Enabling a Culture for Thinkers with Ron Ritchhart

Ron Ritchhart has been a powerful advocate for educational practices that bring out the best in people, and creating places where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted. We sat down with him to discuss his research and thoughts on the current state of education.

Since 1994, Ron Ritchhart has been involved with Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, aiming to understand how to develop, nurture and sustain thoughtful learning environments for both students and teachers. His books Making Thinking Visible and Creating Cultures of Thinking have not only put out a call for action for schools to become inspirational environments that bring out the best in all learners, but they have also offered concrete strategies and approaches to make that happen.

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      string(345) "... building a culture of thinking, as they’re using the thinking routines, as they’re making thinking visible, that this should help develop students as thinkers. So that’s what we assessed. We didn’t assess grades, we assessed students’ development as thinkers. Very specifically, we looked at one area ..."
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      string(5681) "and certainly there are actions to take to move that forward, but they’re not something that you just merely implement. It’s something that is an ongoing process. People should always be suspicious of anything new that comes along that doesn’t connect to good teaching or doesn’t connect the practices of what we know about engaging students deeply in learning. So we sometimes search for novelty in education today, rather than searching for refinement. When a teacher wants to get started using the Cultures of Thinking, where do they start? And how do they know if what they’re doing is correct?Traditionally, a lot of time is spent in schools talking with teachers about curriculum, giving them curriculum. Sometimes teachers are engaged with the curriculum, but not nearly enough. A lot of times the curriculum comes from outside. A lot of attention is given to instruction and to giving teachers new instructional techniques. But there’s a third leg of that stool, if you will, which is culture. We don’t give teachers the tools or means to construct that culture. So again, since this isn’t something to implement, a teacher can start anywhere. Where they do have to start is by examining their own teaching and culture. If you were to try to encapsulate what culture is, it is embedded in the messages we send and so, it’s important to start by looking at the messages we’re sending our students and how we send those messages through these eight cultural forces. A teacher has to become reflective, observant and aware. When we work with schools, we often engage teachers in observations both through video in the classroom and through going into one another’s classrooms. We really look at those eight cultural forces in action to see how they’re actually playing out and how they are shaping the culture. That awareness then becomes a lever for how you might begin to do that practice in your own classroom. We’ve also found that there’s no order for these eight cultural forces. They all work together. Again, because it’s never a matter of inserting or taking things out and since they’re always present, a teacher could start anywhere. Some teachers become very engaged with thinking about the environment they’re creating, and often once teachers become aware of the research on language and the many subtleties of language, they become very captivated by how they might use language more effectively. We often start with thinking routines in schools and one reason for that is because they give teachers something very concrete to do and they help to put thinking on the agenda. This helps teachers become more aware of thinking in general and the thinking their students are able to do. What happens is, as teachers use routines, they become more aware of their language. They might also become more aware of the opportunities they’re creating, of their allocation of time, of the role of modelling. So, all of the other cultural forces to begin to come into play. The routines are a very useful way to start. So how can you assess what’s going on? Is there evidence that this works better or differently from other methods? And assessment is always a big issue in education. How do we assess this? Well, one of the things that makes Project Zero so impactful, so long standing, and such a rich place to work is that we don’t produce programs that are aimed at improving test scores or even changing schools. All of our research focuses on learning. How do we understand learning? How do we support learning? How do we move that forward? So to the extent that schools are interested in learning, we do that. We don’t design programs that are meant to have teachers do something that will then automatically improve test scores. But we have seen that when schools and teachers focus on building the culture in their school, test scores go up. We have seen this happen all around the world whenever teachers put their focus there. And that’s consistent with findings from anyone who works in the field of thinking—when you focus on thinking, when you focus on understanding, it does contribute to good test scores. So it’s not a program that you evaluate, because evaluation is based on people’s implementation of something. This isn’t something you implement. This is a reflective tool. This is a process. This is a journey that people go through. We do absolutely see that in no way does this ever cause test scores to go down, and in fact we’ve seen some really dramatic inclines and gains.  One area that we have very deliberately assessed because it is a goal of ours, is whether students are developing as thinkers. 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Creative Teaching & Learning

