PZ Sydney Network Becomes PZ Australia Network

The Project Zero Sydney Network was formed in 2016 by a group of Sydney teachers connected by their passion for quality education. They were united by their passion for teaching that engaged the learner in active thinking and that would result in deep understandings. Their search for excellence had led them each in separate ways to the research projects of Harvard Graduate School of Education’s (HGSE) “Project Zero’. After initial conversation, it was decided that a network should be formed with the aim of providing broad access to these ideas and to do so at no cost.

The Project Zero Sydney Network has achieved many of its goals in the past five years. Most importantly the network has been able to provide high-quality professional development to many educators through free events large and small and both face-to-face and online. The Project Zero Sydney Network has been able to expand its reach and in recognition of this is transforming to become the Project Zero Australia Network.

Puzzle Meet Reflections

Whereas many TeachMeets are based on the model of teachers sharing what’s working for them, this meeting was about teachers sharing the things they haven’t quite figured out yet. In these times of uncertainty, our focus was on sharing the dilemmas that keep us awake. . . . and Puzzle Meet participants had the opportunity to support their colleagues by offering possible next steps and suggestions that could be helpful.

Here is the information you need to run a Puzzle Meet of your own along with reflections from the two Puzzles shared. A very big note of thanks to Kath Boon and Kris Little for sharing their dilemmas. And, thanks to all who participated. As Simon Sinek shares “Together is Better” and when we collaborate and share we are wiser and smarter.

Before the Puzzle Meet: Preparing for the Consultancy Protocol

1. Presenters take time to think about their dilemma. This guidance might help:

Dilemmas deal with issues with which you are struggling or that you are unsure about. Some questions for helping you select a dilemma might include:

• Is it something that is bothering you enough that your thoughts regularly return to it

• Is it something that is not already on its way to being resolved?

• Is it something that does not depend on getting other people to change - in other words, can you affect the dilemma by changing your practice?

• Is it something that is important to you, and is it something you are willing to work on?

2. Do Some Reflective Writing About Your Dilemma

• Some questions that might help are:

• Why is this a dilemma for you? Why is this dilemma important to you?

• What (or where) is the tension in your dilemma?

• If you could take a snapshot of this dilemma, what would you/we see?

• What have you done already to try to remedy or manage the dilemma?

• What have been the results of those attempts?

• Who needs to change? Who needs to take action to resolve this dilemma? If your answer is not

• you, you need to change your focus. You will want to present a dilemma that is about your practice, actions, behaviors, beliefs, and assumptions, and not someone else’s.

• What do you assume to be true about this dilemma, and how have these assumptions influenced your thinking about the dilemma?

• What is your focus question? A focus question summarises your dilemma and helps focus the

• feedback.

3. Frame a Focus Question for Your Consultancy Group

• Try to pose a question around the dilemma that seems to you to get to the heart of the matter.

• Remember that the question you pose will guide the Consultancy group in their discussion of the dilemma.

4. Critique Your Focus Question

• Is this question important to my practice?

• Is this question important to student learning?

• Is this question important to others in my profession?

The Puzzle Meet: Using the Consultancy Protocol

1. The presenter gives an overview of the dilemma with which she/he is struggling and frames a question for the consultancy group to consider. The framing of this question, as well as the quality of the presenter’s reflection on the dilemma being discussed, are key features of this protocol. If the presenter has brought student work, educator work, or other “artefacts,” there is a pause here to silently examine the work/documents. The focus of the group’s conversation is on the dilemma. (5 - 10 minutes if there are artefacts to examine)

2. The consultancy group asks clarifying questions of the presenter — that is, questions that have brief, factual answers. (5 minutes)

3. The group asks probing questions of the presenter. These questions should be worded so that they help the presenter clarify and expand her/his thinking about the dilemma presented to the consultancy group. The goal here is for the presenter to learn more about the question she/he framed and to do some analysis of the dilemma presented. The presenter responds to the group’s questions, although sometimes a probing question might ask the presenter to see the dilemma in such a novel way that the response is simply, “I never thought about it that way.” There is no discussion by the consultancy group of the presenter’s responses. At the end of the 10 minutes, the facilitator asks the presenter to re-state her/his question for the group. (10 - 15 minutes)

4.  The group talks with each other about the dilemma presented. In this step, the group works to define the issues more thoroughly and objectively. Sometimes members of the group suggest actions the presenter might consider taking; if they do, these should be framed as “open suggestions,” and should be made only after the group has thoroughly analyzed the dilemma. The presenter doesn’t speak during this discussion, but listens in and takes notes. The group talks about the presenter in the third person.

(15 minutes)

Possible questions to frame the discussion:

• What did we hear?

• What didn’t we hear that might be relevant?

• What assumptions seem to be operating?

• What questions does the dilemma raise for us?

• What do we think about the dilemma?

