Social and Emotional Thinking Routines for Teaching in a Diverse, Complex, and Moving World

Developed through Project Zero’s Re Imagining Migration initiative, this educator’s guide introduces a set of Social and Emotional Thinking Routines designed to help teachers cultivate dispositions essential for learning and thriving in an interconnected world. Drawing on classroom research and field testing with K through 12 educators, the guide builds on Project Zero’s tradition of using micro teaching routines to promote deep, reflective, and inclusive learning.

The routines aim to develop five key dispositions for a world on the move: inquiring about diversity and complexity, understanding perspectives empathically, communicating across differences, recognizing inequities, and taking responsible action. Four routines—Creating Space for Learning, See Feel Think Wonder, Seek to See, and Same Different Connect Engage—offer practical strategies to foster mindfulness, empathy, perspective taking, and bridge building in classrooms. The guide concludes with an inquiry framework that supports educators in planning, documenting, and reflecting on their practice as they implement these routines to promote social emotional, ethical, and civic growth in students.