Make Thinking Visible

NOTE: This strategy is part of the self-paced Develop Learner Agency Course

Metacognition, the ability to think about your thinking and act on that reflection, has been shown to lead to greater learning outcomes and higher learner agency. To start the metacognitive process, educators can make their own thinking visible by thinking out loud and modeling metacognition. They can also provide sentence stems and opportunities for learners to show their thinking. This is common in math class but can be expanded to other subject areas.

Bright Spots

Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners.

Creating your own Bright Spots? Let’s get them out into the world! Share yours here.

School as a Living Museum: Display Work

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High Tech High

View transcript for video here.

When you walk through the halls of any High Tech High campus, you are absolutely surrounded by student work. There are whole-class projects, individual assignments, and quick expressions of ideas and work that culminates in extensive projects. The work fills the atmosphere with creativity and energy, and the students move through the spaces proudly. Curating student work around the school building makes learning visible throughout the year.

Write on the Tables

Students write out their thinking directly on the table and describe how they know something.

Talk About Strategies

At CCDS, sentence stems are provided to help elementary students talk about their math strategies in small groups and with a partner.

Analogous inspiration: Process on display at Smitten Ice Cream

Smitten makes ice cream on demand. Using special liquid nitrogen-powered ice cream makers, they serve intensely creamy ice cream minutes after the ingredients are mixed together. For Smitten, the process is as important as the end result.

The walls tell the story of the ice cream: how founder Robyn Fisher invented the machine, how the machine works, and why liquid nitrogen. Using this real-world example of displaying the process of a final product, how can we support learners in their exhibitions or as they work on projects to ensure they are making visible the process of learning and creating?

Source: Co-Designing Schools Toolkit Equitable Learning Practices

Graphic Organizers

Source: Around the Kampfire

Graphic organizers can help support students’ thinking AND they can make that thinking visible. The support learners in thinking through the pieces of a whole that get them to a final result.

Using a KWL graphic organizer helps build metacognition and organize their thinking throughout the learning process.

Manipulatives

Learners at Hampton Middle School use cards to make their thinking visible by putting different synonyms with their vocabulary words.

Write on the Walls

Write on the Walls (or individual whiteboards)

Use individual or group white boards for learners to write out their thinking.

Resources

Inspired? Use the resources below to bring this learner-centered strategy to your learning community.

📺 Think-alouds
📖 Number talks in math
🧰 Project Zero thinking strategies for making thinking visible
📖 Graphic Organizers

Associated Learner-Centered Competencies:

Highlight the process of thinking: I use metacognitive strategies to model my thinking process and have learners think about and share their thinking.