Making Thinking Visible

Everyone in the @WaukeshaSchools is using the phrase this year, "Making Thinking Visible."
Walk-through forms focus on ways our students are making their thinking visible.
What does this all mean?

I just read the book, Making Thinking Visible, by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison. With a copyright of 2011, they talk about how to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. Well who wouldn't strive for that, right? The mission addressed by this book is not only learning to think but thinking to learn. The broad goal to focus teachers' attention on the issue of developing a culture of thinking and having confidence in every learner's ability to think. We need to nurture that thinking. Making students' thinking visible becomes an ongoing component of effective teaching.

When we tell someone we are thinking, what is it we are actually doing? Questioning is a natural part of what we do as teachers. The most powerful question often asked in the most fully integrated classrooms of teachers who make thinking visible is, "What makes you say that?" Teachers remark that the wording of this question seems to strike just the right tone with people and invites them to elaborate on and clarify their ideas in a nonthreatening way. This simple yet powerful question is a perfect example of the kind of question that can facilitate and clarify the learner's own thinking.

Do you have a culture of thinking in your classroom? Is it a place where a group's collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted? Have you set up the expectation that thinking must be present on a daily basis? What does the room arrangement tell you about how students are expected to interact? What is up on the walls, and who put it there? If your room doesn't have anything on the walls, what does this communicate? When school is no longer about the quick answer but focuses on the expression of one's ideas, questions, and observations, then a new playing field is created for all students.

There are many factors that play into shaping the learning culture. Thinking expectations, routines, interactions, modeling, and the environment play a critical role in making thinking visible.
So again, I ask you, do you have a culture of thinking in your classroom?