• What might we do or try if faced with a similar dilemma? What have we done in similar situations?

5. The presenter reflects on what she/he heard and on what she/he is now thinking, sharing with the group anything that particularly resonated for him or her during any part of the Consultancy. (5 minutes)

6. Each facilitator leads a brief conversation about the group’s observation of the Consultancy process and summarises solutions offered. A more detailed version can be shared online afterwards. (5 minutes) 

The Consultancy Protocol was developed by Faith Dunne, Paula Evans, and Gene Thompson-Grove as part of their work at the Coalition of Essential Schools and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

The Puzzles

Making Connections by Kath Boon

Kath's dilemma was around the idea of making connections.

I feel like making connections is one of those concepts students are exposed to from a very young age so the idea of making a connection has a very specific connotation for them - usually related to texts they are reading. Because I am focused on how I can encourage my students to take responsibility for their own learning, making connections is an important thinking move I would like them to be able to use to really link learning across a range of content areas. 

I’m feeling conflicted because my students DO talk about making connections - they use that language even though it is usually couched in text to text, text to self type language and focused on something they have read in English. In their written work you would see them talking about how they connect to an event or character but the connection feels very superficial (I will often talk to them about how a connection that is “I have a mum and he has a mum”, is not the level of connection that will help them understand or make their thinking clear) In discussions they talk about connecting to someone but it can often be quite tenuous and really just a vehicle to share a new thought.

Things I’ve tried so far:

• Thinking frames in maths that include “How does this connect to other maths?”

• This one has some success - I’m thinking that is because it’s outside the space where students see “connections” as a specific thing

• Asking “what makes this connection important?” when looking at connections to text

• Blank stares?? 

  1. Occasionally we are able to go a bit deeper into why they felt the connection was important - usually centred around it helping them understand the character’s POV because they had a similar experience

• Connect - Extend - Challenge

• Ss really struggled with the extend part - and this is probably what I want to develop the most. Modelled some examples, used with non-fiction texts and with learning in our history unit. 

I’m not sure if I need to change my expectations or if I need some inspiration to find some new ways to try and support my students to have more depth in their connections. Am I making it harder than it needs to be? Is “I have a mum and he has a mum” what a connection (at least in the context of English) should be? 

I don’t really think so. I really believe being able to connect deeply is a powerful learning tool that will support my students as they move into HS. And I would like them to be able to write about it.

FOCUS Questions: How can I support my students in making deeper connections that extend their learning and get them asking questions?

Clarifying Questions

Matthew Bentley: Are there particular types of stimulus that seem to work more effectively than others in generating the connections? & Are the deeper connections that you’re interested in specific to one learning area or multiple?

Kate Chauncy: what texts are you using in the classroom at present? are they integrated into HSIE?

Suggestions and Open Solutions

Ruqqiya Dean: Have you had an opportunity to do a LAST protocol with samples of student work?

Kate Chauncy: I am thinking about the 3 Why's Routine for literature which sometimes can take students deeper than text to me.. text to text.. strategy.

Rebecca Toltz: A real-to-life project: Cool Controller Project.

E Fuller: Have you tried the 'I used to think... now I think' strategy? I find this works well, even with students who think their thinking hasn't changed - in their reflection they demonstrate that they have made a deeper connection with the complexities of the situation.

Justine Hamilton: Hi Kath, it sounds like to are seeing connections that are more important to the individual and that you are wanting to see deeper thinking from them. I am wondering if collaboration would move their thinking forward. This could be done through bookclubs where the students show agency through a book of choice.

Noroja Rouzbehi: I am wondering if the ease of connecting mathematics to real life is accessible but not so deep anyway. The way that is extended may be used to scaffold other areas of study?

Erin Patel: Sometimes I find that students are reading for the “gist” rather than closer reading. I wonder whether a “dinner table” routine of a close reading of a piece of the text where students are asked to take on roles could be applied here.

Matthew Bentley: A couple of ideas here. Firstly, I think the richness of the stimulus material might be crucial here - eg using a specific textual reference to help with making connections. Also, adding some prompts or questions to the connect in Connect, Extend, Challenge may help students add some depth - Also - I’ve found that the Peel the Fruit thinking routine is a routine in which students are often able to make meaningful connections

Emma: We have been focusing on building staff awareness of what making connections look like developmentally. We have been using the thinking strategies "What Makes You Say That?" in the younger years, and "Claim Evidence Reason" in the upper years. Particularly in the upper years, we co-created a rubric for Connect - Evidence - Reason with students. - This is our Making Connections Continuum.

Pip Madden: You might like to explore a strategy called ‘connect the dots’. It is explained on Verso.

Mel: I am a new career teacher career changing from a past career in qualitative research and marketing. Projective techniques were often used…- Imagine you are an alien who has just landed. How do you see the situation with fresh eyes? Takes the personal nature out of it and forces a broader perspective.

