Visible Thinking Routines Bring Inquiry Alive

Collaborative learning is a practice we engage in to promote inquiry. We believe that student talk leads to a more complex understanding of the concepts we are exploring. Students learn through verbalizing/recording their ideas and observations and from the ideas and observations of their peers. These thoughts interact to broaden understanding, build perspective, and give depth to our own thinking. One way to build these conversations into our classroom is to practice Visible Thinking Routines from Harvard's Project Zero. These routines promote thinking by building upon shared understandings through dialogue and questioning.

This week in 3rd grade students in each class engaged in a thinking routine called: See, Think, Wonder. This is a routine designed to engage students in observational skills and inferring in order to think about what we see on the surface and what we can conclude and wonder about as a result of those observations. 3rd grade launched their Sharing the Planet unit and are beginning to explore ecosystems and the ways organisms interact within them. They are looking to investigate the factors that impact communities within ecosystems. As a way to formatively assess what students know about ecosystems and its components, each teacher engaged in a version of See, Think, Wonder.
Students were given the opportunity to look at a variety of ecosystems and record and share what they saw and how this made them think about (draw conclusions) what their observations meant for the ecosystem (i.e. it looks like a drought, I wonder if this has impacted what grows or lives there). Students took turns discussing with their peers and drawing conclusions about their thinking.
Visible Thinking Routines are a powerful way to engage students with images and texts and go beyond the immediate and obvious information. Check out Project Zero's page to learn more!