What does thinking look like? At what point in our education and upbringing are we taught how to think? For me, the learning of thinking routines didn’t occur until my 11th-grade year in high school. I was taking a church history course and for some reason we were studying a William Wordsworth poem. I remember my teacher at the time passionately challenging “How do you know what you think you know?” These existential questions are often reserved for collegiate-level classes, but another master of existential questions is my 4-year-old. He busts them out quite frequently, usually right at bedtime!
His world is comprised of SO MANY questions…
- How does the moon stay in the same spot when I am at Nana’s and when I am at home?
- How does the sun make the daytime?
- How does a rocket ship take off?
- How does God make everything?
- Why can we see the moon during the day sometimes?
- How does mama’s phone know where we are?
Nurturing Curiosity
Many parents often comment on how many “Why?” questions they are asked in the car on a 10-minute drive. Question fatigue can be real! And in the same breath, how do we nurture this instinctive curiosity??? It fades! By the time they are in middle school, you will be begging them to ask you a question!
Harvard Project Zero
If you are an educator, you are no doubt familiar with Ron Ritchhart and the folks at Harvard Project Zero. A team of education researchers at Harvard worked to analyze if there were strategies that could help students (and children) develop deeper thinking. And what they found was that children (and probably all humans) benefit from routines that we use frequently that help us to observe, organize, reason, and reflect on ideas. This is how we are programmed to make sense of the world around us. How we do these things is often referred to as Habits of Mind.
Thinking routines are simple structures – a set of questions or a short sequence of steps that invite you to dig deeper into your understanding. Asking deep questions, making connections, coming up with explanations, challenging those explanations, and exploring alternative perspectives is the aim of most educators and I think, of parents too.
There are 9 core thinking routines outlined in Making Thinking Visible.
The researchers at Project Zero clearly explain that the goal is not to use them all, but rather to choose 1 or 2 and use them frequently! My favorite two are “See, Think, Wonder” and “I Used to Think…Now I Think.” I have used them with 3-year-olds to high school seniors. The content changes, but the thinking routine is constant.
Two examples for any situation
See, Think, Wonder
This thinking routine can be used anywhere, no materials are required. When you see your little (or big one) engage with a medium, material, or question, see if you can remember to ask them 3 simple questions:
- What do you see? I often switch this out with beginners to “What do you notice?” They should be able to share something more concrete with you that they observe.
- What does it make you think about? This question helps to facilitate connections. If your child is observing a block you can use this question to tease out that blocks kind of look like a house. If your child is into solar systems and you are talking about the sun, talking about the sun might make them think about a light bulb. What connections can you make between this new concept and an idea that you have already wrestled with in your head?
- What does it make you wonder? After observing something, and making connections to what you have already consolidated, what questions do you still have?
I used to think… Now I think…
The routine is aimed at helping individuals reflect on their learning and understanding of a topic. It consists of two steps:
- “I used to think…”, thinking about what an individual used to believe or think about a topic.
- “Now I think…”, reflecting on how their thinking has changed or evolved.
This routine helps individuals to sustain inquiry and to revisit their consolidated learning at another point with more knowledge and a broader viewpoint. The routine can be used in any setting and is suitable for all ages, from children to adults.
Using Thinking Routines at Home
The idea behind thinking routines is that they help all of us (adults are learners too) to sustain inquiry and to revisit our consolidated learning at another point with maybe more knowledge, a broader viewpoint, and having made deeper connections.
Check out some of the many tools in the Thinking Routine Toolbox and challenge yourself to bring one idea that you can use with your kids at home!
Happy Wondering!
