What is Cultures of Thinking?

Cultures of Thinking (CoT) is a research-based framework and philosophy that our teachers and
staff are using to activate students thinking to build understanding. Cultures of Thinking
creates inquiry-based learning and engages students in higher-level thinking skills.
How did Cultures of Thinking come
about?
The Harvard Graduate School of Education with Project
Zero, developed the philosophy and framework of
Cultures of Thinking with the Leadership of Ron Richart.
The 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. 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.
What is Visible
Thinking?
Visible Thinking consists of
more than 20 routines or
learning activities which
are used according to the
type of thinking the teacher
wishes to elicit from the
students.
The types of thinking are:
Introducing and
Exploring Ideas
Synthesizing and
Organizing Ideas
Digging Deeper
into Ideas

What are the benefits when we do Visible
Thinking routines in class?
We are able to focus on the individual student as well as the
collective thinking and collaboration of the entire class.
It allows for natural differentiation by following students
interests throughout units of study.
We are able to concentrate on teaching for understanding,
rather than for the sake of memorizing and repeating.
It requires active participation by all students and invites our
learners curiosities to help drive instruction.
It provides a tangible view of our students thinking.
Misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and
degrees of understanding are more likely to be uncovered.
Student work is documented and reflected on, to make
students more aware of thinking
Our school is proud to
participate in a training
cohort with Oakland Schools
and will be learning even
more on how to create a
Culture of Thinking! We talk
about it formally monthly at
staff meetings and
informally with colleagues.
Some school districts in the
area using Visible Thinking
are Bloomfield Hills,
Rochester, and Clarkston.