Karina Castillo: Hi Kath, I don't have much experience as a teacher, but during this 1st year I was looking for my 5th graders to make deeper connections and also ask questions. I would suggest you to use the S.A.I.L routine. Maybe you can share in that moment an idea or a Project you want to star with them so they can be interested at the material, so after that they Will ask you questions and then they Will share their ideas with you… And then, you will tell them what you learnt from them… this routine is in "the power of making thinking visible"  if you want to find more about it

Maximising Engagement by Kris Little

Kris’ dilemma is all about maximising engagement in online learning and how some of the more engaging strategies and tools might continue to be relevant once we return to face to face.

“We currently have an online learning platform that allows for one person to share their screen with the whole group. With 20+ students in the meeting, giving a student the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas often encourages others to want to do the same. In a normal classroom setting this could be managed through group discussion, turn and talk etc. Students would have the opportunity to build on one another’s ideas and develop their thinking collaboratively. In this current setting allowing 20+ students to share their ideas wouldn’t appear functional. However, as an educator, the results of limiting students’ ability to discuss and share as per a normal classroom is somewhat concerning. I worry that it could result in students disengaging with their classmates and the learning activities and possibly bring on feelings of isolation and stress. “

Focus Questions: Without normal classroom practices available how do we build a culture where we allow for engagement through interaction? And, are there online tools and strategies that we might want to continue utilising as we move back into the classroom to encourage engagement?

Clarifying Questions

Ruqqiya Dean: what is the Tech ability of the students?  Do they all have devices?

Emma: Are students technically savvy / mostly have access to 1:1 devices?

Sue Zipfinger: are they all using the one type type of device?

Kate Chauncy: What online tools do you have available at present?

Phillip Cooke: How are students talking and interacting outside of school?

Suggestions and Open Solutions

Ruqqiya Dean: We have used Padlet in a variety of ways to give students a voice; brainstorming, sharing ideas or solutions etc

Emma: Could students use a website such as Padlet to collaborate. They don't necessarily need to login  but could leave their name with their comment.

Maria Barberis: Padlet is great.

Margaret Nilon: Yes can highly recommend Padlet

Sue Yeo: Padlet is great I have used it with year 1

Erin Patel: One idea that I had was FlipGrid - which is a way for students to film their ideas in a discussion topic (which I’ve tried on my Year 4 daughter and she loves).  I also now use it with my students whilst incorporating thinking routines…they love it. The only thing I would say about Flipgrid is that you need to build a classroom environment of trust (safe environment to take risks in learning) because some students aren’t willing to share their ideas publicly. But once that is established, I have found it to be excellent.

Kath Boon: Or Mentimeter can also provide a platform for collaboration which has some interesting options - It will do a word clouds for example.

Justine Hamilton: I am wondering if Verso could be used to help them to interact and share their thinking.

Ruqqiya Dean: SeeSaw is great for Primary School.  It allows you to collect student work, students can send videos of themselves reading, or take a photo of their work and put it in their portfolio.  There is a free version.

Matthew Bentley: Mural also has sticky notes

Maria Barberis: Yes!!! Mural is great too!:

Phillip Cooke: Quieter students built their confidence online which has translated back into face-2-face with increased confidence

Erin Patel: Technology can also invite creativity and allows students to plan their thinking before they create their response. It might also provide alternative ways to communicate their understanding beyond their written responses.

Emma: At school, we have "walls that teach" with our relevant anchor charts and prompts. Remotely, we are using Padlet to store our anchor charts, so students can have the relevant anchor charts available. I would love to personalise these that match students' goals.

Reflections on the Protocol

Maria Barberis : I would use in a PD session, staff meetings, oral presentations with students (I teach older students)

Erin Patel : I like this protocol - I think it might be useful as a Head of Dept in problem-solving in faculty meetings as well as perhaps within the classroom in various contexts

Matthew Bentley : I love it! Great to establish an environment where we can share and receive constructive solutions to our puzzles of practice.

Emma : Comforting to know that we are all facing similar problems! I would like to use this protocol to address teacher concerns around the authenticity of their students' work in Remote Learning.

Adam Majsay: The protocol worked well in an online environment thanks to the chat. Having multiple pathways to share ideas encourages all to participate. 

Noroja Rouzbehi : Agreed Adam! I found it challenging in the face to face to tweet, so this was great to think, read and type in the chat!

Sue Zipfinger : I agree with Adam. A very useful protocol and plan to use this with discussions with staff on issues. A great session

Ruqqiya Dean : I really appreciated the speakers sharing their puzzles and it really made me think about being vulnerable enough to ask the question, but also about the capacity of the group to collectively solve problems

Sue Yeo : I really like the Protocol today.  It allowed for me to have some ideas discussed, an opportunity to share ideas.  It was great problem solving and I have learnt about some new online programs to use with students   

Empowering Disenfranchised Learners with Erika Lusky & Julie Rains

Classrooms are made up of diverse learners, including those who feel disenfranchised, often for complex reasons. We begin by valuing learners’ passions and purpose, shifting from a culture of compliance to a culture of engagement. Through equitable discussion tools, documentation, and depth of understanding, we create the conditions to be responsive to all learners, and in the process, foster the process of understanding ourselves and our world.

