A thinking routine is more than a good one-off activity. |
Routines exist in all classrooms; they are the patterns by which we operate and go about the job of learning and working together in a classroom environment. A routine can be thought of as any procedure, process, or pattern of action that is used repeatedly to manage and facilitate the accomplishment of specific goals or tasks.
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Thinking routines provide structures and scaffolds that must be deliberately activated, by the teacher at first (initial phase) and over time by the learner (developing phase), and then consciously deployed to achieve a goal (advanced phase).
They are simple structures, for example a set of questions or a short sequence of steps, that can be used across various grade levels and curriculum areas. What makes them routines, as opposed to a strategy, is that they get used over and over again in the classroom so that they become ingrained and part of the classroom culture. |
As you begin to use thinking routines to scaffold student thinking you may notice that the other cultural forces come into play also.
For example, a teacher may notice changes in their language and the way they begin to scaffold other learning experiences. This flows on to the creation of opportunities and in their interactions etc. |