Professional Development

Develop your understanding of the central ideas behind Visible Thinking. Learn a focused selection of thinking routines and how to effectively implement them across subjects and settings. Through exploration of research and hands-on practice, you'll discover how thinking routines are powerful tools and structures for developing patterns of thinking behavior.  

To develop engaged and empowered learners, we need to change not only the curriculum and our instruction, but also the culture of our schools. In this course, learn about why classroom culture matters deeply to what and how students learn, and analyze the culture of your own classroom, school, or learning context. Explore the cultural force of “language” and its power to shape students’ learning and thinking.
 

With the growing popularity of Thinking Routines has come the opportunity to research the impact they have on teaching, learning, and schooling. In this course, learn how the most effective teachers use thinking routines for maximum impact by employing the core practices of listening, questioning, and documentation. Develop a better understanding of the power of thinking routines, for both teachers and students, as well as practical strategies for amplifying their benefits in classrooms and other learning contexts.

Effective teaching requires not only good planning and thoughtful instruction, but careful attention to classroom culture. In this mini course, learn about the eight cultural forces, with a special focus on four of those forces (modeling, opportunities, interactions, and environment) and how to leverage them to create cultures that support students in deep learning and thinking. Reflect critically on your own work as an educator while acquiring new tools, practices, and principles that will help you promote the deep learning of your students.

Delve further into the core principles of Visible Thinking, emphasizing its power to cultivate not only essential thinking skills but also thinking dispositions in students. Through the continued exploration of an expanded set of thinking routines, participants will learn practical strategies for empowering students to develop lasting thinking habits, leading to deeper content understanding and a more thoughtful approach to learning.

The Cultures of Thinking in Action course builds on the ideas of Ron Ritchhart’s new book of the same name (2023). Developed and taught by Ritchhart and colleague Mark Church, the course offers you the opportunity to explore the 10 mindsets that support deeper learning and thinking. You will also develop your skill with tools that you can use to turn your classroom or learning context into a community in which thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted.
 

Play is central to how children learn. Yet incorporating play into a formal school setting can be challenging because the nature of play and the nature of school are often at odds. This course, based on the frameworks developed in PZ’s “Pedagogy of Play” project, (funded by the Lego Foundation) introduces core principles and practices of playful learning and gives you the opportunity to design and try out a playful learning approach in your own context.