In-Person Workshop

Culture is built on our values and beliefs and embedded in the messages we send. Thus, deep and lasting transformation must begin by embracing a set of beliefs about teaching, learning, and schooling that clearly center the development of students as thinkers and learners at its core. These beliefs and values constitute our mindsets. These mindsets motivate and guide our actions and provide the touchstones we need as we create places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted. When we scrutinize the mindsets we currently hold about teaching and learning and examine the research on promoting the development of curious, independent thinkers and learners; we position ourselves to be effective change agents who can develop a culture of thinking in our schools and classrooms.

In this workshop, we will explore:

• How can we create a culture of thinking for ourselves as educators? – Mindset #1

• How and why have the roles of teachers and students changed within the educational landscape over the years? – Mindset #3

• How can we enculturate the dispositions of powerful thinkers and learners? – Mindset #2

• How can spaces where students learn with and from one another in a supportive atmosphere? - Mindsets #4 & #6

• How can we create powerful learning opportunities that challenge, engage, and empower students? – Mindsets #7 & #9

• How can we promote, support, and advance students’ thinking? – Mindsets #5, #8, & #10

Throughout this workshop, we will look at the research behind each mindset and actively explore actions we can take to move us forward in whatever teaching and learning environment in which we find ourselves. It is precisely this combination of understanding the research and taking validating action that helps to develop our mindsets. Through minds-on, immersive activities we will experience and build a culture of thinking for ourselves while making our own thinking visible. In addition, we will explore ways to collect “Street data” that can inform out efforts to advance a culture of thinking in our own contexts. Before departing the workshop, participants will select on mindset that they would like to advance in their practice and develop an initial plan for how they might move forward.  

In-Person Workshop

Culture is built on our values and beliefs and embedded in the messages we send. Thus, deep and lasting transformation must begin by embracing a set of beliefs about teaching, learning, and schooling that clearly center the development of students as thinkers and learners at its core. These beliefs and values constitute our mindsets. These mindsets motivate and guide our actions and provide the touchstones we need as we create places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted. When we scrutinize the mindsets we currently hold about teaching and learning and examine the research on promoting the development of curious, independent thinkers and learners; we position ourselves to be effective change agents who can develop a culture of thinking in our schools and classrooms.

In this workshop, we will explore:

• How can we create a culture of thinking for ourselves as educators? – Mindset #1

• How and why have the roles of teachers and students changed within the educational landscape over the years? – Mindset #3

• How can we enculturate the dispositions of powerful thinkers and learners? – Mindset #2

• How can spaces where students learn with and from one another in a supportive atmosphere? - Mindsets #4 & #6

• How can we create powerful learning opportunities that challenge, engage, and empower students? – Mindsets #7 & #9

• How can we promote, support, and advance students’ thinking? – Mindsets #5, #8, & #10

Throughout this workshop, we will look at the research behind each mindset and actively explore actions we can take to move us forward in whatever teaching and learning environment in which we find ourselves. It is precisely this combination of understanding the research and taking validating action that helps to develop our mindsets. Through minds-on, immersive activities we will experience and build a culture of thinking for ourselves while making our own thinking visible. In addition, we will explore ways to collect “Street data” that can inform out efforts to advance a culture of thinking in our own contexts. Before departing the workshop, participants will select on mindset that they would like to advance in their practice and develop an initial plan for how they might move forward.  

Increasingly, we are recognizing the importance of the culture of the classroom as foundational for learning.  And yet, we often don't give teachers many tools for or understanding of how to create group culture that can foster deep learning and build understanding.   During the workshop, we will focus on the practical and concrete ways educators can create a culture of thinking in their schools and classrooms, foster the kinds of thinking opportunities that lead to deep understanding of content, and develop our skills of how to look for evidence of student thinking and understanding. This workshop offers a unique opportunity to explore the cultural forces of: interactions, modelling, environment, routines, language, opportunities, time, and expectations. Throughout the workshop, participants will use a variety of thinking routines to facilitate their own learning and explore how each of these can be used to create more thoughtful classrooms.

Participants will explore and build their understanding around:

• What is a culture of thinking? What does it look like and feel like?

• The role messaging plays in both understanding and shaping of group culture

• How can we assess, understand and shape the culture of our classrooms and schools to most effectively build a culture of thinking?

• How can we leverage the cultural forces, which exist in every classroom, to support and further develop a culture of thinking?

• How can educators use thinking routines to structure, scaffold, and support students' thinking?

• How can we better understand the role of  language in building a culture of thinking?

