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.