What is meant by thinking deeply?
Thinking deeply involves engaging in thorough and reflective contemplation, allowing one to explore complex ideas and connections beyond surface-level understanding. This process fosters critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation, as it encourages questioning assumptions and considering multiple perspectives. Deep thinking enhances comprehension, retention, and application of knowledge, empowering students to achieve greater intellectual growth and make more informed decisions.
Harvard Project Zero
The Harvard Project Zero has been around for a while now, and has forged an era of education where learners are encouraged to strive for depth in their learning as opposed to breadth. This is much more enriching for students as they pursue a valuable understanding of a topic and avoid being asked to just do more an more. There is also great emphasis on learners being self-reflective against a clear learning intention and a set of success criteria. The increasingly famous Solo Taxonomy is used to bring great terminology to this process. This will be detailed in my next blog post with examples of Star Wars and Harry Potter to keep it a run read! Click here to get to this post.
Another term for the goals of explicitly teaching Thinking Routines is “habits.” Good habits and routines in teaching create a structured and predictable learning environment, fostering a sense of stability and security for students. This consistency maximizes instructional time, and enhances student engagement. Well-established routines allow teachers to efficiently address diverse learning needs, promote a positive classroom culture, and model organizational skills. Enjoy the video provided by Harvard Project Zero to hear more about this topic https://pz.harvard.edu/projects/visible-thinking and head over to the Free Downloads section of ignitegeography.com to find my collection of Thinking Routines instructions to use in your classroom. Thinking routines posters can also be made from these.
Thinking Routines for Geography
The routines we have discussed so far are fantastic for many Geography activities. Teachers will need their own thinking and creativity about how to best apply them to their lessons. However, at Ignite Geography, we have the exact set of thinking routines for you to level up your classroom, precisely designed for Geography. Our video learning package and all of the downloadable resources available will have you bringing the power of routine that is tailored to our wonderful subject. You will find explanatory videos, populated proformas that are great for classroom displays and glued into student’s workbooks and blank proformas to use over and over for every new and exciting topic. You will also be guided to confidence through worked examples.
By joining us, you can start with the Ignite Geography Master Class then click away at all of the fantastic downloads and achieve a powerful habits classroom in no time at all! You will never look back once you have a visible thinking routine culture in place!
