Why it Matters

Thinking and learning can at times seem a mysterious, opaque, and veiled processes locked in a learner’s head.  As a result, we often focus on the tests and work students produce as evidence of learning and thinking.  This may feel somewhat easier and certainly more familiar with our experience of schooling.  However, in doing so we deprive our students of opportunities to grow as learners and thinkers and as a community of learners.  Furthermore, we rob ourselves of the very information needed to enrich and guide our teaching.  Like Vea Vecchi from Reggio Schools so eloquently states, “We feel it is necessary, once again, to deny the assertion that learning, and how we learn, is a process that cannot be seen, that cannot be activated and observed, leaving the school with the sole task of eliciting learning and then verifying it after the fact. What we are interested in is precisely an attempt to see this process and to understand how the construction of doing, thinking, and knowing takes place, as well as what sort of influences or modifications can occur in these processes” (1). Accordingly, we take the idea of making learning and thinking visible as a central goal of the teacher.

As Vea Vechhi names, informing instruction and better understanding learning are certainly two very important goals of making learning and thinking visible.  At the same, time research has shown a host of other benefits as well.  With respect to learners:  visibility helps to shape the type of learner a person becomes, visibility supports the development of expertise and deep learning, and visibility can lead to better learning outcomes.  Where teachers are concerned, visibility is the key to a rich formative assessment practice and visibility helps shape the culture of the classroom.

Shaping the Learner.  How students think about learning and thinking affects the way they approach new learning tasks (2, 3, 4, 5).  “Teachers alerting students to a different type of learning, a learning that is more investigative, participatory, and personal, can affect students’ approaches to learning regardless of their conceptions of learning.” (2).  When we provide the structures and tools that routinely demystify the complexity of thinking , we make meaningful strides towards achieving the larger goal of molding learners who see themselves as thinkers ready to take on new ideas and information.

Helping students better recognize when and how thinking is happening can improve metacognitive abilities, increase awareness of one’s own thinking, and foster positive attitudes towards learning.  “When students are aware of their thinking, the more they are better able to control it” (6) .  Research suggests that increased abilities, awareness and attitudes towards thinking help individuals better control their thinking and promote healthy dispositions that are valued and necessary for thinking (7, 8). Linked to this is the possibility that metacognitive ability plays a role in improved learning, enabling us to focus more efficiently on what we still need to learn (9). When students think about their thinking they achieve at higher levels (10).  

Development of Expertise and Deep Learning.  Expertise in any field is not merely acquiring the knowledge base of that field but of mastering the way people in that field think through problems, make decisions, and create new knowledge. Learning to think like and expert is a central part of developing disciplinary understanding and deep learning (Gardner and Boix).  We learn this through a cognitive apprenticeship in which experts make their thinking visible.  It is “the interplay among observation, scaffolding, and increasingly independent practice [that] aids apprentices both in developing self-monitoring and correction skills and in integrating the skills and conceptual knowledge needed to advance toward expertise” (11).    Reciprocal teaching is a well-researched reading intervention that uses the cognitive apprenticeship model to develop students as effective readers (12). In reciprocal teaching, the teacher models expert strategies in a shared problem context of knowing that students will soon undertake the same task. Reciprocal teaching is extremely effective. In a pilot study with individual students who were poor readers, the method raised their reading comprehension test scores from 15 percent to 85 percent accuracy after about twenty training sessions (11).  Similar results in other studies have been attained in subsequent studies. (13, 14, 15, 16). These are very dramatic effects for any instructional intervention.

Better learning outcomes.  Data from individual teachers and schools who have embraced making thinking visible as both a goal and a practice and nurtured it at their schools or classrooms through sustained professional learning, have seen substantial gains for students on standardized tests such as Smarter Balanced Assessment and PARCC in the United States, the VCE and HSC in Australia, and IB Diploma worldwide in addition to other state tests (17).  In an experimental study conducted with university students attending a business studies course in Chile, students (N=152) who were taught using thinking routines achieved a final exam grade that was on average 1.3 points higher (on a 1–7 scale) than their peers (N=731) taught using traditional methods identified in two separate control groups (18).

