Making Thinking Visible Using Technology

According to the folks at Project Zero (PZ), “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.” The process to do this involves the teacher and students making use of what the researchers at PZ have termed Thinking Routines. The goals for these thinking routines are to help students build their thinking skills and tendencies, as well as to take content learning to deeper levels. According to the researchers at PZ, this means that students will develop “curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, as well as a creative mindset” they will “not just become skilled but also alert to thinking and learning opportunities and will develop an eagerness to take them.” To learn more about the thinking routines please watch the video below. More information regarding these routines can also be found at the following website.

What is at the core of Visible Thinking are the Thinking Routines. These routines, according to the researchers at PZ, “are practices that help make thinking visible: Thinking Routines loosely guide learners’ thought processes and encourage active processing. They are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students’ thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life.” The strategies available on the Thinking Visible Website are amazing and are far too many for me to discuss here. For the purpose of this post, I will focus on a few of what is termed the Core Routines. The Core Routines can be seen in this screenshot taken from the Thinking Visible Website. Click on the image below to go to the website.

You can download these routines as a PDF from the website as well and I highly recommend that you do.

What I would like to focus on in this post is how technology can be used to support Thinking Routines and Making Thinking Visible. I want to clarify that while many of these routines do not require the use of technology, I believe that the use of technology, especially the ones I will be discussing in this post, have the ability to increase the power of these routines in two distinct ways. First, by extending the possible audience of the visible thinking being done by the students as a part of their learning process and second, by increasing the engagement of the student in the process. Below, I will introduce some Thinking Routines, briefly explain them, and give some examples of how they can be used. I will then discuss specific technology tools and how they can be used as an authentic part of the Thinking Routines.

Thinking Routines

The first thinking routine I would like to discuss is called Think Puzzle Explore. This routine is used, according to the researchers at PZ, mainly “to help students connect to prior knowledge, to stimulate curiosity and to lay the groundwork for independent inquiry.” It can be used “when you are beginning a topic and when you want students to develop their own questions of investigation.” This routine asks the student to answer three questions:

1. What do you think you know about this topic?
   
   
2. What questions or puzzles do you have?
   
   
3. How can you explore this topic?

Another Thinking Routine that can be explored is called Circle of Viewpoints. This routine according to the researchers at PZ, “helps students consider different and diverse perspectives involved in and around a topic. Understanding that people may think and feel differently about things is a key aspect of the Fairness Ideal.” This Routine has the student go through these specific steps (Taken from the Thinking Routine Website).

Brainstorm a list of different perspectives and then use this script skeleton to explore each one:

1. I am thinking of … the topic… From the point of view of … the viewpoint you’ve chosen
   
   
2. I think … describe the topic from your viewpoint. Be an actor – take on the character of your viewpoint
   
   
3. A question I have from this viewpoint is … ask a question from this viewpoint

Wrap up: What new ideas do you have about the topic that you didn’t have before? What new questions do you have?

The last Thinking Routine I will include in this post is titled I Used to Think…, But Now I think… This routine, according to the researchers at PZ, is used to help “students to reflect on their thinking about a topic or issue and explore how and why that thinking has changed. It can be useful in consolidating new learning as students identify their new understandings, opinions, and beliefs.” It asks students to to do the following (Taken from the Thinking Visible Website).

Remind students of the topic you want them to consider. It
could be the ideal itself–fairness, truth, understanding, or
creativity–or it could be the unit you are studying. Have
students write a response using each of the sentence stems:

• I used to think…
  
• But now, I think…

Technology used to support this routine

Students can use any means to go through the Thinking Routines discussed above including regular paper and pen, however, if they use technology, the answers are more easily shared with a wider audience and in my experience, the students will be more engaged in the process. The following tools are the ones I suggest for use with these specific Thinking Routines. Podcasting tools and Vodcasting or Screencasting tools.

Synth for Podcasting

A fantastic tool to use for these thinking routines is Synth an interactive podcasting platform. Synth enables students to have a voice and allows those who might struggle getting their thoughts down on paper to easily get their thinking out there. For example, say a student is doing the I used to think…Now I think…. routine, they could easily record a podcast to answer these questions. What makes this tool great is that it also enables other students to listen to and add comments to the post. If the podcast is also shared with parents then the parent can also see how their child’s thoughts have changed because of something they learned about in school. The potential of the audience for this thinking is ultimately unlimited. The use of this tool enables connection with communities outside the classroom.

Synth can be used for almost any of the routines to make the thinking visible and more easily shared with a wider more authentic audience.

Screencast-o-Matic for Screencasts and Vodcasts

Screencast-o-Matic is a fantastic screencasting tool that enables students to easily create videos of information on their screen. It also enables the recording of voice and webcams. This basically makes it possible for students to create a Video Podcast. As with Synth, this tool enables the creation of a digital tool and, therefore, can have a larger potential audience. The only difference is that the screencasting tool like Screencast-o-Matic allows the addition of images. While this might improve some of the thinking made visible as there is a picture to go with the audio, this tool does not enable a conversation directly. The student would need to post their video somewhere for others to comment. One way this could happen is in Google Classroom or on a student-created blog. This could also be shared as a part of a class discussion. This tool would be fantastic for supporting the Circle of Viewpoints Thinking Routine and could be used for many of the other routines as well!

Both of these tools, while not the only tech tools available to support making thinking visible, are fantastic as they enable students to have a voice and share their thinking in a way that is easier to share with a larger more authentic audience. They are both more engaging to our digital aged learners than regular paper and pen and, therefore, would increase the mindfulness of the student in the learning process. I highly suggest using technology with your students to help make their thinking visible!

Thanks for reading

Dr. Shannon H. Doak