The Washington International School Summer Institute for Teachers (WISSIT): Connecting DC Educators with Project Zero Ideas brings together educators from all types of schools—traditional public, public charter, independent, and religiously-affiliated—as well as from community-based early learning centers, museums, and other educational settings, for the purpose of exploring ideas, pedagogical tools, and frameworks developed at Project Zero (PZ), a research group at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

WISSIT sessions have featured renowned Project Zero researchers Veronica Boix Mansilla, Edward Clapp, Mara Krechevsky, Ben Mardell, Ron Ritchhart, Sarah Sheya, and Shari Tishman, in addition to leading PZ practitioners from the DC area.

I will be a featured speaker at the 2024 International Conference on Thinking. ICOT attracts a broad range of participants, including business people, educators, artists, social and business entrepreneurs, government officials, scientists, designers, professors, students, researchers, scholars and thinkers of many ages from different countries and cultures and with different life experiences too. It provides a unique opportunity for them and you to participate in rigorous discussion and learn from one another and have a laugh together too. Participants at ICOT have the opportunity to broaden and deepen their thinking, build on ideas, meet people who are making a difference, make new connections, share ideas, learn from one another and move forward. At ICOT 2024 all this will be possible during and between sessions, at social functions, while exploring Melbourne on Learning Journeys, and at pre-conference events. The conference’s online space is also a place for meeting people and exchanging ideas and knowledge.

Project Zero Classroom 2024

I will be offering Keynote sessions and Mini-Course workshops at the weeklong Project Zero Classroom institute (PZC). The institute features research-based tools, frameworks, and approaches to instruction and assessment that deepen learning and understanding for all students. As a participant, you will explore ways to enhance student engagement, encourage learners to think critically and creatively, and make learning and thinking visible. Through a combination of presentations, interactive workshops, and small learning groups, you will have the opportunity to explore ideas and practices with PZ researchers, educators experienced in applying PZ ideas in their contexts, and fellow participants from around the world.

In-Person Workshop

Culture is built on our values and beliefs and embedded in the messages we send. Thus, deep and lasting transformation must begin by embracing a set of beliefs about teaching, learning, and schooling that clearly center the development of students as thinkers and learners at its core. These beliefs and values constitute our mindsets. These mindsets motivate and guide our actions and provide the touchstones we need as we create places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted. When we scrutinize the mindsets we currently hold about teaching and learning and examine the research on promoting the development of curious, independent thinkers and learners; we position ourselves to be effective change agents who can develop a culture of thinking in our schools and classrooms.

In this workshop, we will explore:

• How can we create a culture of thinking for ourselves as educators? – Mindset #1

• How and why have the roles of teachers and students changed within the educational landscape over the years? – Mindset #3

• How can we enculturate the dispositions of powerful thinkers and learners? – Mindset #2

• How can spaces where students learn with and from one another in a supportive atmosphere? - Mindsets #4 & #6

• How can we create powerful learning opportunities that challenge, engage, and empower students? – Mindsets #7 & #9

• How can we promote, support, and advance students’ thinking? – Mindsets #5, #8, & #10

Throughout this workshop, we will look at the research behind each mindset and actively explore actions we can take to move us forward in whatever teaching and learning environment in which we find ourselves. Through minds-on, immersive activities we will experience and build a culture of thinking for ourselves while making our own thinking visible. In addition, we will explore ways to collect “Street data” that can inform out efforts to advance a culture of thinking in our own contexts. Before departing the workshop, participants will select on mindset that they would like to advance in their practice and develop an initial plan for how they might move forward.  

Event Details

To develop engaged and empowered learners, we need to change not only the curriculum and our instruction, but also the culture of our schools. In this course, learn about why classroom culture matters deeply to what and how students learn, and analyze the culture of your own classroom, school, or learning context. Explore the cultural force of “language” and its power to shape students’ learning and thinking.

The constantly changing world in which we live requires us to rethink what a quality education means. It is no longer enough to develop compliant (and too often complacent) learners merely making their way through school. Today we seek to develop engaged and empowered learners ready to act thoughtfully and effectively in the world. To accomplish this, we need to change more than the curriculum and our instruction–we need to change the culture of our schools. But why does classroom culture matter so much to our students' learning? And how can we begin to change the culture of our classrooms and schools to more effectively support student learning and thinking? This course demystifies the creation of classroom and school culture through an examination of the process of enculturation. We do this by looking carefully at the various “stories of learning” that schools perpetuate. We then look at the “new story of learning” we want to make for our students and consider how the eight cultural forces can help us to enact that story. We conclude the course by examining one of those eight cultural forces - “language” - and how our use of language shapes in deep and subtle ways the culture of the learning environment that surrounds our learners.