Visit Enbrighten Education for more information and resources

The Power of Making Thinking Visible with Ron Ritchhart & Mark Church

On Saturday PZ Sydney Network hosted Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church for a conversation about their new book, “The Power of Making Thinking Visible”. What follows is a summary of some of the key messages from this conversation. You can watch the whole conversation above. For more learning opportunities like this visit the PZ Sydney Network or follow @pzsydnetwork on Twitter.

Making Thinking Visible is a stance, not just a set of routines. The books evolved from noticing the actions teachers take as a consequence of their stance on thinking. Teachers who value thinking, who push for thinking from their students were noticed to make particular teaching moves on a routine basis. These moves were a reflection of their stance, the tangible evidence that thinking was valued and nurtured. As we think about the culture of our classroom we should consider the nature of our stance. Do we routinely send a message that we value thinking? Are the messages consistent with our stated stance and would others recognise our purported stance in the teaching moves we make?

Key Question 1 - What kind of thinking is necessary in this situation? How do we backwards engineer the scaffolds which will support the thinking that students are noted to require for success in their learning. 

Key Question 2 - What are the thinking moves that we want to grow our students into to empower them as thinkers. 

Making thinking Visible requires a decision making process. It is a process that takes us beyond randomly selecting a thinking routine and hoping it might have the desired impact. It takes us beyond conversations about what content we are going to teach or what activities our students will do. It brings to our planning process a deliberate attention to the thinking moves we want to make routine for our students. It looks something like this:

• What thinking do I hope to make routine here? 

• Why that thinking in this context? 

• How might I support my students to make this thinking move? 

• How do I make this thinking move routine?

• How do I empower my students to make this move routinely?

Thinking routines are the tools and the structures which make the thinking we desire possible. Thinking routines make visible and concrete the things that good students are doing automatically. For example, good readers are already making connections as they read; connections within the text and connections beyond the text. When we use thinking routines we make the use of such skills explicit, we are naming and noticing effective practices and encouraging others to do the same. The thinking moves evolved from a process of noticing and naming the types of thinking that effective learners were already doing. Once we identify these moves we can consider how we bring these into the realm of our teaching. If I know good readers make connections, how might I make this thinking move accessible to all my students and how might I refine and strengthen this move even for those who are already making it.

We are more likely to focus on thinking when we consider the BIG Ideas that we want our student to grapple with rather than focusing on the content. It is easy to make plans for how we will deliver content, but when we ponder BIG Ideas we are encouraged to consider what thinking moves are required to make sense of these.

If I don’t consider the type of thinking that I want my students to engage in, it is easier to develop activities that do not require thinking. If we believe all learning is a consequence of thinking, we need to also identify the type of thinking that we want our students to understand. 

Key Question 3 - What do I want my students to understand? What type of thinking does this understanding require?

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The Power of Documentation

Documentation is a teaching strategy that emerges from the Reggio Emilia approach. In this the teacher makes time and space to notice and document the learning that is occurring in their classrooms. This documentation acts as a catalyst for elective practice with the teacher constantly asking questions about their learners progress and the impact of their choices on this learning. The documentation is as much a part of the future learning of the students as it is about recording what has occurred. We use documentation to give agency or ownership of the learning to the learner, not to record evidence of learning or the absence there of in a spreadsheet. With this in mind, Visible Thinking builds on this as it connects to the teachers’s stance towards thinking. The following questions might be asked to guide this process:

• What do we need to note in this moment so it doesn’t get lost, so we can have a ’to be continued moment’? 

• How might we use documentation to capture where we have been and where we are going.?

And on a personal and collective level documentation and the process of capturing evidence of our thinking support distributed intelligence. The notion of distributed intelligence is that our thinking process can be extended beyond our brains through our use of tools such as drawing, writing and other modes of capturing our thoughts. Our processes of documenting our thinking by other means such as these reduces our cognitive load and allows us to make better use of our cognitive resources.

A Vital Understanding - Thinking routines are not going to elevate the quality of weak or low order content. Deep thinking requires rich content. Content that requires the learner to grapple with complexity and ambiguity when married with the right thinking routine takes the learning deeper.

And linked to this - The routine is only as powerful as one’s purpose. If our purpose is to get the routine done or to do a routine, we lose any power that it might have. 

SO. . . Don’t abandon your use of a routine because it didn’t work. Explore why. Was it that you were not clear on its purpose? Was it paired with content that demanded thinking? Did you give it the time it required? Did students understand your intent? Might the routine need to be used multiple times so that it becomes routine?

