Duration: 3 minutes 31 seconds

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Dr Peter Liljedahl

STEM is not a spectator sport, neither is learning. We need students to be actively engaged in meaning making not meaning made. The need to work collaboratively to find their way forward, to think to reason, and to learn.

To find their way forward, to think to reason, and to learn. Building thinking classrooms is a reaction to a recognised reality that the majority of our students in our classrooms are passively engaging in their learning, not thinking. Building thinking classrooms is based on 15 years of research on how we can transform these non-thinking spaces into thinking spaces, by changing the way we do the things that we do every day. By and large, the routines we see in classrooms today are a holdover from the 19th century post-Industrial Revolution model of education that were designed for the purpose of creating conformity and compliance. Our goals for education are well beyond that. Now we're talking about 21st Century learning skills. We're talking about critical and creative thinking. We're talking about equity. We're trying to achieve different goals. We need to use different practices.

So, in order to build a thinking classroom, we have to think about how we transform every aspect of teaching and learning in the classroom. So, there are 14 different core routines that we engage in the teaching practice. No matter what kind of a teacher we are. We all use tasks. We all create groups to some extent. We all answer questions. We have students work somewhere on a workspace. We launch tasks, we consolidate learning. We give homework. We have students write notes. We do formative and summative assessment. These are core routines that every teacher does. If we want students to think, we have to reimagine, we have to revisit how we enact each of those core routines.

How can we enact them so that we maximise student thinking? And it turns out my research has found these things and some of them are radical departures from what we're used to. We're used to having students sitting down, in a thinking classroom they're standing up. We're used to having students writing on paper, in a thinking classroom, they're writing on a whiteboard. We're used to having students either be strategically group or self-selected into groups. We're randomly grouping them. They're used to us answering their questions. We're trying to redirect their questions. They're used to us using accountability measures to ensure that they do their notes and their homework and their assessment. And we're trying to shift this more to a responsibility way of thinking.

So, where do we start if we want to build a thinking classroom? Well, the first place to go to is the research. And the research is conveniently bundled in a book "Building Thinking Classrooms." Beyond that, is to tap into the rich resources that exist in community of teachers already building thinking classrooms. My favourite go-to for that is the Building Thinking Classroom Facebook groups. There are over 35 of them. They are the main one has almost 50,000 teachers in it. Incredibly nurturing environments of teachers who are supporting each other as they're trying to enact these 14 practices to build a thinking classroom.

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