Making Thinking Visible: Twenty Takeaways

My district gave every teacher the book Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison. I just finished reading it. It was predictably a little dry, but definitely had some great insights that I will look to use to improve how I get students to think this coming school year (which as of this writing is two weeks from tomorrow). In no particular order, here are the ten thoughts/ideas/theories/routines that can help reshape how I teach and maybe how you teach:

1. To a certain degree I have ran away from the question of why. Why is it that a quotient gets bigger when we divide by a fraction or a decimal less than one? Why is the area labeled feet squared? Why did pi get to be the number that is used in circles? Students get tested on all of these topics, but only surface testing. The deeper thinking gets pushed to the side in my hurry to cover the material and ultimately the students have been shown what to do without generating as much deep thinking as I could have pushed them toward.
2. What makes you say that? Sometimes getting a student to elaborate on their thinking becomes intimidating when we follow it up by asking why with our arms crossed and a cold stare. Research has shown that by getting students to verbalize their thinking, their understanding is deeper.
3. From day one students need to recognize that school is no longer about the quick right answer. Learning happens upon reflection of mistakes. That's what I learned when I tried to parallel park on my driver's test, but some days I ignore it in the classroom. 
4. If the theories in the book are applied correctly, every grade and every content area can benefit. Understanding is a direct outcome of thinking, and understanding only comes from a small umbrella of what the authors call "thinking moves." These include observing closely and describing what's there, building explanations and interpretations, reasoning with evidence, making connections, considering different viewpoints and perspectives, capturing the heart and forming conclusions. The authors also added that wondering and asking questions as well as uncovering complexity and going below the surface of things after some time within this theory. These are thinking moves that take place from kindergarten through high school, so the more teachers that jump on board, the better off the student will be. 
5. The students should become familiar with their thinking moves. Students that only worry about test performance are incentivized to be rote learners. To avoid this age-old problem, teachers should give immediate feedback to students by naming the type of thinking a student just demonstrated instead of giving generic praise (another age-old problem). 
6. Ask questions to which we do not know the answer. For instance without a GPS, how long do you think it would take us to drive from Belmonte to Canobe Lake Park? This helps model the thinking process for students and also makes use of takeaway #2 (there is no quick right answer). 
7. Any student that can ask a question that gets everyone thinking - including the teacher - is a great question. Great questions need to be celebrated. Great questions need to be posted. Great questions need reflection. Great questions need to be revisited. Great questions could be as simple as, "What makes you say that?" 
8. In group work listening skills are more valuable than academic skills. Being able to acknowledge each person's contributions, probe their thinking, and ask clarifying questions is a much deeper and richer academic experience for everyone. I think in order to make group work more efficient, groups have to buy into Takeaway #3 (learning through mistakes) first. 
9. See, think, wonder is an excellent way to look at a chart or even any picture or video from Estimation 180, Visual Patterns, etc. The key to me is in the "see" portion of this routine because it gets students started. The authors advocate for two minutes of silent reflection, which in my experience can be classroom management torture. In seeing, students are not trying to make any bold discoveries - just stating what they see. In thinking, there is more engagement than the typical math question because similar to a 3-act math problem, students need to find the question. And of course the wonder is the part where they can fill in the blank and try to solve. That said, the word, wonder is much more "mistake friendly" than answer. It promotes risk taking and does not require students to discover the answer. The other great part about this activity is that the authors actually advocate against worksheets and writing for much of the activity. I find that this is a good break from the norm for students. 
10. Think, Puzzle, Explore was a routine that I would like to implement with measurement. Students come into sixth grade with some background of three dimensional shapes, finding area, and finding a perimeter. I think it would be beneficial for them from the outset to get what they know documented (probably by me on the computer in PowerPoint). My favorite part of this though would be the puzzle to see if they ask questions that eventually we will cover. The hard part of both puzzle and explore is that I can see students stopping simply at "How will we use this in real life?" and "Look it up on the internet." for those two parts of the routine respectively. The authors talk about pushing the thinking further and also using any routine more than just once. 
11. Chalk Talk is a routine that would kill two birds with one stone since it would enable students to put their thinking down on paper and get them out of their seat (which I try to do every class). One thing I could do is use a chalk talk with solving ratio problems. I could have one chart paper that uses ratio tables, another with double number lines, another with tape diagrams, and another with just getting the two ratios equal to each other. I could see what students felt most comfortable with which issue. 
12. 3-2-1 Bridge is a routine I could use in many entirely new topics to sixth graders including the distributive property. I think the most valuable parts would obviously be the questions (Takeaway #7) and also the metaphor. I imagine it would be a huge struggle for most students to come up with a metaphor, but for the one student who does sharing it could provide benefits to the whole class and for me going forward in my teaching. 
13. Headlines as a form of exit ticket. Instead of asking students to do a problem about what we just learned, I could get back to Takeaway #1 and see if they understand the main point of the class in one phrase or sentence. 
14. Getting students to write before they discuss will more often lead to richer discussion. I am aware of this, but often don't bother trying because certain students do not have something to write on or certain students prefer not to write. At least I should give students a choice though so as not to deprive all students of optimal thought. 
15. I used to think...now I think... can be used for social emotional teaching. I always have a hard time transitioning from an assembly about drug awareness or bullying into the surface area of a rectangular prism. I could use the I used to think...now I think to make students reflect on what they just learned because social emotional learning is as important if not more important than any math I teach. 
16. Step Inside is a routine that can get students engaged and using creativity to think about a math concept. I was thinking of having groups of four each take on a different role in an algebraic expression. What might that person believe? What might that person think about those around him/her? Students could also make a game of it by telling the rest of the class about them in 3 hints for instance and then having the class guess who they are. 
17. Red Light, Yellow Light is an excellent routine for a math teacher whenever we are building on a multiple step word problem or a vocabulary intensive portion of the curriculum. Students can take red markers and direct the teacher to anything that causes them to halt or yellow next to anything that causes them to hesitate. There are those days where students just fall apart in reading comprehension and this will give them an opportunity to have an explanation that there will be a challenge and direct their focus to get over that hump. I also like that the authors said if the whole sheet is colored red to stop at one point only and then redirect students. 
18. In addition to discussing behavior and work completion, I need to discuss the expectations for thinking from day one through day one eighty. I want the thinking moves posted on the wall, something about listening to others posted on the wall, and I want something about great questions posted on the wall. 
19. If thinking is going to be promoted less curriculum is going to be covered. I'm not saying that my class was even close to lecture based in the past, but there were certainly moments of me passing along the information without soliciting students to thinking in the past. I'm convinced that student mastery needs to be the goal as opposed to me telling the students everything I know. I've always believed in that, but after reading this book I'm convinced I haven't been practicing that. 
20. Often worksheets force students to think about the work rather than learning what the worksheet is asking for.