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WAB Faculty & Staff

Creating Cultures of Thinking: Visible Thinking Routines

Resources for "Creating Cultures of Thinking: The Eight Forces We Must Master To Truly Transform Our Schools" by Ron Ritchhart of Project Zero at HGSE. [Guide by Stephen Taylor for Western Academy Beijing]

Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. To learn more about PZ Thinking Routines and their background, watch this video introduction and read more about PZ's initial Visible Thinking research.

ROUTINES: Supporting and Scaffolding Learning and Thinking

To learn more about PZ Thinking Routines and their background, watch this video introduction and read more about PZ's initial Visible Thinking research.

A sequence of actions designed to achieve a specific outcome in an efficient and productive manner.

As a culture shaper, routines represent a set of shared practices that constitute a group’s way of doing things. They are the classroom infrastructure, guiding much of the activity that happens there.

Routines—whether they are for management, participation, discourse, instruction, learning, or thinking—help to minimize confusion, reduce uncertainty, and direct activity along known paths. Ultimately, routines become patterns of behavior for both individuals and the group.

Of particular importance in learning groups, is the presence of thinking and learning routines that help to direct, guide, and scaffold learning and thinking.   [Source: Project Zero]

More videos: Click Here

Thinking Routines Toolkit

An excellent resource, created by PZ's Rachel Mainero. Click here to find out more about the map. When it launches, you can select thinking routines connected to the ways in which we can make meaning and understand concepts. 

Making Thinking Visible: Thinking Routines

This collection of routines has been classified by the target "thinking moves" for students. Routines link back to source. Adapted from Ron Ritchhart's Thinking Routines Matrix (source).