Designer & Co-Instructor: Ron Ritchhart Senior Researcher at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education (1994 to 2021)

The Cultures of Thinking in Action course

This course builds on the ideas of Ron Ritchhart’s new book of the same name (2023). Developed and taught by Ritchhart and colleague Mark Church, the course offers you the opportunity to explore the 10 mindsets that support deeper learning and thinking. You will also develop your skill with tools that you can use to turn your classroom or learning context into a community in which thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted.

Building on Ron Ritchhart’s new book (2023), Creating Cultures of Thinking in Action, this course, designed and taught by Ritchhart and colleague Mark Church, supports educators to learn not only how a culture of thinking looks and feels but also how to create it for themselves and their learners. Building a culture of thinking in our classrooms and schools involves more than instituting a set of practices. As useful as practices like thinking routines and effective questioning can be, culture runs deeper. Culture is built on our values and beliefs and embedded in the messages we send learners both implicitly and explicitly. Lasting transformation begins by embracing a set of beliefs about teaching, learning, and schooling.

In this four-week mini course, you will:

• Explore the underlying beliefs that motivate the creation of cultures of thinking.

• Learn about the 10 mindsets all educators and leaders need to embrace in order to nurture powerful thinkers and learners.

• Develop action steps you can implement as you seek to turn your classroom, school, or other learning context into a community where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted.

• Learn how to look for evidence of student thinking and understanding.

As you work through each of the four sessions, you will receive feedback on your work from experienced practitioners selected by Ritchhart, Church, and Project Zero In addition, you will learn from Ron and Mark’s insights as they offer weekly video reflections.

Course Designers & Instructors

Co-Designer & Co-Instructor: Ron Ritchhart has been a researcher at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education since 1994. His research focuses on understanding how to develop, nurture, and sustain thoughtful learning environments for both students and teachers. Ron’s interest in “cultures of thinking” has led him to conduct research in areas such as intellectual character, mindfulness, thinking dispositions, teaching for understanding, creativity in teaching, and the development of communities of practice. Prior to joining the Project Zero research group, Ron taught for fourteen years in elementary and middle schools. In 1993 he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Secondary Mathematics Teaching. Ron earned his Ed.D. in human development and psychology from Harvard University. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including The Power of Making Thinking Visible (co-authored with Mark Church, 2020); Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools (2015); Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners (co-authored with Mark Church and Karin Morrison, 2011); and Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Get It (2004).

Co-Designer & Co-Instructor: Mark Church works throughout the world with schools that wish to create cultures of thinking in their classrooms. He believes in the difference teachers can make for students when they strive to make thinking visible, valued, and actively promoted as part of the day-to-day experience of their learners. Mark encourages teachers to become students of their students, and more broadly, students of themselves and the choices they make to leverage the power of making thinking visible. Mark is currently a consultant with Harvard Project Zero's Making Thinking Visible and Cultures of Thinking initiatives, drawing upon his own classroom teaching experience and the perspectives he has gained working with educators across grade levels and content areas. Together with Ron Ritchhart, Mark is co-author of the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners (co-authored with Ron Ritchhart and Karin Morrison, 2011) and The Power of Making Thinking Visible: Practices to Engage and Empower All Learners (co-authored with Ron Ritchhart, 2020).

What past participants are saying:

“This course has inspired me to become a better teacher; provoking students to think more deeply and creating a safe space where challenges are not seen as insurmountable, or the classroom seen as a place where students can fail.”

“This course actually changed my mind about the teacher's role in the classroom. The course’s 10 Principles are treasures for me to dig into.”

“Creating a true, authentic culture of thinking in a classroom and school is transformational. It changes the perspectives, the focus of class time, and the conversations between teachers and students.”

  $295 per individual on teams of 3-6 people. $375 for individuals without a team who will be placed on virtual teams.

Overview: The Cultures of Thinking Project is a global initiative under the direction of Dr. Ron Ritchhart, a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Learning is a product of thinking. If we want our students to learn well and develop understanding, we must create cultures of thinking that actively engage students in thinking on an ongoing basis. However, this isn't always an easy task. Schools and classrooms are not always set up to encourage thinking. Furthermore, by its very nature, thinking is a rather invisible and elusive process. How do we as teachers promote students' thinking, recognize it when it occurs, and make thoughtfulness permeate our classrooms? To create a culture of thinking, educators must work together to create a school environment whose structure and purpose actively encourage a high level of student thinking, both individually as well as collectively, and where the thinking of all group members is regularly promoted, valued, made visible, and pushed further as a part of the ongoing, shared enterprise of the group.   Goals: The CoT initiative considers education to be a social and cultural endeavor whose goal is the development of both the individual and the group as effective learners and thinkers able to engage with and adapt to a changing world. Within this context the most important assessment question we can ask ourselves as educators is:Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?