Formative assessment practice.  To understand how our students are making sense of ideas and building understanding, we have to make their thinking visible. True formative assessment is the ongoing and embedded effort to understand our students’ learning. It is a two-way street actively involving students and teachers in dialog about learning. Formative assessment lives in our listening, observing, examining, analyzing, and reflecting on the process of learning. Part of the process of thinking then is not only doing the thinking, but also sharing that thinking with others.  This is why sharing and documentation is such a necessary part of making learning thinking visible. It makes the process of thinking more apparent to both teachers and learners.  Teachers better understand how their students are thinking, while students gain awareness of their own thinking and those of their peers. In this way, we transform formative assessment to an ongoing practice, rather than a task (17).

Shaping the culture.  Making learning and thinking visible helps transform learning into a collective enterprise where both students and teachers reflect on their thinking and work towards advancing future teaching and learning (17). Classroom research has shown that back and forth communication around thinking and learning “leads to greater student engagement, deeper understanding, and increased retention. Also, talking about their work helps students to develop critical learning skills that prepare them for future challenges and opportunities” (19). When school is less about having the correct right answer in advance and more about collective meaning making and group understanding students take on a collaborative spirit in which everyone’s learning is lifted (12).

What It Looks and Sounds Like 

Of course, there is no one way that making thinking and learning visible will look and sound. There is ample room for individuals to add their own creativity and stamp on things. The list below is a sampling of ideas that might be useful to advance your practice.

• Make use of the 4 Practices for Making Thinking Visible.

• Plan for thinking. Match your choice of thinking routines to the type of thinking that students need to do in order to make sense of and build understanding of the content with which they are working (see Exhibit 1)

• Use thinking routines to structure students’ discussion and exploration to allow them to reach higher levels of engagement and understanding.

• Make use of student responses to thinking routines as ongoing, integrated, and formative information to feed back into lesson planning.

• Display not only the products of thinking but also the process of thinking. That means that what is on your wall is not merely a static display of past learning but a dynamic display of ongoing learning (see Exhibit 2 on “Documentation vs Display”).

• Document the learning and thinking of students both individually & collectively by seeking out and capturing information, data, and evidence of student learning and thinking (see Exhibit 3 on “Where to Look for Learning”).

• Engage students in reflection and analysis of documentation and artifacts of learning.

• Reflect on documentation individually and with colleagues better understand students’ collective learning journey and to inform future instruction (see Exhibit 4).

• Share documentation that includes your reflections publicly with the school community. Move from being monitors of the work to become an active looker and listener for learning.

• Ask “facilitative questions” such as “What makes you say that?” that press students and invite students to elaborate, give evidence, justify, and explain their thinking.

• Ask “constructive questions” that help students to build understanding. Use the Understanding Map as a basis for generating.

• Ask and teach students to ask themselves “metacognitive questions” that encourage self planning, monitoring, and evaluation of learning.

• Get curious about your students and their learning. Real listening emerges when we take a vigorous interest in the other.

• Practice the five different types of listening.

• Prime yourself to listen for and spot thinking occasions for the types of thinking you are trying to promote. If you want to promote “reasoning with evidence,” look for where, when, and how you see that emerging in your classroom. Notice, name, and support it.

• Plan for listening. Where and when will you listen? What are you listening for and trying to understand through your listening? Remember, listening for correctness isn’t really listening but evaluation.

Reflecting on Your Teaching

Reflect on you are making learning and thinking visible in your classroom:

• At the end of a lesson or day of instruction, what insights have I gained into my students as learners and thinkers?

• What are the “go to” routines for learning and thinking in my class? Why these routines? What do I learn from them? What do my students learn?

