.

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