Leveraging Culture with Ron Ritchhart

8 Jan 2019

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      string(342) "... teacher’s head – or is one that privileges the exploration of ideas within a community of inquiry and forming one’s own judgments and interpretations.Ron Ritchhart is a Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Senior Research Associate and Principal Investigator of the Cultures of Thinking Project at Project ..."
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      string(4489) "question a teacher asks. However, Jim took students comments and ideas as the starting point for dialog. In the reflective toss, the teacher’s first goal is to try and ‘catch’ students’ meaning and try and understand their comments. If meaning can’t be grasped immediately, then a follow up question, such as, ‘Can you say more about that?’ or ‘I’m not quite following you, can you say what you were thinking in a different way?’ is asked. Once the meaning is grasped by the teacher, then the teacher ‘tosses’ back a question that will push the student to further elaborate and justify his or her thinking, both to the teacher and to oneself. For instance, Jim might ask a student, ‘What does that tell you then?’; ‘What do you think you were basing that on?’ or even the old stand by, ‘What makes you say that?’. The idea is to push the student to think further about his or her response. This strategy will be familiar to those who have used the Socratic method or Philosophy for Children program.Questions as Culture BuildersAll teachers want to ask good questions, the kind that can drive learning and elicit deep thinking. However, to truly harness the power of questions we must keep in mind that questioning isn’t an isolated enterprise or something merely to pencil in as part of a lesson plan. Questioning is the chief way in which teachers and students interact around content. They are the vehicles by which we direct attention, foster understanding, push beyond simplistic answers, and expose students’ thinking.Furthermore, we must recognise that the questions we ask as teachers exist within a larger classroom culture we are trying to create. In every instance, a  teacher’s question# is the outward manifestation of a much larger motive and agenda about learning, its purposes, and its processes. Consequently, the kinds of questions we ask and the way we respond to students’ answers communicate whether the classroom culture we are creating is one that promotes learning as a process of merely adopting the ready-made ideas of others – i.e., playing guess what’s in the teacher’s head – or is one that privileges the exploration of ideas within a community of inquiry and forming one’s own judgments and interpretations.Ron Ritchhart is a Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Senior Research Associate and Principal Investigator of the Cultures of Thinking Project at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education; 617-495-4898; ron@pz.harvard.edu.Author’s note: Some of the ideas and research reported here were developed with support from Bialik College and Abe and Vera Doravitch. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the funders. Some of these ideas were first reported in the book Making Thinking Visible (2011).ReferencesDillon, J. T. (1994). Using discussion in classrooms. Oxford: Open University Press.Nystrand, M., Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., & Prenergast, C. (1997). Opeing dialogue. New York: Teachers College Press.Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francsico: Jossey-Bass.Visible-Thinking-Team (2007). Visble Thinking Retrieved November 26, 2008, 2008, from www.pz.harvard.edu/vtVygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Zee, E. v., & Minstrell, J. (1997). Using questioning to guide student thinking. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(2), 227-269.Knowledge Trails1) What if heaven is full? – Encouraging the art of question-asking to get children thinking ‘outside the box’http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/whatifheavenisfull.htm2) Any questions? – A case study on what happened when an AST adopted a questioning culture in her classroom http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/students-ask-questions.htm3) Developing curious minds – Steve Williams suggests strategies for enabling students to ask good questions https://www.teachingtimes.com/developing-curious-minds/ 4) Questions – the key to unlocking potential – If someone could ask you a question right now about your own skills in developing others, what would that question be? Next to listening, questioning may be the most important skill for a coach. http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/coaching-teachers-potential.htm"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

