Integrating Thinking Routines to Promote Cognitive Rigor

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash

 Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."    - Margaret Mead

 Design For Cognition

Routines are prevalent in the classroom and for good reason. They set up an environment that is predictable and safe for students. Management routines maintain order. Instructional routines are how things are done in learning.

To take it a step further, Ron Ritchard and the Visible Thinking crew from Harvard have spent years researching classroom thinking routines and have documented their use in both Making Thinking Visible and The Power of Making Thinking Visible. Both books have extensive examples of how teachers use Thinking Routines. The Project Zero Website has over 90 routines to implement into your class. To use Thinking Routines effectively, consider choosing one to integrate with what you are already doing and use it consistently.

So, I offer a short introduction to Thinking Routines to consider integrating them into your curriculum.

WHAT?

“Thinking Routines loosely guide learners' thought processes. They are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students' thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life. Thinking routines exist in all classrooms.”

They are flexible, simple structures that help students make the complex accessible and sustain curiosity.

WHY?

Thinking Routines are intended to teach thinking skills and help students get in the habit of:

• Being close observers

• Organizing ideas

• Reasoning carefully

• Reflecting how students are making sense of things for themselves

Students do this by:

• Asking deep questions

• Making connections

• Coming up with explanations

• Challenging those explanations

• Seeing other perspectives

HOW?

Introduce one thinking routine with scaffolding. Allow students to get used to it in multiple contexts. You may even incorporate one as a team. There are over 90 thinking routines presented on Project Zero’s site. The options below are some of the core routines.

Name and Link	Purpose	Scaffold	When to Use
See-Think -Wonder	This routine encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations.	Ask why they think and wonder as they do	Beginning of a unit to connect to topic or to apply prior knowledge and ideas
What Makes You Say that?	This routine helps students describe what they see or know and asks them to build explanations.	Ask follow-up questions to clarify interpretation	To explore a topic in full or small group discussion or in an individual response to a reading
Claim-Support-Question	This routine encourages the process of reasoning by asking students to form an interpretation of something and support it with evidence.	Model routine. Ask follow-up questions to clarify ideas. Allow for dissenting ideas.	Any topics that invite explanations or are open to interpretation. Great for argument building.
I Used to Think…Now I Think	This routine helps students to reflect on their thinking about a topic or issue and explore how and why that thinking has changed.	Explore the changes to understand how that change has happened	This is used after new information is explored, typically after a reading or end of a unit.
Step in - Step Out - Step Back	The routine helps learners to identify individuals with various perspectives in a given situation	Provide enough information about other perspectives. A safe environment is necessary if used as a full class.	This more complicated routine should be used when the goal is examining social perspectives whether in a news article or a historical event or another perspective

Online Tools for Thinking Routines: This handy guide suggests tools that would aid the use of Thinking Routines remotely.

Tips

1.    Choose a routine based on the kind of thinking that you want students to do rather than how it affects your lesson plan. For example, if you are trying to have students see multiple perspectives, choose a routine that addresses that.

2.    Choose one routine and develop it with your students rather than trying several routines. As students use a routine more often, less scaffolding by the teacher is needed. The key is consistency.

3.    Explicitly teach and debrief the routine. Talk with students about the purpose of the routine and debrief to allow students to share what worked and what didn’t.

4.    These routines can be verbal, written or used with technology. They can be informal or formalized as well. You could use these routines with collaborative Google Docs or as a class discussion prompting.

Start Small

Imagine that you are simply add a What Makes You Say That? question following a question about What should we do about global warming? Without the follow-up, a student may repeat what they were told or read, but a simple call for evidence can reveal the student’s thinking and allow you to see if there is thinking involved or simple memorization. Consistently asking students to explain their thinking deepens their own process of thinking.

Dig Deeper

If this is a topic that intrigues you, please check out Project Zero. Reach out to me to talk more about it. I think it’s a game-changer. Let me know if you are trying something.

Evidence and Resources

"Making Thinking Visible" Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins. "Making Thinking Visible," Educational Leadership 65, no. 5 (February 2008): 57-61

Video: Why Thinking Matters in School: Ron Ritchhart