MAKING THINKING VISIBLE

Here's the link to an interesting though belated article, 'Making Thinking Visible', by Dr David Perkins of Harvard University.

What fascinates most about the article is the power of questioning during the process of thinking about an important issue, as he describes it from an educational perspective.

This is what I have captured:

1) Language of Thinking: What if? What if not? How else could this be done? What's the other side of this case?

2) Thinking Routines: What's going on here? What do you see that makes you say so?

3) Circle of Viewpoints: Think about what you have learned from looking across multiple viewpoints;

4) Powerful Questions: Asking ~ i) questions of exploration; ii) questions about making connections; iii) questions about making conclusions;

I like his concluding remarks:

"With persistent and ardent attention, all this can flow from making thinking visible. However, to get that far, one has to get past the problem of invisibility. A large part of the challenge is that the very invisibility of thinking is itself invisible. We don't notice how easily thinking can stay out of sight, because we are used to it being that way.

As educators, our first task is perhaps to see the absence, to hear the silence, to notice what is not there.

The Chinese proverb tells us that a journey of one thousand miles begins with but a single step. Seeing the absence is an excellent first step. Without it, the journey is not likely to happen. With it, and the direction and energy the realization brings, we are on our way to making thinking visible."