Since 2000, the Cultures of Thinking Project has worked with hundreds of public, independent, and international schools and museums across North America, Australia, and Europe to help transform schools, classrooms, and museums into places where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted as part of the regular day-to-day experience of all group members.

During the workshop, we will focus on the practical and concrete ways educators can create a culture of thinking in their schools and classrooms, foster the kinds of thinking opportunities that lead to deep understanding of content, and how to look for evidence of student thinking and understanding. Participants will be introduced to a variety of thinking routines: what they are and how they can be used to create more thoughtful classrooms.

We will explore such questions as:

• What is a culture of thinking?

• How can the cultural forces that exist in each classroom support and further develop a culture of thinking?

• How can educators use thinking routines to structure, scaffold, and support students' thinking?

https://chaptersinternational.com/mailer/dr_ron_ritchhart_CCT_8.html

Like last year’s WISSIT, we’ll offer simultaneous but separate in-person and virtual tracks! Registration and more details to come in early 2023.

At WISSIT, educators explore the research coming out of Project Zero (PZ)–an innovative leader in the domains of teaching and learning for over 50 years, located in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Each year, we learn with and from PZ researchers and a diverse faculty of outstanding educators from the Washington, DC, region.

WISSIT introduces PZ ideas and pedagogical tools and strategies and encourages ways to adapt them to participants’ own context.

The institute explores four key themes: 

(1) Building a Culture of Thinking: How do we develop dispositions that lead to thoughtful learning across school subjects, and beyond? How do we effectively create a culture of thinking, in classrooms and schools, that supports all learners?

(2) Learning Deeply with Museum Resources: What can we–educators and students–learn from objects, artworks and archival materials to deepen our understanding of, and engagement with, the curriculum? How can we leverage the unique museum resources that exist in our community?

(3) Encouraging Playful Learning, Creativity & a “Maker” Mindset: In response to the challenging times we are living in, how can play, creativity and making re-ignite joy in learning? How do they help us to be attuned to nuance?

(4) Fostering Civic Agency in Young People: How do we guide students to develop the capacity and desire to act in positive ways to improve the world around them? How do we lift up young people’s voices and ideas?

In 2023, our keynote speakers at the morning plenary sessions will feature Ron Ritchhart, whose work on creating cultures of thinking has resonated with educators worldwide and who has delivered the opening keynote for the last nine years; Jessica Ross, a Project Zero researcher in arts-integration and maker-centered learning who has returned to the classroom; and a wide range of local PZ practitioners.

https://www.pdcollaborative.org/initiatives/wissit/

Overview: The Cultures of Thinking Project is a global initiative under the direction of Dr. Ron Ritchhart, a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Learning is a product of thinking. If we want our students to learn well and develop understanding, we must create cultures of thinking that actively engage students in thinking on an ongoing basis. However, this isn't always an easy task. Schools and classrooms are not always set up to encourage thinking. Furthermore, by its very nature, thinking is a rather invisible and elusive process. How do we as teachers promote students' thinking, recognize it when it occurs, and make thoughtfulness permeate our classrooms? To create a culture of thinking, educators must work together to create a school environment whose structure and purpose actively encourage a high level of student thinking, both individually as well as collectively, and where the thinking of all group members is regularly promoted, valued, made visible, and pushed further as a part of the ongoing, shared enterprise of the group.   Goals: The CoT initiative considers education to be a social and cultural endeavor whose goal is the development of both the individual and the group as effective learners and thinkers able to engage with and adapt to a changing world. Within this context the most important assessment question we can ask ourselves as educators is:Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?

Since 2000, the Cultures of Thinking Project has worked with hundreds of public, independent, and international schools and museums across North America, Australia, and Europe to help transform schools, classrooms, and museums into places where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted as part of the regular day-to-day experience of all group members.

During the workshop, we will focus on the practical and concrete ways educators can create a culture of thinking in their schools and classrooms, foster the kinds of thinking opportunities that lead to deep understanding of content, and how to look for evidence of student thinking and understanding. Participants will be introduced to a variety of thinking routines: what they are and how they can be used to create more thoughtful classrooms.

