Cultures of Thinking

Building a Culture of Thinking at OLPS

We define “Cultures of Thinking” (CoT) as places where a group’s collective, as well as individual thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular day-to-day experience of all group members. Ron Ritchhart (2002)

It is important to note that Ron Ritchhart maintains that it can take up to two years to establish a true Culture of Thinking in a school.

The Six Key Principles of the CoT Project:

  • Skills are not sufficient: we must also have the disposition to use them.
  • The development of thinking and understanding is fundamentally a social endeavour, taking place within the constant interplay between the group and the individual.
  • The culture of the classroom teaches.  It not only sets the tone for learning, but also determines what gets learned.
  • As educators, we must strive to make student’s thinking visible.
  • Good thinking utilizes a variety of sources and is facilitated by the use of external tools to “download” and “distribute” one’s thinking.
  • For classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students, schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.
Cultures of thinking