Project Zero: Cultures of Thinking - 0 views
www.pz.gse.harvard.edu/cultures_of_thinking.php
#idt7078 #CulturesofThinking #projectzero #IndependentLearning
shared by REZA CHOWDHURY on 16 Apr 15
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Cultures of Thinking” (CoT) as places where a group’s collective as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all group members.
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Ron Ritchhart (2002)
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CoT project focuses
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eight cultural forces
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in every school, classroom, and group learning situation.
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language, time, environment, opportunities, routines, modeling, interactions, and expectations.
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scaffolds
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make their own thinking visible,
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this work doesn’t happen by teachers merely implementing a defined set of practices; it must be supported by a rich professional culture.
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a core premise of the CoT project is
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that for classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students
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schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.
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In 2005, we began our work at Bialik College by forming two focus groups of eight teachers with whom we worked intensively. These groups were all heterogeneous, including K-12 teachers of various subjects, representing a departure from traditional forms of professional development that target specific subject areas or levels.
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diverse range of teachers
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Team teaching efforts
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developmental perspective on students’ thinking
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In 2011, we published Making Thinking Visible,
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which captures much of the great work being done by teachers in the project.
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the CoT project’s research agenda
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sought to better understand changes in teachers’ and students’ attitudes and practices as thinking becomes more visible in the school and classroom environments.
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measures of school and classroom thoughtfulness to capture these changes.
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at how students’ conceptual understanding of the domain of thinking developed
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case studies of teachers
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Our research to date has shown that students recognize CoT classrooms as being more focused on thinking, learning, and understanding, and more likely to be collaborative in nature than those of teachers not in the project
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Teachers in the project notice that as they work with CoT ideas, their classrooms shift in noticeable ways. Specifically, they find that they give thinking more time, discussion increases, and their questioning of students shifts toward asking students to elaborate on their thinking rather than testing them on their recall of facts and procedures.
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Our research on students’ conceptual development found that
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over the course of a single school year, the average CoT classroom students’ growth and maturity, with respect to understanding thinking processes that they themselves use and control, increased by twice the normal rate one might expect by virtue of maturity alone (Ritchhart, Turner, Hadar, 2009).
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Recent data on students’ language arts performance has shown superior performance by students coming from strong CoT classrooms/schools on standardized tests such as the MAEP Writing Assessment (Michigan), MCAS ELA (Massachusetts), VCE English (Victoria, Australia), and IB English exams.
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The new book, Creating Cultures of Thinking,
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The book draws on case studies from teachers around the world to demonstrate the power and importance of each cultural force in shaping classroom culture.
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hese include frameworks and tools for professional learning communities, videos, and frameworks for understanding classroom questioning.
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Though the formal research phase of the project ended in 2009, the project continues through 2013 in a support phase to develop internal leadership and outreach around these ideas.
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he research ideas are also being taken up by many new sites, including Oakland County Michigan and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Funding: Bialik College (Melbourne, Australia) under the patronage of Abe and Vera Dorevitch
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Project Staff: Ron Ritchhart Mark Church (consultant)