We will explore such questions as:

• What is a culture of thinking?

• How can the cultural forces that exist in each classroom support and further develop a culture of thinking?

• How can educators use thinking routines to structure, scaffold, and support students' thinking?

https://chaptersinternational.com/mailer/dr_ron_ritchhart_CCT_8.html

Keynote: Creating a Culture of Thinking Right from the Start: 10 things to say everyday to your students…and why they matter

Breakout Session: The Power of Making Thinking Visible

https://s7.goeshow.com/sreb/msw/2022/index.cfm

I’ll be speaking on: Making Thinking Visible: A Look at Practices and Effects

Visit the Conference Web page to register: ow.ly/sHVL50HNmt6

Keynote address on: Cultures of Thinking in Action: 10 Guiding Mindsets

This plenary will explore the 10 key principles identified by the Cultures of Thinking Project as drivers of action in the classroom. These principles provide the touchstones we need as we create places where thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted.

I'‘ll be leading a master class on Making Thinking Visible as a Practice and a Goal on March 12-13 (depending on your time zone. All sessions are virtual. You can attend with a “free pass” or get an “all access pass” for the whole conference. https://www.toddleapp.com/ties/

Returning to Amsterdam and ISA. The site of the very first Cultures of Thinking Worksop. https://cdlt.isa.nl/events/creating-cultures-of-thinking

This workshop offers a unique opportunity to explore the cultural forces of interactions, modeling, environment, routines, language, opportunities, time, and expectations over the course of six sessions spread out over a three week period. Throughout the workshop, participants will use a variety of thinking routines to facilitate their own learning and explore how each of these can be used to create more thoughtful classrooms. Participants will explore and build their understanding around:

• What is a culture of thinking? What does it look like and feel like?

• The role messaging plays in both understanding and shaping of group culture

• How can we assess, understand and shape the culture of our classrooms and schools to most effectively build a culture of thinking?

• How can the cultural forces that exist in each classroom support and further develop a culture of thinking?

• How can educators use thinking routines to structure, scaffold, and support students’ thinking?

In their new book, The Power of Making Thinking Visible, researchers Dr. Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church share their research into just what difference using making thinking visible practices makes for students and teachers and how teachers can plan for plan to use these practices to maximum effect. When used powerfully, thinking routines not only provide teachers with a set of practices to engage students, but help advance a broader goal to create classrooms where students’ thinking is visible, valued, and actively promoted. This course will explore these ideas while engaging teachers in some of the new routines presented in the book.

4 x 2 hours interactive sessions with Ron and Mark over 4 days. Approximately 3 - 4 hours (in total time over the course) viewing, reading, and planning in between sessions in participants’ own time. Times depending on your time zone: PST 8:00 am | MST 9:00 am | EST 11:00 am | London 3:00 pm | Zurich 4:00 pm | Dubai 7:00 pm | India 8:30 pm
Each Session is for 2 hours.

Increasingly, we are recognizing the importance of the culture of the classroom as foundational for learning. And yet, we often don’t give teachers many tools for or understanding of how to create group culture that can foster deep learning and build understanding. During the workshop, we will focus on the practical and concrete ways educators can create a culture of thinking in their schools and classrooms, foster the kinds of thinking opportunities that lead to deep understanding of content, and develop our skills of how to look for evidence of student thinking and understanding. This workshop offers a unique opportunity to explore the cultural forces of: interactions, modeling, environment, routines, language, opportunities, time, and expectations. Throughout the workshop, participants will use a variety of thinking routines to facilitate their own learning and explore how each of these can be used to create more thoughtful classrooms.

The workshop consists of 4 two-hour sessions on Wednesdays in October. Time depends on your time zone: PST 8:00 am | MST 9:00 am | EST 11:00 pm | London 4:00 pm | Zurich 5:00 pm | Dubai 7:00 pm | India 8:30 pms

ACTIVANDO LA EDUCACIÓN

Reimaginar – reestructurar - reiniciar

Es el momento de activar un cambio. Necesitamos reimaginar, reestructurar, reiniciar la educación y reconocer al Perú como una gran escuela donde todos estamos llamados a participar.

Por ello, bajo el lema Activando la educación, CADE Educación 2021 presentará propuestas para formar ciudadanos y ciudadanas que construyan proyectos de vida que impulsen una sociedad más justa, inclusiva y productiva.

CADE Educación es el principal foro del Perú que busca generar propuestas innovadoras para la mejora de la calidad de la educación del país.