Project Zero's Thinking Routine Toolbox

A vast array of PZ's work has explored the development of thinking, the concept of thinking dispositions, and the many ways routines can be used to support student learning and thinking across age groups, disciplines, ideals, competencies, and populations. Thinking Routines originated in PZ’s Visible Thinking research initiative. Over the years, researchers enhanced and expanded upon the original routines, and new projects developed new routines. Some of the larger PZ research projects focused on enhancing thinking include

• Artful Thinking,
• Cultures of Thinking,
• Agency by Design,
• PZ Connect & Visible Thinking Resources,
• and Interdisciplinary & Global Studies.

Background on PZ’s Visible Thinking

Project Zero’s broader work on Visible Thinking can be defined as a flexible and systematic research-based approach to integrating the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. An extensive and adaptable collection of practices, the Visible Thinking research has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning. The PZ researchers working on the first Visible Thinking initiative, including Dave Perkins, Shari Tishman, and Ron Ritchhart, developed a number of important products, but the one that is best known over two decades later is the set of practices called Thinking Routines, which help make thinking visible. 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 the patterns by which teachers and students operate and go about the job of learning and working together in a classroom environment. A routine can be thought of as any procedure, process, or pattern of actionthat is used repeatedly to manage and facilitate the accomplishment of specific goals or tasks. Classrooms have routines that serve to manage student behavior and interactions, to organize the work of learning, and to establish rules for communication and discourse. Classrooms also have routines that structure the way students go about the process of learning. These learning routines can be simple structures, such as reading from a text and answering the questions at the end of the chapter, or they may be designed to promote students' thinking, such as asking students what they know, what they want to know, and what they have learned as part of a unit of study.

PZ’s Visible Thinking research, both the initial project and the many projects that followed, makes extensive use of learning routines that are rich in thinking. These routines are simple structures, for example a set of questions or a short sequence of steps, that can be used across various grade levels and content areas. What makes them routines, versus mere strategies, is that they get used over and over again in the classroom so that they become part of the fabric of classroom' culture. The routines were designed by PZ researchers to become one of the regular ways students go aboutthe process of learning. Routines are patterns of action that can be integrated and used in a variety of contexts. Educators might even use more than one routine in teaching a single lesson. Routines don’t take time away from anything else educators are doing; instead, they enhance learning in the classroom.

The thinking routines included in this toolbox are organized in four ways –

• by a small set of “Core Routines” that target different types of thinking, are easy to get started with, and are commonly used by teachers in many disciplines and with learners of many ages,
• by the way educators use routines during a unit of study, similar to the arrangement used by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison (2011) (Introducing and Exploring Ideas, Digging Deeper into Ideas, Synthesizing Ideas),
• by the subject-area or topic the routines were developed to explore (Objects & Systems, Art & Objects), and,
• by the way educators use routines for conceptual exploration (Possibilities and Analogies, Perspective Taking, & Perspectives, Controversies and Dilemmas).

The Toolbox organizes the Thinking Routines into categories that describe the types of thinking the routines help to facilitate. Some routines appear in more than one category, and some routines have different versions that offer modifications for specific age groups or more specific conceptual challenges. When clicking on a routine in the Toolbox, a separate page opens with links to the downloadable PDF of the routine. All routines use a common PZ template describing the purpose of the routine, offering potential applications for the routine, and often providing suggestions for its use and tips for getting started. The PZ research project responsible for developing the routine is noted at the bottom of each page along with the copyright and licensing information and guidance about how to reference the routine. We invite and encourage educators to share their experiences using the routines! Each routine has a #hashtag listed just above the reference information. Jump in and get started!

Tips for Using Thinking Routines Effectively

• Thinking routines are designed to support particular kinds of thinking, so it’s important to choose the right tool for the specific type of thinking skill to be developed or nurtured.
• Thinking routines are also designed to be used routinely. In the same way that physical exercises need to be repeated in order to develop certain muscles, thinking routines, used repeatedly, help students to develop certain kinds of thinking. Rather than using a different thinking routine with every artifact, consider using the same thinking routine (such as See, Think, Wonder) with multiple artifacts.
• As you use the thinking routines, consider how you (or the students) will document students’ ideas and questions. Try to return to these ideas and questions at the end of the learning experience and in subsequent class sessions, so that you and the students can see how their thinking and understanding are developing.

Overview of Types of Thinking Categories

Core Thinking Routines
Simple routines that are applicable across disciplines, topics, and age groups, and can be used at multiple points throughout a learning experience or unit of study. (A good place to start if you or your students are new to thinking routines.)

Introducing and Exploring Ideas
Routines that help students articulate their thinking at the beginning of a learning experience and spark student curiosity and wonder, motivating further exploration.

Digging Deeper Into Ideas
Routines that support students in building a deeper understanding of topics or experiences by asking them to analyze, evaluate, find complexity, and make connections.

Synthesizing and Organizing Ideas
Routines that help students find coherence, draw conclusions, and distill the essence of topics or experiences.

Investigating Objects and Systems
Routines that encourage students to examine everyday objects and systems, appreciate their design features, and explore their complexity.

Perspective-taking
Routines that cultivate students’ capacity to look beyond their own perspective and to consider others’ experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives
Routines that promote students’ inclination to seek out and explore differences and tensions among multiple facets of complex issues.

Generating Possibilities and Analogies
Routines that help students learn to formulate questions, consider alternatives, and make comparisons.

Exploring Art, Images, and Objects
Routines that help develop students’ cultivate key skills of observation, interpretation, and questioning through engagement with art and objects.