A Routine that encourage deep thinking when paired with the right content  . . .

The Three Whys and the Four Ifs?

• Why does this issue matter to me? 

• Why does this issue matter to my community? 

• Why does this issue matter to the world?

  • If I took this issue seriously . . . what might the consequence be?

  • If my community took this issue seriously . . . what might the consequence be?

  • If the world took this issue seriously . . . what might the consequence be?

  • If I do noting what might the consequence be?

Key Question 4 - How do we open minds to the thinking routines? - If we think about the routine and its match to our learning environment, we may be drawn away from a particular routine because we don’t imagine it fits our learners or our context. We may think it doesn’t suit our discipline or learners of the age we teach. But, when we begin by considering the thinking moves, we can see their relevance. As an example; Colour, Symbol, Image may not seem to fit inside a chemistry lab, but one of the thinking moves it supports, ‘synthesising’, probably does. If we want our students to synthesise their ideas, we might scaffold this with Colour, Symbol, Image. 

The danger of turning Watering Holes into Campfires - Our use of thinking routines should create spectacular opportunities for collaborative learning conversations with and between our students. Their use creates a metaphorical “Watering Hole” where many minds come together to share ideas. At the watering hole, no voice is dominant. Contrast this with the metaphor of the “Campfire”. Again we have a gathering of minds, but here there is a dominant speaker or presenter. These metaphorical spaces have evolved from a range of thinkers who examined a mix of spaces which occur across learning environments. Watering Holes, where all members of a community share ideas, Campfires, where one or two people share information with a group, and Cave Spaces, where we work and learn independently all have value. The message here is to not transform what we had planned as a watering hole into a campfire by allowing our teacher voice to dominate or shape the thinking. 

A final note of caution - Consider "The unwitting undermining I do in my own classroom”. Try to identify the actions you take which undermine your intent to encourage, empower and foster thinking. Look for the actions you inadvertently send which are counter to the messaging you hope to be sending your learners.  

With greatest thanks to Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church. for the inspiration.

By Nigel Coutts

Pressing for THINKING over Work in the Online Learning Environment

Our guest facilitator for this webinar was April Taylor, history teacher and Head of Campus for OneSchool Australia. For many years, April has been embracing the challenges of creating a culture of thinking in the online learning environment. In this webinar, the viewer is cast in the role of a learner in April's history classroom, experiencing for yourself how thinking routines might enrich online learning.

The session concluded with April's top 5 tips for keeping thinking front and centre in the online learning environment. Thanks to all who participated and a Special Thanks to April Taylor.

April’s Top 5 Tips to keep ‘thinking’ front & centre:

1. Use warm ups as lesson starters

   • opportunities for metacognition

   • opportunities for revision

   • place to pose wondering

   • sstart routine like See, Think, Wonder

2. Provide routines that require making connections and asking questions, e.g. Connect, Extend, Challenge

   • watching videos

   • reading articles

   • listening to you lecture for short periods

3. Allow opportunities for collaboration to push thinking through different perspectives and interpretations

   • shared document and breakout rooms

   • Parts, Purposes, ComplexitiesGenerate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate

   • could form a debate!

4. Build in time for students to share thinking and wonderings

   • Q&A during discussion

   • using chat features

   • share screen and talk through thinking moves

5. Provide opportunities for peer assessment

   • set expectations around noticing what is done well and asking clarifying questions, e.g. Ladder of Feedback (Video)

   • provide tables for students to track ‘warm’ & ‘cool’ feedback to set goals and self-monitor

   • if positive the students will want to be in the ‘hot seat’!

April recommended reading:

• Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must master to Truly Transform Our Schools by Ron Ritchhart

• The Power of Making Thinking Visible: Practices to Engage and Empower Learners by Ron Ritchhart & Mark Church

You can read all about the ‘Beauty & Truth’ thinking routine April used in ‘The Power of Making Thinking Visible’.

Educators Responding to Covid19 - Reflections & Resources

Here are the reflections and resources collected during the Educators Responding to COVID19 Webinar.

Some Common Messages

• Clarify Expectations - and make this easy to see. Create a table of what the students need to do each day. 

• Do Less - Common feedback from parents is that we are setting too much. Cut this in half and then in half again. We do this with all our planning, but in the online world, we are not the ones filtering what gets done and what gets skipped. Cut back on content, give time for collaboration and creativity. 

• Planned Downtime - Allocate a day when no new learning is set. 

• Build Relationships - Maintain Relationships - Use Zoom for maintaining connections. Use the Mute All feature to allow for one-to-one check-ins with individuals. 

• Start with “Why" - Why are my students learning this? Why am I asking them to do this? - What learning matters? - Is this lifeworthy?

• Share our “Why" - Workshops for Parents - Our parent body might not understand the pedagogical moves we are making. School and learning have changed. We need to take our parent body with us. 

