Students name: Carina Lizeth Aquino Serrano

Career: English Major Degree

Module 6: Management of Technological Resources for the Teaching and Administration of the English Language

Title: Visible Thinking Summary

Date: April 4, 2013

Visible Thinking
Visible Thinking is a way of helping to achieve that without a separate thinking skills' course or fixed lessons. Visible Thinking is a broad and flexible framework for enriching classroom learning in the content areas and fostering students' intellectual development at the same time. Here are some of its key goals:

Deeper understanding of content Greater motivation for learning Development of learners' thinking and learning abilities. Development of learners' attitudes toward thinking and learning and their alertness to opportunities for thinking and learning (the "dispositional" side of thinking).

A shift in classroom culture toward a community of enthusiastically engaged thinkers and learners.

Visible Thinking involves several practices and resources. Teachers are invited to use with their students a number of "thinking routines" simple protocols for exploring ideas around whatever topics are important, visible thinking includes attention to four "thinking ideals" understanding, truth, fairness, and creativity. It emphasizes several ways of making students' thinking visible to themselves and one another, so that they can improve it. The idea of visible thinking helps to make concrete what a thoughtful classroom might look like. At any moment, we can ask, "Is thinking visible here? Are students explaining things to one another? Are students offering creative ideas? Are they, and I as their teacher, using the language of thinking? Is there a brainstorm about alternative interpretations on the wall? Are students debating a plan?" When the answers to questions like these are consistently yes, students are more likely to show interest and commitment as learning unfolds in the classroom. They find more

meaning in the subject matters and more meaningful connections between school and everyday life. They begin to display the sorts of attitudes toward thinking and learning we would most like to see in young learners not closed-minded but open-minded, not bored but curious, neither gullible nor sweepingly negative but appropriately skeptical, not satisfied with "just the facts" but wanting to understand. Visible Thinking is the product of a number of years of research concerning children's thinking and learning, along with a sustained research and development process in classrooms. One important finding was that skills and abilities are not enough. They are important of course, but alertness to situations that call for thinking and positive attitudes toward thinking and learning are tremendously important as well. Often, we found, children (and adults) think in shallow ways not for lack of ability to think more deeply but because they simply do not notice the opportunity or do not care. To put it all together, we say that really good thinking involves abilities, attitudes, and alertness, all three at once. Technically this is called a dispositional view of thinking. Visible Thinking is designed to foster all three. Another important result of this research concerns the practical functionality of the Visible Thinking approach the thinking routines, the thinking ideals, and other elements. Consider how often what we learn reflects what others are doing around us. We watch, we imitate, we adapt what we see to our own styles and interests, and we build from there. Now imagine learning to dance when the dancers around you are all invisible. Thinking is pretty much invisible. To be sure, sometimes people explain the thoughts behind a particular conclusion, but often they do not. Mostly, thinking happens under the hood, within the marvelous engine of our mind brain. Not only is others' thinking mostly invisible, so are many circumstances that invite thinking. We would like youngsters, and indeed adults, to become alert and thoughtful when they hear an unlikely rumor, face a tricky problem of planning their time, have a dispute with a friend, or encounter a politician's sweeping statement on television.