A vast array of PZ's work has explored the development of thinking, the concept of thinking dispositions, and the many ways routines can be used to support student learning and thinking across age groups, disciplines, ideals, competencies, and populations. Thinking Routines originated in PZ’s Visible Thinking research initiative. Over the years, researchers enhanced and expanded upon the original routines, and new projects developed new routines. Some of the larger PZ research projects focused on enhancing thinking include:
To learn more about PZ thinking routines and their background, watch this video introduction.
Background on PZ’s Visible Thinking
Project Zero’s broader work on Visible Thinking can be defined as a flexible and systematic research-based approach to integrating the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. An extensive and adaptable collection of practices, the Visible Thinking research has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning. The PZ researchers working on the first Visible Thinking initiative, including Dave Perkins, Shari Tishman, and Ron Ritchhart, developed a number of important products, but the one that is best known over two decades later is the set of practices called Thinking Routines, which help make thinking visible. Thinking Routines loosely guide learners' thought processes. They are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students' thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life.
Thinking routines exist in all classrooms. They are the patterns by which teachers and students operate and go about the job of learning and working together in a classroom environment. A routine can be thought of as any procedure, process, or pattern of actionthat is used repeatedly to manage and facilitate the accomplishment of specific goals or tasks. Classrooms have routines that serve to manage student behavior and interactions, to organize the work of learning, and to establish rules for communication and discourse. Classrooms also have routines that structure the way students go about the process of learning. These learning routines can be simple structures, such as reading from a text and answering the questions at the end of the chapter, or they may be designed to promote students' thinking, such as asking students what they know, what they want to know, and what they have learned as part of a unit of study.
PZ’s Visible Thinking research, both the initial project and the many projects that followed, makes extensive use of learning routines that are rich in thinking. These routines are simple structures, for example a set of questions or a short sequence of steps, that can be used across various grade levels and content areas. What makes them routines, versus mere strategies, is that they get used over and over again in the classroom so that they become part of the fabric of classroom' culture. The routines were designed by PZ researchers to become one of the regular ways students go about the process of learning. Routines are patterns of action that can be integrated and used in a variety of contexts. Educators might even use more than one routine in teaching a single lesson. Routines don’t take time away from anything else educators are doing; instead, they enhance learning in the classroom.
The thinking routines included in this toolbox are organized in four ways:
- By a small set of Core Routines that target different types of thinking, are easy to get started with, and are commonly used by teachers in many disciplines and with learners of many ages,
- By the way educators use routines during a unit of study, similar to the arrangement used by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (2011) (Introducing and Exploring Ideas, Digging Deeper into Ideas, Synthesizing Ideas),
- By the subject-area or topic the routines were developed to explore (Objects & Systems, Art & Objects), and,
- By the way educators use routines for conceptual exploration (Possibilities and Analogies, Perspective Taking, and Perspectives, Controversies and Dilemmas).
All routines use a common PZ template describing the purpose of the routine, offering potential applications for the routine, and often providing suggestions for its use and tips for getting started. The PZ research project responsible for developing the routine is noted at the bottom of each page along with the copyright and licensing information and guidance about how to reference the routine. Jump in and get started!