• Use what you Know - Build on from the digital platforms that your students already know and are comfortable with. Hack them to suit new purposes. maximise their utility before moving to something new. 

• Focus on what our students will learn, not what they will do.

Tools That Are Working

Immersive Reader Tool in Office 365

Microsoft Learning Tools are free tools that implement proven techniques to improve reading and writing for people regardless of their age or ability.

The Microsoft Learning Tools set is natively built into the Office 365 and Microsoft Edge applications, and help improve reading, writing and comprehension. The immersive reader capability in Learning Tools gives users the ability to have content read aloud to them, and lets them adjust settings to break the words into syllables, adjust text size or background colours.

Features:

• Enhanced dictation – improves authoring text

• Focus mode – Sustains attention and improves reading speeds

• Immersive reading – improves comprehension and sustains attention

• Font spacing and short lines Improve reading speed by addressing “visual crowding”

• Parts of speech – supports instruction and improves writing quality

• Syllabification – improves word recognition

• Comprehension mode – Improves comprehension by an average of 10%

Learn More

Read & Write for Google

Read&Write is a software toolbar that helps students create and access content with the literacy support features needed to engage with a personalised learning experience - helping every member of the class meet their full potential. Great for all subjects across the curriculum, Read&Write offers support with everyday tasks like reading text out loud, understanding unfamiliar words, researching assignments and proofing written work.

Learn More

Adapting Thinking Routines for Online Learning from Washington International School - Visit Now

A chart of thinking routines with ideas for how they might be adapted to online learning. You may want to use this chart to:

• Identify the key learning move you want students to make

• If there are several routines for the same move, pick the routine that suits you best

• Choose an online tool

• Go for it and share your experience!

Real-Time Feedback with Online Docs

Most online platforms (Google Docs, Microsoft 365 etc) allow for real-time collaboration on documents including Slideshows, Text and Spreadsheets. Use this to give real-time feedback. 

Read about this

Zoom - Features

• Screen Sharing and Annotating - A great tool for collaboration. Combine with thinking routines to make the students thinking visible. Great with templates such as “T Charts” or Peel the Fruit

• Whiteboard (Learn More) - Great for collaboration - Use with Chalk Talk Routine - LINK

• Breakout Rooms - Might be useful for differentiation, targeted instruction and small group conversations. Start a whole class chat and then have selected students move into breakout room. Allow students to self identify which Breakout room best suits their needs. 

• Chat Room - Allows multiple ways to engage. A feature of many online tools is that students who might not be active participants in face-to-face environments are finding their voice online. 

Questions to be Asking

Questions to encourage student reflection:

• What have you learned? 

• How did you learn it? 

• Where to next? 

• What help do you need?

Question for refining a lesson plan:

• What do I want my students to understand here?

• What might they already understand about this? What gaps might there be in their understanding? How might I make this visible in an online environment? What obstacles block students from showing their understanding that I can remove? e.g not requiring a written response.

• What experiences might allow them to achieve this and then demonstrate it?

• As I evaluate the activities I have planned for my students:

  • Do they move students towards this understanding?

  • What understanding does this activity require?

  • What evidence of understanding does this provide?

• How do I fill gaps? Questions, Prompts, Provocations, Direct Instruction, Feedforward.

• What thinking will they require for this task? How might I scaffold that? How do I make it visible in an online environment?

• What next?

Download Guidance for “Tuning Up A Lesson Plan” from Tina Blythe.

Frameworks, Tools & Ideas

OSKAR Framework 

OSKAR was developed by Jackson & McKergow as a coaching framework. It is designed to clarify objectives, identify what is working well now, describe actions for growth and encourage reflection. 

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Image courtesy of Oxford Falls Grammar School

The Understanding Map

In Making Thinking Visible the authors identify a set of thinking moves which learners utilise and that we can target in our teaching. These are shared in the Understanding Map. Instead of asking “What thinking routine will I use?" we ask, "What thinking will my learners require here?"

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Click on image to enlarge.

Thinking Routines Tool from Project Zero

This tool highlights Thinking Routines developed across a number of research projects at PZ. While Project Zero did not originate the idea of a thinking routine, a vast array of its 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 student populations. In addition to the initial Visible Thinking research initiative, some of the larger PZ research projects focused on enhancing thinking include Artful Thinking, Cultures of Thinking, Agency by Design, and PZ Connect.

Visit Now

Using Thinking Routines to Scaffold the Writing Process

Download PDF of From Good to Great Writing

What’s Worth Learning? from David Perkins

Something to Ponder Before you Leave

From AJ Juliani

This is not online or distance learning.

This is emergency remote learning. It was not planned for. Most school’s curriculum was not crafted to be online or distance learning experiences. Most teachers and staff have not been trained in teaching online or through virtual tools. Most kids and families have not had the opportunity to be prepared for this change in learning. And yet, here we are, everyone doing their best to make this work.

