If you haven’t read this, are you even teaching?

Among the many, many books I’ve read on teaching and pedagogy (it’s kind of my job), rarely have I encountered a “must read” text like this one. While I’m fairly certain that no book ever published qualifies as THE quintessential how-to-teach manual that every educator at every grade level in every discipline absolutely positively has to read, this one comes pretty darn close.

First, the authors of this book understand that there is no such thing as “good teaching” without “true learning.” To understand what constitutes effective teaching, they argue, it’s necessary to focus on learners. In one typically succinct and insightful statement, they argue, “coverage is the ultimate delusion of those who place the act of teaching (or presenting) above the act of learning” (p. 242). The authors also advocate supporting students through metacognition and reflection. Only by helping students understand and proactively practice specific thinking “routines” can teachers ensure that students are learning how to learn. Although the word “heuristic” never appears within these pages, that’s precisely what these thinking routines are—a variety of habits of mind and transferrable techniques that will assist students in the study of, well, just about anything. Each of the twenty-one thinking routines the authors discussed is essentially a variation of—as they readily admit—the essential question “What makes you say that?”

Most importantly, the authors explain—in clear, accessible language—the theory that informs their routines and describe practical ways for promoting the various routines. They also devote the final two chapters explaining the forces that affect a teacher’s ability to create the culture of thinking that characterizes successful constructivist classrooms: expectations, opportunities, time, modeling, language, environment, interactions, and routines. Bear in mind, the routines are not simply one-shot strategies to experiment with. They are templates that can help teachers create a metacognitive classroom culture that values the thinking and reasoning process.

This book makes me want to be a better teacher—and for that reason alone, I strongly urge every educator, trainer, manager, coach (and anyone else who helps others learn) to read this book. It will transform your teaching. ( )

Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, begun at Harvard's Project Zero, that develops students' thinking dispositions, while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.? Rather than a set of fixed lessons, Visible Thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines?small sets of questions or a short sequence of steps?as well as the documentation of student thinking.?Using this process thinking becomes visible as the students'?different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon.