KEYNOTE SPONSORED BY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS SERVICES

Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master
to Truly Transform Our Schools

9:00-10:00, Keynote
Effective teaching requires more than good planning and instructional design. It also requires attention to the social and cultural dimensions in which those plans and designs are to be carried out. However, we tend to treat group culture as something that naturally emerges from the group rather than as something educators/leaders can understand, assess, shape and improve.

For the past decade, researchers from Project Zero’s Culture of Thinking (CoT) initiative have worked with teachers around the world to create classroom cultures where thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.

In this plenary, Dr Ritchhart will explore why culture matters in the learning process and share insights from the CoT initiative’s research and development work to help us better understand what it takes and what it means to create a culture of thinking for the students in our classrooms and teachers in our schools.

10:00-10:30 Coffee Break

10:30-11:15 Team Discussions
“For classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students, schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.” In this post-keynote session Dr. Ritchhart will invite school teams to consider opportunities to understand, assess, shape and improve their school cultures to ensure that thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.

11:15-12:00 Plenary Session - Closing Reflection Panel

Leading a Culture of Thinking and Supporting Change

This session will explore the four key areas that leaders—teacher-leaders, curriculum specialists, heads of department and principals—need to attend to in supporting change.

We will discuss some of the successful practices schools around the world have employed and identify some of the challenges that arise as a school embraces the idea of becoming a culture of thinking.

Language and Discourse in the Cultures of Thinking Classroom

How do conversation, language and discussion in a “culture of thinking” classroom differ from the notion of a traditional classroom? How do we understand effective discourse patterns, versus ineffective ones, so that we as teachers can better foster powerful learning communities?

This workshop will focus on current research conducted by the Cultures of Thinking research team at Project Zero in the area of discourse. Drawing on current work in the field, this session will allow you to examine practices that can help teachers at all grade levels and across subject areas to create a culture of thinking and that encourages deep understanding in students.

We will explore the way educators can use Thinking Routines designed to facilitate thinking while structuring the discourse of the classroom.

Save paper and effort where possible!

For your convenience, and to support our efforts in being "green", all handouts/files posted here have been notated with an A, B, C or D indicating the following:

(A) hardcopies needed at workshop
(B) electronic version on laptop is sufficient (for viewing during the workshop)
(C) required reading PRIOR to the workshop
(D) file not needed for workshop itself, but simply material of additional interest/reference

Workshop 1

(B) Resources

Workshop 2

(B) Resources

(B) Articles from Harvard Graduate School of Education