Cultures of Thinking Fellows
Bringing together teachers to engage in deep and reflective inquiry into their practice with the support of colleagues
About the Cultures of Thinking Fellows Program
The Cultures of Thinking Fellows Program brings together approximately 20-30 teachers from across the region each school year to explore the development of cultures of thinking in their schools and classrooms. Fellows attend as a cohort along with their school principal (or other instructional leader) in teams of 3-7. We do allow some people (such as digital coaches) to attend without an instructional leader.
Over the course of the school year, CoT Fellows dive deeply into the pedagogical framework and instructional strategies of Cultures of Thinking and Visible Thinking, experimenting in their classrooms and reflecting within the learning cohort. The CoT Fellows act as a support group to both support and push one another’s understanding of what it means to create a culture of thinking at their school. CoT Fellows engage in an ongoing inquiry to develop the ideas in their own classrooms by designing interventions, collecting data and documention, reflecting, and iterating. CoT Fellows showcase their inquiry work and leadership through digital pictures of practice and at a culminating event in the April. The CoT Fellowship is not a “training” but an opportunity to innovate and grow within a supportive cohort.
This year-long experience includes:
36 hours of in-person, professional learning led Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church. Sessions occur within the school day. Location is rotated across participating schools.
30+ hours of independent research and inquiry work, documentation, and reflection.
Engage in informal sharing, dissemination, and teacher leadership at one’s school.
Share one’s learning through a public culmination event and a digital picture of inquiry (see examples below).
Sub stipend for teachers at Title 1 schools (to cover the school’s cost of the teacher participating in six, day-long, professional learning events).
Support materials, books, and food at all meetings will be provided.
Typical Structure of a CoT Fellows Meetings:
Snapshot observations conducted at the host school (Hosting is rotated among local sites).
Sharing and analysis of data and documentation from teacher’s inquiry conducted thus far to provide a foundation for next actions
Discussion of pre-assigned readings
Opportunities to learn new thinking routines
Planning time for teachers to design prototype actions that can be carried out, documented, and seed future planning
Proposed dates. We have found that meetings on Mondays or Fridays work well and will look for dates in Sept, Oct, Nov, Jan, Feb, and April. Timing is typically 9-3:30 in Santa Fe and 8-2:30 when held in Durango, Colorado. In 2022-23 we hope to hold one session in Durango on a Monday. We will carpool up and the project will cover accommodation and meals. Our culminating event is held in April with a Friday night/evening dinner session with Fellows and Saturday morning community event.
Reflections from 2021-2022 Cultures of Thinking Fellows
Supported through the generosity of the Melville Hankins Family Foundation
“Ultimately, this time with CoT Fellows has led to a teaching revolution. Now there is a new openness along with more possibilities”
“When I sat down to reflect on my goals, actions, and growth, I began to realize the true impact this fellowship had on not only me, but on my students. During the fellowship, I worked on my language across all grades to be more inclusive and open - allowing us to create a strong community and provide a space for all voices to be heard. We also bolstered our habits of mature discussion, collaboration skills, and feedback routines - a set of skills that my students used flawlessly and regularly right up until the last day of school. That’s how much they had grown.”
“On a daily basis, the fellowship has offered me like-minded teachers to both support and inspire me in improving my own practice. ”
“The fellowship has opened my eyes to the importance of how we support students in building understanding through thinking so that they can successfully access the grade-level content. I have seen huge growth in engagement with my ELD population. Giving them an entry point to the thinking has given students confidence that they can get started on a problem. Through my work with the fellows I explored, tested, and reflected on ways to provide tools for students to engage in complex tasks that require thinking.”
“The opportunities provided by the CoT Fellows program to contemplate, collaborate and celebrate teacher and student thinking have been joyful. We get to do what we encourage our students to do! We get to model and participate and be invigorated, and inspired before their very eyes. CoT enlivens my teaching. ”
“ My exploration of the effects of altering the physical classroom space, which I did as a part of this Fellowship, resulted in more intense and productive interactions between students. This combination of consciously attending to the physical setting, intentionality of learning, and visibility of thought has unambiguously resulted in more student agency, independence, and excitement. I’ve seen more curiosity about the content, more enthusiasm between students about thinking hard, and more willingness to venture into complex, multi-faceted topics that do not have a simple outcome.”
