Alertness, All Three at Once. Technically This Is Called A Dispositional View of

Cristina Esmeralda Hernández Espinoza.
VISIBLE THINKING
INTRODUCTION
Visible thinking is the result of many year of research, and this is related with
children’s’ thinking and learning, that happen in the classroom.
The research shows that skills and abilities are not enough. They are important of
course, but alertness to situations that call for thinking and positive attitudes toward
thinking and learning are tremendously important as well. Often, we found, children
(and adults) think in shallow ways not for lack of ability to think more deeply but
because they simply do not notice the opportunity or do not care. To put it all
together, we say that really good thinking involves abilities, attitudes, and
alertness, all three at once. Technically this is called a dispositional view of
thinking. Visible Thinking is designed to foster all three.
Another important result of this research concerns the practical functionality of the
Visible Thinking approach -- the thinking routines, the thinking ideals and other
elements. All these were developed in classroom contexts and have been revised
and revised again to ensure workability, accessibility, rich thinking results from the
activities, and teacher and student engagement.
CONTENT
Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based approach to

integrating the development of students' thinking with content learning across
subject matters.
Visible Thinking main goals:
To cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions.

To deepen content learning
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.
Visible Thinking includes attention to four "thinking ideals" -- understanding, truth,

fairness, and creativity. Visible Thinking emphasizes several ways of making
students' thinking visible to themselves and one another, so that they can improve
it.
Visible Thinking includes a number of ways of making students' thinking visible to

themselves, to their peers, and to the teacher, so they get more engaged by it and
come to manage it better for learning and other purposes.
When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more

metacognitive, to think about their thinking. When thinking is visible, it becomes
clear that school is not about memorizing content but exploring ideas. Teachers
benefit when they can see students' thinking because misconceptions, prior
knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding are more likely to be
uncovered. Teachers can then address these challenges and extend students'
thinking by starting from where they are.
There are three ways to get started using Visible Thinking....
Start with Routines
The routines are a central element of the practical, functional and accessible
nature of Visible Thinking. Thinking routines are easy to use mini-strategies that
are repeatedly used in the classroom. They are a small set of questions or a short
sequence of steps that can be used across various grade levels and content. Each
routine targets a different type of thinking and by bringing their own content. They
have a public nature, so that they make thinking visible, and students quickly get
used to them
Start by exploring Ideals
"Thinking ideal" is a commonsense concept, not a technical one. Thinking ideals

are areas of thinking like understanding, truth, creativity, fairness, and more. They
are important kinds of thinking that we cherish and strive to cultivate.
You focus on that ideal, foreground thinking routines that emphasize the ideal, and
draw out students' ideas and reflections about that ideal, to foster their conceptual
development. For instance, if you picked the ideal of understanding, you might use
thinking routines that foreground understanding several times a week in connection
with subject matter instruction. You might ask your students to develop concept
maps about understanding, so that you and they can reflect on what understanding
means.
Thinking ideals offers more focus than starting with general routines or
documentation, although you may prefer to greater flexibility of those entry ways. It
allows you to draw students' attention to one or another very important aspect of
thinking in a sustained way -- understanding, truth, creativity, or fairness. And of
course you can go on to the others later.
Another reason to start with a particular ideal is that provides an organizing

structure that some teachers find useful.
Start by focusing on Documentation
The idea of documentation is closely linked with the idea of making thinking visible.
Through documentation of students' thinking and learning, we develop our own
understanding of how thinking processes develop and how we can best support
them. In this sense, documentation is not just a reflective examination but also a
prospective one as it shapes the design of future learning situations.
What does it mean to get started with Visible Thinking by focusing on

documentation? You focus your attention on how to capture, record, and reflect on
the thinking students are doing in your classroom. While you might be using the
routines from any of the ideals, the focus will be on learning to document and
discuss students’ thinking.
Documentation can take many forms. It might be a visual representation, chart, or

table that captures a particular conversation. It can be a set of students' responses
to an assignment. It might take the form of an audio or videotape of a class
session. It can be digital photos that capture a process. In short, anything that will
help to illuminate the thinking students are doing.
The documentation process doesn't stop with the collection or generation of

artifacts, however. What makes documentation powerful is the analysis,
interpretation, and evaluation of these materials. This work is often best done by
groups of teachers working together so that multiple perspectives on the meaning
of the documents can be expressed and explored.
As educators, our first task is perhaps to see the absence, to hear the silence, to
notice what is not there. The Chinese proverb tells us that a journey of one
thousand miles begins with but a single step. Seeing the absence is an excellent
first step. Without it, the journey is not likely to happen. With it, and the direction
and energy the realization brings, we are on our way to making thinking visible.

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Cristina Esmeralda Hernández Espinoza.

Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based approach to

Visible Thinking main goals:

To cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions.

Visible Thinking includes attention to four "thinking ideals" -- understanding, truth,

Visible Thinking includes a number of ways of making students' thinking visible to

When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more

There are three ways to get started using Visible Thinking....

Start with Routines

Start by exploring Ideals

"Thinking ideal" is a commonsense concept, not a technical one. Thinking ideals

Another reason to start with a particular ideal is that provides an organizing

Start by focusing on Documentation

What does it mean to get started with Visible Thinking by focusing on

Documentation can take many forms. It might be a visual representation, chart, or

The documentation process doesn't stop with the collection or generation of

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