Visible Thinking Routines

Visible Thinking includes a number of ways of making students' thinking visible to themselves, to their peers, and to the teacher, so they get more engaged by it and come to manage it better for learning and other purposes.

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Some thinking routines:

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Circle of view points

A routine for exploring diverse perspectives.

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321 Bridge

Thinking routine for activating prior knowledge and making connections.

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See, Think, Wonder

A routine for exploring works of art and other interesting things.

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I used to think… but now I think…

A routine for reflecting on how and why our thinking has changed.

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Does it fit?

A routine for thinking creatively about options.

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Colour Symbol Image

A routine to identify and distil the essence of ideas from reading, watching or listening in non-verbal ways by using a colour, symbol, or image to represent the ideas.

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When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more metacognitive, to think about their thinking. When thinking is visible, it becomes clear that school is not about memorizing content but exploring ideas. Teachers benefit when they can see students' thinking because misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding are more likely to be uncovered. Teachers can then address these challenges and extend students' thinking by starting from where they are.

 

For more on Visible Thinking routines, visit http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org