Building a Culture of Thinking with Visible Thinking Routines

Stepping into a recent professional development session, I eagerly anticipated diving deep into the world of Active Learning. My plan was to emerge armed with a comprehensive understanding of this multifaceted approach. However, as the session unfolded, a pre-evaluation of our knowledge revealed a fascinating truth: teachers yearned for specific guidance on one crucial aspect — Visible Thinking Routines. This revelation sparked a shift in my focus, leading me to craft a short-term plan with a singular mission: cultivate a culture of thinking within our classrooms.

In the dawning age of AI, where automation consumes routine tasks, educators face an urgent task. We must cultivate the uniquely human skills — creativity, empathy, and critical thinking — that can't be replicated by machines. Fostering a culture of thought is how we'll do it.

Culture of Thinking. A Culture of Thinking is a learning environment where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted. In these spaces, students feel empowered to explore ideas, take intellectual risks, and learn through collaborative reflection. Harvard's Project Zero defines Cultures of Thinking as places where a group's collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all group members. According to Project Zero, a Culture of Thinking is shaped by eight cultural forces: language, time, environment, opportunities, routines, modeling, interactions, and expectations. Teachers can create one by making time for thinking, developing a shared language of thinking, filling the environment with documents of thinking processes, and making their own thinking visible.

Creating a Culture of Thinking is a flexible, research-based conceptual framework that can be integrated in a variety of contexts. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a framework that can be adapted to meet the needs of different learners and learning environments.

Visible Thinking Routines. The Visible Thinking framework uses specific cognitive routines — Thinking Routines — a kind of organizational structure to guide students' mental processes and encourage active content processing. The aim is to make cognitive processes visible and to support a culture of exploration and the construction of critical thinking in school. Rather than simply listing facts, Thinking Routines encourage students to actively engage with a topic, to think with and beyond the facts they know, and to connect new knowledge to previous knowledge. Going beyond the lecture-based model, learning occurs as a result of our thinking and active sense-making. When we make thinking visible through TRs, we get not only a window into what students understand, but also how they are understanding it.

Essential Tips for Implementing Visible Thinking Routines. Start by selecting routines that align with your learning objectives and students' needs. Introduce routines gradually, allowing time for students to become familiar and for the routines to embed in classroom culture. Provide clear instructions and model the routines — demonstrate how to engage effectively and encourage reflection on the thinking process. Incorporate VTRs into regular activities and assessments so practice is consistent and their importance is reinforced.

Conclusion. By integrating Visible Thinking Routines, we transform our classrooms into spaces where thinking becomes the central activity. Through VTRs, we can cultivate critical thinking, inquiry, and self-reflection — the skills our students need to thrive in an ever-evolving world. Stay tuned for more resources on implementing Visible Thinking Routines effectively. Let's join together in creating cultures of thinking and empowering our students for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.