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And. . . from Hilary Hughes and Stephanie Jones at University of Georgia:

What is happening is not home schooling.
It is not distance learning.
It is not online schooling.

So, let’s call this what it is: Covid-19 Schooling; or better yet, Teaching and Learning in Covid-19.

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FRESHLY UPDATED Site for Thinking Routines

As we aim to make thinking routine in our classrooms, we are likely to seek the ideal thinking routine to support our students in their thinking. This new site from HGSE Project Zero makes this task easy. In addition to friendly navigation and logical layout, the site includes a number of new routines.

PZ's Thinking Routines Tool

This tool highlights Thinking Routines developed across a number of research projects at PZ. While Project Zero did not originate the idea of a thinking routine, a vast array of its 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 student populations. In addition to the initial Visible Thinking research initiative, some of the larger PZ research projects focused on enhancing thinking include Artful Thinking, Cultures of Thinking, Agency by Design, and PZ Connect.

Visit the New Site and share how you have used the thinking routines in the comments below.

PZ Sydney Network Submission to the NESA Curriculum Review

“Children grow into the intellectual life around them” 
(Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society)

We believe that learners and learning remain largely invisible in most schools because of time, standardised assessments, ambiguity, and incoherent beliefs and practices. 

We believe that:

• Learning is a consequence of thinking

• Understanding is not only something you have, but something you do

• Intelligence is not one thing, but many, and is something that can be learned

• Thinking skills alone are not sufficient; we must also have the disposition to use them

• Thinking and learning are processes that are deepened when we make them visible

• Collaboration is the stuff of learning

• The highest form of collaboration is co-creation

• Children are citizens of today, not just tomorrow.

What’s Worth Learning?

Much of what we usually teach beyond basic literacies quickly gets forgotten, because it does not contribute in any substantial way to the lives of challenge and change learners are likely to live. Instead of fixating on educating for the known—the usual facts and skills—we need a vision of educating for the unknown, for the kinds of thinking and understanding that foster nimble adaptive insight in a complex world. This is “lifeworthy” learning. A huge information base may not be the right priority for our times. We need to look outwards towards a more complex world rather than inwards to disciplinary understanding. We need the capacity to use a discipline to understand the world. Our curricula are full of learning that doesn’t matter much.

Thinking

We would like students to develop dispositions such as curiosity, healthy skepticism and reflectiveness, with the ability to enact these dispositions, the inclination to do so, and the sensitivity to understand when might be an appropriate context to put them into play.  A culture of thinking is a place where a group’s collective, as well as individual, thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted. When classrooms and schools focus on their culture, they become places of intellectual stimulation where the focus is not just on improving test scores, but on more deliberately developing young learners who can think, create and question. Any curriculum succeeds or fails depending on the culture of the classroom in which it is enacted. Culture shapes us as thinkers and learners. Understanding this process of enculturation holds the key to the creation of the dynamic learning communities we seek.

Documentation

Documenting thinking by capturing questions and dialogues can help improve learning. When teachers capture students’ ideas, they signal that those ideas have value, thereby encouraging students to think more deeply, more often. Documentation involves being curious about the student learning occurring, recording it with multiple media artifacts to act as a form of group memory, reflecting on the documentation, and sharing it publicly in order to build collective knowledge. Qualitative forms of sharing evidence like student work, photos and video are powerful ways to provide a more complete picture of student learning.

Agency

Most kids nowadays have less autonomy, are more risk-averse, and expect that machines and people will give them quick answers or else they get frustrated. There is a movement towards a self that is ‘polished’ or ‘packaged’. Kids are more superficial and less trusting than in the past, more isolated than intimate. This generation tends to do what they are told, with no deviation. They are more hesitant to try things out, they just want to get there efficiently. All of us, teachers, parents, and students, need to take responsibility for nudging towards enabling rather than dependence. Educational initiatives that target making, designing, tinkering, and play can activate student agency.

Slow Looking

Slow looking means taking the time to observe carefully more than meets the eye at first glance. It is an important counterbalance to the human tendency towards fast looking, which can become the default mode when learners are focused on coverage of content rather than depth of understanding. Uncovering complexity takes time, and it is slow looking that lays the foundations for theorising, reasoning with evidence, analytical thinking, and careful decision making. When learners become slow lookers they notice detail, defer interpretation, make careful discernments, and purposefully use a variety of observation strategies to move beyond first impressions. Teachers can foster slow looking through encouraging students to use a number of observation strategies, including categories to guide the eye, open inventories, juxtaposition, and strategies of scale and scope. When learners are helped to become slow lookers, they often report a renewed sense of philosophical well-being: slowing down reminds them of what’s important in life.