The real power of questions

2 Mar 2012

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      string(5618) "Creative Teaching & Learning n Volume 2.148Conference 2011The 15th International Conference on Thinking is beingheld in Belfast from 20-24 June 2011. Its purpose is to bringtogether leading thinkers, researchers and practitioners todebate and discuss the nature of high quality thinking andlearning in a variety of real world contexts.The International Conferenceon Thinking in Belfast:A Preview ofthe Programme49Volume 2.1 n Creative Teaching & LearningConference 2011One of the primary reasons that the conferenceis being held in Belfast this year is becauseNorthern Ireland has been involved in amajor re-think about the aims and purposesof the national curriculum. The new Northern IrelandCurriculum (introduced in 2007) adopted a framework toexplicitly develop children’s thinking skills and personalcapabilities throughout the curriculum from ages 4 (EarlyYears) to 14 (the end of Key Stage 3). This is now a statutoryobligation. A distinctive feature of the framework is thatit integrates a range of different types of thinking skillsand learning dispositions (thinking and problem-solving,being creative, managing information) with collaborativelearning (working with others) and independent learning(self-management and taking responsibility). In the lastfew years, both primary and secondary schools have beenfinding ways to turn this statutory framework into realityin their classrooms. An important symposium in theconference will compare how different countries, with anational curriculum dedicated to enhancing thinking, haveconceptualized thinking-across-the-curriculum and havemanaged its implementation. The symposium will considercase studies from: Northern Ireland (Carmel Gallagher),New Zealand (Rose Hipkins), Israel (Anat Zohar) and Wales(Julie Addis and Julia Fardy).The title of the conference is Developing a Cultureof Good Thinking. When we decided on this phrase– “a culture of good thinking” – we had several points inmind. The conference wished to identify, recognise andcelebrate high quality thinking – that is, thinking thatis readily recognised as complex, involving uncertainty,requiring effort and so on. But the conference also wantedto broaden the scope of what might be considered withinthe realm of good thinking and to consider also a type ofthinking that was for the ‘greater good’ and that mightadvance the public interest. The conference wanted torecognise that good thinking does not happen in a culturalvacuum – that it needs to be valued, practiced and taughtexplicitly, and to be part of the ethos not only of schools,but also of homes, businesses and civic society.For these reasons the conference has a theme called,Thinking for Democracy, which has not typically beenincluded in previous International Conferences onThinking. In part, the theme reflects the Northern Irelandpolitical context, as a society that is emerging from 30years of internal societal strife. But also, the theme reflectsa wider concern about patterns of thinking and feelingabout participation, peace education and citizenship– which is at the heart of many democracies emergingfrom conflict. The Thinking for Democracy strand in theconference will be led by Professor Gavriel Salomon fromthe University of Haifa in Israel and who chairs a Jewish-Arab NGO dedicated to advancing civil equality betweenJews and Arabs. The theme will be supported by ProfessorBrandon Hamber who is Director of the InternationalConflict Research Institute (INCORE), an associate site ofthe United Nations University, based at the Universityof Ulster. Prior to moving to Northern Ireland, he co-coordinated the Transition and Reconciliation Unit atthe Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliationin Johannesburg. Additional contributions to thistheme will come from several eminent people who havecontributed to ideas and practices about peace buildingand community-building in Northern Ireland – MariFitzduff, Quintin Oliver, Claire McGlynn, Alan Smith andTony Gallagher. The conference particularly welcomesa workshop from the Spirit of Enniskillen Trust – a youthgroup who use peer-led dialogue to help young peopleto deal with difference.By far the most extensively represented strand in theconference is within the Education for Thinking theme.The conference committee was particularly committed(where possible) to include invited speakers and symposiathat represent the major approaches to teaching thinkingthat are recognized internationally: for example, Infusion(Bob Swartz, Diane Halpern, Carol McGuinness), CognitiveAcceleration (Philip Adey), Lateral Thinking and CORT(Edward de Bono), Habits of Mind (Art Costa, Graham Watts,Henry Toi), Philosophy for Children (James Nottingham,Robert Sutcliffe, Stephen Trickey), Building LearningPower (Guy Claxton), Thinking for Understanding, VisibleThinking (David Perkins, Karin Morrison, Ron Rittchart),Thinking and Learning (Lane Clark). Supporting theseinvited speakers are several symposia from educationalpractitioners who will show how these approaches havebeen implemented in classrooms around the world andtheir effects on students’ learning. Despite the differentapproaches, a significant and common finding is thepower of pedagogy. We are particularly glad to welcomeProfessor Diane Halpern to speak on critical thinking. Sheis the author of Thought and Knowledge: An Introductionto Critical Thinking which was first published in 1984 andis now in its fifth edition. Almost 200 contributions from 20different countries around the world explore researchers,schools and teachers"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

