Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners

“There is a worldwide movement afoot to make the development of the intellect a priority for education in the twenty-first century.  This book will become a landmark in that journey,” Arthur L. Costa, Ed.D, California State University, Sacramento; coauthor, Habits of Mind series

San Francisco, CA – Research shows that most people are not aware of the strategies involved in their own thinking, which can negatively impact learning and lead to less self-direction and engagement.   That is why drawing students’ attention to both what and how they think is so crucial in the process of learning.  MAKING THINKING VISIBLE: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Independence for All Learners (Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint; April 2011; $29.95; Cloth; ISBN: 978-0-470-91551-6), provides a research-based, proven program for enhancing students’ thinking and comprehension abilities, helping them to go deeper into ideas.

Using accessible, easy-to-integrate, classroom-tested strategies developed by Harvard Graduate School of Education's famed Project Zero, Making Thinking Visible shows teachers how to unlock their students’ true learning potential.  Rather than providing a set of fixed lessons, the book outlines an approach usinga varied collection of practices that includes:

• Thinking routines to scaffold and support students’ thinking
• Effective questioning techniques
• Developing a group culture that supports thinking
• Documentation of student thinking

“Our hope with this book is to help teachers show their students how to take the intangible, or thought process, into the tangible and verbal.  That way they can better understand how they learn, which is a skill that will benefit them  in every aspect of their life, and will serve them well into their adulthood,” says author Ron Ritchhart, Ed.D

Making Thinking Visible utilizes strategies and practices from the Visible Thinking and Cultures of Thinking research and development projects conducted by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Using these practices, educators can create places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular day-to-day experience of all learners.   Learning is a consequence of thinking and must the center of educational practice.