Creativity

The creating mind breaks new ground. It puts forth ideas, poses unfamiliar questions, conjures up fresh ways of thinking, and arrives at unexpected answers. The creator’s goal is to extend knowledge, to ruffle the contours of a genre, to guide a set of practices along new and hitherto unanticipated directions. Creativity tends to not occur in isolation, rather it is likely to be distributed among many individuals. When we shift the focal point of creativity from individuals to ideas, we provide the opportunity for all students to participate in the development of creative ideas. Telling the story of creative idea development allows us to see how innovative ideas emerge and how various creative individuals contribute to creative idea generation along the way. 

Global Competence

Educating for global citizenship has become a pressing need and it is vitally important for us to engage with people who are very different from ourselves in order to become aware of the diversity of how people think, to help us discern our own cultural assumptions, and to learn how to work across cultures. Today’s societies are marked by new economic, cultural, technological and environmental trends that are part of a rapid wave of globalisation which demand that we educate youth to investigate topics of global significance, to collaborate across cultures, to communicate across difference and to take informed action. The learning challenges with regard to global competence are: stereotypes, ethnocentrism (there is one ‘right’ culture), and confirmation bias (attending only to information that confirms our beliefs).

Professional Learning

Self-satisfaction and complacency are the death of good teaching. Our time together with colleagues should be full of questioning and exploration. Professional learning experiences that leave teachers feeling slightly unsettled and still thinking are good things. Protocols can support teacher and student learning by creating opportunities for conversations about teaching and learning and supporting interactions that enable us to develop our understanding of a variety of perspectives. 

School Change

School change is complicated. There are problems of coherence and initiative fatigue. We caution against “installing a system.” The installation model is a poor model for school change. Instead, we encourage respecting complexity and community by finding a small number of idea sets that live well together. Schools should develop a culture of thinking and learning, a model that expands over time. We create lasting change by inviting rather than advocating.

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience” 

(John Dewey, Experience and Education).

The Project Zero Sydney Network (PZSyd) is a network of Sydney educators inspired by Project Zero ideas. Project Zero is a research branch connected to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a strong research agenda in the arts, the nature of intelligence, understanding, thinking, creativity, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural thinking, and ethics. The Project Zero Sydney Network is open to all interested educators, schools and institutions. A central aim of PZSyd is to share our passion for Project Zero ideas with others by providing free professional learning opportunities for Australian educators.

PZSyd Steering Committee

Adam Majsay, Emanuel School
Cameron Paterson, Shore School
Carla Gagliano, Masada College
Jay Trevaskis, Covenant Christian School
Kylie Bowra, St Augustine’s College
Nigel Coutts, Redlands
Noroja Rouzbehi, Chatswood High School
Rhonda Kaidbay, Ryde Secondary College
Ryan Gill, Masada College
Simon Brooks, consultant

The Power of Making Thinking Visible

The Visible Thinking community is waiting excitedly for the release of Ron Ritchart and Mark Church’s new book “The Power of Making Thinking Visible”.

“We are thrilled to announce the publication of our latest book, The Power of Making Thinking Visible due out in April, 2020. Since Making Thinking Visible was first published in 2011, Mark Church and I have continued to research the use of thinking routines and their impact on learning (we share both qualitative and quantitative data in the new book). At the same time, we have been developing new routines to help structure, facilitate, and enhance learning and thinking. This companion book of new thinking routines draws on the work we have been doing in schools around the world and provides rich examples of the routines in action across multiple grade levels and subject areas. We also articulate exactly why and how the practice of making thinking visible is so powerful for teachers and students.” (Ron Ritchhart)

This image by Julie Rains of Enbrighten Education details the six powers of making thinking visible. The Power of Making Thinking Visible is due for release in April 2020.

Cultures of Thinking: Puzzles of Practice

PZ Syd in collaboration with Dr. Ron Ritchhart, Principal Investigator for the Cultures of Thinking Project, and Senior Research Associate of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education presents a free conference for educators with a passion for thinking and learning.

On Saturday 25th February 2017, join with other K-12 educators from a host of different schools for this free conference exploring how to build a Culture of Thinking in our classrooms and schools.  

This unique and informal one-day conference will offer both large keynote and small workshop settings in which to explore pedagogy and practice inspired by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Learn more and register

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PZ Sydney Network Founded

Inspired by the ideas of Harvard's Project Zero a collaboration between a group of Sydney schools has resulted in the founding of Project Zero Sydney. The aim of the group is to share and develop expertise in the practical application of the Project Zero philosophy. 

Drawing on Project Zero pedagogy and practice, we believe that:

• learning is a consequence of thinking
• understanding is not only something you have, but something you do
• intelligence is not one thing, but many, and is something that can be learned
• thinking skills alone are not sufficient; we must also have the disposition to use them
• thinking and learning are processes that are deepened when we make them visible
• collaboration is the stuff of learning.

A central aim of PZSyd is to share our passion for Project Zero ideas with others by providing free professional learning opportunities for Australian educators.