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Cultures of Thinking

For more information please see the Visible Thinking website.

Mid-Michigan Culture of Thinking Collaborative Conference, April 23-25, 2009

Culture of Thinking Seminar, International School of Amsterdam, August 4-7, 2009

Culture of Thinking Conference, Bialik College, August 23-25, 2009

Read "Uncovering Students' Thinking about Thinking Using Concept Maps," a paper prepared for the AERA Conference, March 2008.


Under the patronage of Vera and Abe Dorevitch, the Cultures of Thinking project at Bialik College, a Prep (pre-k) through 12th grade school in Melbourne, Australia, extends the long line of research in the area of thinking dispositions conducted at Project Zero. This project begins in 2005 and will use the Visible Thinking approach developed as part of the Innovating with Intelligence project to explore how a whole school can develop a culture of thinking that nurtures students, teachers, and administrators disposition toward thinking.

A key premise of the Visible Thinking approach is to seek ways to uncover and document students thinking so it can be discussed, reflected upon, and pushed further. Consequently, teachers employ various strategies for documenting the thinking students do. In doing so, teachers develop and use a language of thinking, they make the classroom environment rich with the documents of thinking (both processes and products, they look for opportunities for student thoughtfulness, they use thinking routines to support and nurture students thinking, they model and make their own thinking visible, and they send clear expectations about the importance and role of thinking in learning. We refer to these components--language, environment, opportunities, routines, modeling, and expectations--as cultural forces. These forces, shape a classroom and a school to give it its unique feel.

Throughout the course of this project, we will be tracking changes in teachers' and students' attitudes and practices. We will be developing measures of school and classroom thoughtfulness to captures growth. In addition, we will be looking at how teachers' and students' conceptual understanding of the domain of thinking develops.

Co-Principal Investigators:
Ron Ritchhart
David Perkins

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