MAKING THINKING VISIBLE

Chapter 1: Unpacking Thinking

In this chapter, Ron Ritchhart explores mental activity of ourselves and our students and how we as teachers can make thinking visible in our classrooms.  He touches on Bloom's Taxonomy, which classifies educational objectives into three domains: affective, cognitive, and psychomotor.  Bloom also identified a sequence of six learning ojbectives that moved from lower-order to higher-order thinking: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis synthesis and evaluation.  According to Bloom, each category precedes the next.  However, Ritchhart argues that this is not the case because thinking is much more complex than this and that
 these skills are more fluid and interchangeable. 

Ritchhart also unpacks Bloom's framing of "understanding."  Ritchhart points to the distinction that researchers have made between surface learning, which focuses on rote memorization of facts, and deep learning, which develops understanding through active and constructive processes.  The main point here is that thinking is not a sequential process but rather a complex and dynamic procedure.

Ritchhart provides a researcher J.B. Biggs who stated that, "To be properly metacognitive, then, students have to realistically aware of their own cognitive resources in relation to the task demands, and then to plan, monitor, and control those resources (15).   Basically, students need to be strategically aware of their own thinking in order to be getting the most effective type of thinking done.  As teachers, we want students to become more independent thinkers.

Questions:

1.   How do we help students become more aware of their own thinking?
2.  How do we create a classroom where everyone can become a more engaged and independent thinker?
3.  What do you think about thinking?

Chapter 2: Putting Thinking at the Center of the Educational Enterprise

The next chapter continues with the importance of creating opportunities for thinking and making our students' thinking visible.  A line that really stuck oiut for me here was that we should continually expose our students thinking by "pushing it forward through discrepant and unexpected events."  I think this is a really important way of trying to create memorable lessons and trying to avoid the same kind of teaching methods in our classrooms.   Although these kinds of unexpected events might not always be possible because of other restrictions and demands within the school setting, I think it is incredibly valuable to teach students by creating unexpected lesson plans.

Another point of emphasis in this chapter was that we need to be models as teachers for our students to learn from.  Ritchhart states that "the students in our charge need to see an image of us as thinkers and learners that they can imitate and learn from." (29)  Students need to see how we challenge ourselves in our thinking so that they can advance their understandings as well.

Ritchhart lists 6 ways that we can making thinking visible for students.  First, he points to asking good, open-ended questions that push towards deeper understanding.  Along these same lines we should also ask authentic questions of our students that show that we are simultaneously involved in the act of thinking and questioning in the classroom.  In this way, we model an interest in ideas for our students.  We show that we too are interested in learning from their questions and observations.  He also points to constructing understanding by asking guiding and direct questions to leader students toward understanding of important ideas.  This is a matter of asking well-worded questions and following up by building upon students' previous knowledge and answers.  The next step in this is facilitating and clarifying thinking.  The author explains how the question "What makes you say that?" is powerful in advancing thinking and conveys, in a simple way, how we are genuinely interested about our students' thinking.  Another simple way of making thinking visible is by listening attentively for our students' answers and showing respect for each learner's contributions by really responding to what they have provided to the class.  Finally, another tool is the use of documentation which helps students and teachers observe the learning process through things like whiteboards, photographs, notes, blogs, drawings, etc.

Questions:

1.  How do we create "discrepant and unexpected events" while at the same time fulfilling state standards and other requirements like preparing for testing?
2.   Are there other ways to make thinking visible besides the ones that were pointed out in the chapter?

Chapter 3: Introduction to Thinking Routines

The next chapter introduces the idea of thinking routines which are helpful ways of managing and facilitating classroom goals successfully.  These routines work as tools, structures, and patterns of behavior.  These routines help both students and teaches in the classroom.  Routines can be things like bellringers at the beginning of class (a question on the board to get students thinking for the first five minutes of class) or a way in which quizzes get handed in at the end of class.  Ritchhart states that "all instruction takes place within a context, and routines contribute to the establishment of that context through the creation of socially shared, scripted clices of behavior."  (48)  Classrooms should be a a microcosm of a civilized society and societies need certain ways of getting things accomplished.  This doesn't mean that the classroom should just turn into a series of mundane patterns of behavior but routines help organize the class into an engaging, organized structure.

Questions:

1.   What kind of thinking routines do you envision for your classroom?
2.  Were there any routines from school that were more annoying than useful?