Just as toy drives will be occurring over the next few weeks and meals are delivered so that everyone may get a taste of Christmas cheer, why can’t we extend that to delivering some “educational cheer?” Making Thinking Visible (MTV) provides a number of helpful tips, strategies, and examples of teachers doing just that.
The most beneficial aspect of MTV, in my opinion, is the aforementioned list of strategies for clothing the invisible thinking so that the students’ knowledge may be brought to the forefront and in the limelight.
Of the strategies that I have already examined and took a look at, my favorite routine for introducing and exploring ideas would have to be the Zoom In method. Time and again, people, especially students, only look at things for their face value. The Zoom In approach gets the students to describe, infer, and interpret what they are seeing on based on exactly what they are seeing and then exposing them to the full image afterwards. This provides a different perspective for the students as they realize that there is more to the world than what meets the eye.
As we expose students on the journey to the real world, this realization that there is more than what is just being seen, their critical thinking will expand and be used in nearly every aspect of their life. Instead of just telling students what is going on, why not allow them to dig deeper and make their thinking visible?
Can you guess what the following photos are of?