The International Conference on Thinking in Belfast: A preview of the programme

1 Jun 2011

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      string(4675) "It seems that Ofsted, the government’s official educational inspection and regulatory body, is starting to pay attention to the fact that the government’s obsession with exam results has created the disastrous outcomes predicted by teachers, researchers and educational experts, and they are creating a new inspection framework that will include a new ‘quality of education’ score that can then be monitored.1 According to a source for the Sunday Times, ‘Schools where teachers just think about how you get exam results and not what is best for the children to learn will be marked down. The chief inspector wants to shift a culture that is betraying a generation.’ This is a positive move, but the inherent subjectivity of qualitative assessments was what they were rallying against in the first place, so it is unlikely for real change to occur any time soon. What seems to be at the heart of the educational aims of all parties is that students should be given access to good quality content, have their talents nurtured, give them the skills and resilience to thrive in adulthood and to meaningfully participate as citizens in society. It is the how to accomplish this that becomes problematic and divisive. An important theme that regularly comes up in discussions of education, citizenship and future success is creativity, a theme that is close to the heart of this magazine. Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has now spent more than 50 years researching and promoting educational reforms that have creative practice at their core. In our next issue of Creative Teaching and Learning, we will be featuring Project Zero and highlighting some of their research contributions over the past 50 years. With its roots in arts-based education, Project Zero has been at the cutting edge of educational research, finding ways to connect cognitive psychology, problem solving, creative and critical thinking and brain organisation with educational practice. Their current research continues to explore the challenges facing education today and tomorrow. How can schools create access and personalise learning for a diversity of students? How can students develop 21st-century skills such as life-long learning, critical thinking and creativity? How can teachers recognise and develop each child’s full intellectual potential? These are all questions that the DfE is attempting (inadequately) to address, and they would do well to incorporate some of the answers being offered by the Harvard team in their next iteration of the educational plan.As a way of introducing the richness and importance of Project Zero’s work, in this issue we have three feature articles relating to the Cultures of Thinking (CoT) project led by Ron Ritchhart. Classrooms that employ a Culture of Thinking value and make visible both an individual’s and a group’s collective thinking and promote it as part of the every-day experience of all group members. For the first article, Jeff Watson and Roger Winn show how they changed their secondary maths and chemistry lessons to incorporate these values with excellent results. Secondly, Erika Lusky uses Ron Ritchhart’s research to demonstrate how language reflects our thinking capacity and show how this can be harnessed for meaningful results in the classroom, and finally, Julie Rains shows on how her primary school media classroom has benefitted from implementing the collaborative activities and reflective practices of the CoT framework.Another important feature of learning that Project Zero has spent time considering is that of assessment. They have noted that while assessment is essential to any learning process, it directly affects what is taught and therefore, traditional, test-based models are problematic. From their perspective, assessment is an episode of learning and that schools spend too much time judging children and not enough time trying to help them. At the core of their assessment practice is the belief that human beings differ from one another and there is absolutely no reason to teach and assess all individuals in an identical way. It is also important that students and teachers should be active protagonists in (not passive recipients of) the assessment process. This focus has been borne out through research and there is hard evidence that this approach to assessment is meaningful and that it works.2Jory DebenhamNOTEShttps://www.tes.com/news/ofsted-mark-down-exam-factory-schoolshttp://pz.harvard.edu/resources/looking-together-at-student-work-a-companion-guide-to-assessing-student-learning"
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Assessment

Time to Reimagine Assessment

10 Oct 2018