Changing & Learning

"... even when we create opportunities for thinking, we must realize that students' thinking may well be invisible to us.  To make sure thinking isn't left to chance and to provide us with the information we need in order to respond to students' learning needs, we must also make their thinking visible."

Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison.  Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011. Print. p. 27

"Not only is others' thinking mostly invisible, so are many circumstances that invite thinking. We would like youngsters, and indeed adults, to become alert and thoughtful when they hear an unlikely rumor, face a tricky problem of planning their time, have a dispute with a friend, or encounter a politician's sweeping statement on television. However, research by our group and others shows that people are often simply oblivious to situations that invite thinking. For a number of years, we have been building what is called a dispositional view of good thinking that pays as much attention to people's alertness and attitudes as it does to thinking skills as such. We ask not only how well do people think once they get going but how disposed are they in the first place to pay attention to the other side of the case, question the evidence, look beyond obvious possibilities, and so on. Our findings argue that everyday thinking may suffer more from just plain missing the opportunities than from poor skills (Perkins, Tishman, Ritchhart, Donis, & Andrade, 2000; Perkins & Tishman, 2001).

 "When we talk about making thinking visible, we are generally referring to those specific thinking strategies and processes students use to build deeper understanding. These are the processes that need to live at the center of classroom activity, directing the work of both teachers and students. As we make our thinking -- our own as well as that of our students -- visible, we draw attention to the mechanisms by which individuals construct their understanding. To the extent that students can develop a greater awareness of thinking processes, they become more independent learners capable of directing and managing their own cognitive actions." (MTV 22)

Key Focus: THINKING ROUTINES

Q4: What are thinking routines?

A4: Thinking routines are simple procedures that incorporate one or more thinking moves.  Thinking routines usually consist of only a few steps.  They "provide a framework for focusing attention on specific thinking moves that can help to build understanding." (MTV 45)  Thinking Routines have been validated by research to promote engagement, understanding, and independence in those who use them. They enliven class discussions, help students think better and provide an easy to learn activity for instructors. 

 

                      <OPEN AND VIEW A PORTION OF THIS VIDEO>  time frame 39:30-44:34

 

                       

 Perkins, David N. "40 Years of Teaching Thinking." YouTube. YouTube, 27 Sept 2011. Web. 13 Oct 2013.

"The routines exist both as public practices that can be useful in groups at school and as private practices to be used by individuals.  Indeed, this is the true power of the routines in developing students as thinkers and learners."  (MTV 46)   We can look at thinking routines in three ways:

 

1.  "Each routine is a TOOL for promoting one or more kinds of thinking about the discipline. Instructors can use them as class activities and students can use them publicly and privately to support their own thinking." (MTV 45- 46) Notice that the See-Think-Wonder routine, used in the Module 2 F2F session, incorporates several thinking moves.

                                          <OPEN AND READ> Thinking Moves in STW

2.  "The steps of a routine are crafted to support and STRUCTURE students' thinking.  The steps taken in sequence serve as scaffolds for facilitating clear thinking. ... Therefore, in using the routines, the goal is never simply to fill out or complete one step and move on to the next but to use the thinking occurring at each step in the subsequent steps. ... For instance, in See-Think-Wonder, the close observations of the "See" stage provide the foundation for well-grounded interpretations at the 'Think' stage."  (MTV 47) 

                                                                                

                                                                               3.  As the routines become established PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR they build a classroom and campus culture     in which students learn how to learn and thinking is

made visible.

 

Key Focus:  CHOOSING A ROUTINE

Q5:  How do I choose a thinking routine?

A5:  Ritchhardt and colleagues found that routines, while used individually, take on more power when used to support students' ongoing learning across a unit, that is, to build an arc of learning rather than to craft a single episode.  A thinking Routine Matrix, found on pages 51- 52 of Making Thinking Visible, is organized into three categories for use across a unit of instruction:  

 

                                       1.  Routines for Introducing and Exploring Ideas

                                       2.  Routines for Synthesizing and Organizing Ideas

                                       3.  Routines for Digging Deeper into Ideas

This matrix provides the key thinking moves and a brief explanation of each routine.  That may be a good place to begin. Or you may want to consider using a systematic approach to thinking through your choices.

  

                                           <OPEN AND READ> Choosing a Thinking Routine

 

 Key Focus: USING A THINKING ROUTINE