Visible Thinking Visible Thinking is 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, Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning. By thinking dispositions, we mean curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, a creative mindset, not just being skilled but also alert to thinking and learning opportunities and eager to take them. Visible Thinking is for teachers, school leaders and administrators in K - 12 schools who want to encourage the development of a culture of thinking in their classrooms and schools. Here are some of the goals they have specifically identified: Deeper understanding of content Greater motivation for learning Development of learners' thinking and learning abilities. Development of learners' attitudes toward thinking and learning and their alertness to opportunities for thinking and learning (the "dispositional" side of thinking). A shift in classroom culture toward a community of enthusiastically engaged thinkers and learners.

Structure The routines are structured well and only take a single page for each. It covers: the thinking routines itself Purpose: What kind of thinking does this routine encourage? Application: When and where can it be used? Launch: What are some tips for starting and using this routine?

VisibleThinking In Action Every committed educator wants better learning and more thoughtful students. Visible Thinking is a way of helping to achieve that without a separate thinking skills' course or fixed lessons. Visible Thinking is a broad and flexible framework for enriching classroom learning in the content areas and fostering students' intellectual development at the same time. The idea of visible thinking helps to make concrete what a thoughtful classroom might look like. At any moment, we can ask, "Is thinking visible here? Are students explaining things to one another? Are students offering creative ideas? Are they, and I as their teacher, using the language of thinking? Is there a brainstorm about alternative interpretations on the wall? Are students debating a plan?" When the answers to questions like these are consistently yes, students are more likely to show interest and commitment as learning unfolds in the classroom. They find more meaning in the subject matters and more meaningful connections between school and everyday life. They begin to display the sorts of attitudes toward thinking and learning we would most like to see in young learners -- not closed-minded but open-minded, not bored but curious, neither gullible nor sweepingly negative but appropriately skeptical, not satisfied with "just the facts" but wanting to understand. In the visible thinking students and teachers can develop their learning abilities as well as help instructors make the classroom more comfortable so peers can participate and develop their learning attitudes toward thinking and learning according to the contents.