• Where, when, and how am I planning for students to look closely, make connections,and uncover complexity (or other thinking moves) while engaging with ideas and one another?

• How do I recognize thinking as it unfolds in real time in front of me? What do I prime myself to look for and notice? How do I avoid focusing solely on correctness?

• How do I interact with my students around the thinking they are making visible, in this moment and beyond this moment? Do I press for thinking in a way that communicates the value and importance i place on thinking and my expectations for them as learners?

• What is my stance toward thinking? Is it central to my teaching or just an occasional happening? How am I positioning myself to make thinking more routine in my classroom? (See Exhibit 5 for more on Planning, Priming, Pressing, and Positioning)

• When using thinking routines, how do I frame our use of them? Do I position them as tools and a series of moves that I want students to grow into and develop expertise around or are they just activities?

• Where and when am I making my own thinking visible?

• What do I document as a teacher? What do I wish I were doing a better job of capturing in terms of students and learning? How might I begin to do just a bit more in this area?

• Where, when, and how might I engage students in self-documentation?

Using Quick Data to Inform Your Efforts

There is no one way a thinking classroom has to look and feel.  Every classroom is unique to some extent, depending on the students, the teacher, and the subject matter taught.  However, there are some commonalities.  In thinking classrooms, teachers make sure that thinking is visible.  Thinking is regularly modeled, discussed, shared, displayed, challenged, and made evident so that students are immersed in thinking.  The acronym MYST, can be useful for looking at how thinking is made visible in classrooms.  MYST stands for Me, You, Space, Time. 

Connection to the 8 Cultural Forces

Routines. Thinking routines are key tools for making students thinking visible. With use and over time, it is the thinking that becomes routine. Once students have internalized the frequent use of thinking routines, they’re more likely to employ them at their own will rather than waiting around for directions or external prompting

Interactions. We interact with our students through our questioning and listening, two key ways we make thinking visible. When we take a vigorous interest in our students’ thinking and actively engaged in trying to make better sense of what the students are understanding, we are more present as teachers and human beings. Generative, constructive, and facilititative questions promote student thinking. The regular use of these kinds of questions help pull the curtain back on significant thinking moments and illuminate the very processes with which students can be empowered.

Modeling. Thinking is often an invisible and mysterious process locked inside the individual’s head. When we model our thinking, we make it visible and demystify it. To develop expertise, learners need to be exposed to the thinking processes of more expert learners and problem solvers in the field. Continually drawing attention to the thinking at play in any learning or problem solving endeavor gives students models in which they can engage and recreate for their own learning pursuits.

Time. We cannot make thinking visible unless we provide time for thinking to happen. When time is spent demystifying thinking and illuminating moments where thinking is critical, students become sensitive to occasions for thinking and are in a better position to notice these occasions.  

Environment. Students’ thinking becomes visible in the documentation we collect and exhibit in the classroom. Documentation is not merely a display of learning but an effort to capture the dynamic, emerging, and progression of the class’s collective sense making and exploration around a topic. It tends to be more communal in nature than individualized work products.

Expectations. Once making students’ thinking becomes a priority for teachers, they begin to communicate the expectations they have for students to bring curiosity, perspective seeking, uncovering complexity, etc. to their learning routinely.  Students begin to realize that meaningful learning is dependent on when and where they make their thinking visible more than simply getting through assignments.

Opportunities. We need to provide students with opportunities to make their thinking visible, explain their thinking, share, and discuss their thinking as opposed to just having opportunities to demonstrate correctness. This relates to our planning. We also need to be primed to look for, spot, and capitalize on opportunities that may arise for listening, documentation, and thinking.

Language. Through our language we notice and name the thinking our students are demonstrating. Thus, we draw attention to it and make it visible. In doing so, the thinking becomes an object that we might inspect, review, discuss, and explore in order to better understand it.

Mindset #10: Making Thinking and Learning Visible