The description of Mindset 5 from Dr. Ron Ritchhart’s Cultures of Thinking in Action comes from a quote from David Perkin’s book Smart Schools (1992), “Learning is a consequence of thinking. Retention, understanding, and the active use of knowledge can be brought about only by learning experiences in which learners think about and think with what they are learning.”
According to author Dr. R. Ritchhart, the mindset ‘Learning is a consequence of thinking’ offers a good reminder of why teachers and students “should care about thinking.” No matter how long educators spend building curriculums and designing lessons, it’s the disposition and what our students can perform after they leave our classroom that matters most. To help students build the skills and understanding they need to become effective life-long learners, we need to consider two key questions related to Mindset 5: Learning is a consequence of thinking:
- How are understanding and knowledge different?
- What types of thinking are needed to build understanding?
Before you jump into hearing more about what KnowAtom’s team thinks about Mindset 5, take a look at the detailed teacher discussions of Mindsets 1-4 in this online book club series.
Key differences between knowledge and understanding
With Mindset 5, Dr. R. Ritchhart asks readers to reflect on the importance of thinking in the classroom, and how a focus on thinking leads students towards gaining a better understanding of the subjects we teach. What are the distinctions that can be made between gathering knowledge and gaining an understanding? In this chapter, we find numerous examples and findings from cognitive science that show how thinking deeper connects to understanding.
The research is clear – students need to use new information to build a better understanding of it and come away from our classrooms with skills and knowledge that is useful to them outside of it. Researchers have found that when people don’t understand or can’t connect new information with their current knowledge, it is quickly forgotten. To understand, remember, and use new information, students need the opportunity to play with it, push it around, and think through and with it – not just hear it, memorize it, and repeat it.
If we want our students to be able to use the knowledge they learn in our classrooms in other contexts, we must engage them as thinkers, not as (what we talked about in an earlier chapter) empty vessels that we’re filling with facts and information. To achieve understanding that will linger on after the test and help students succeed outside of the classroom, we must push them to put their critical thinking skills to use.
Education researcher David Perkins drives home this point when he says, "Thinking is what brings knowledge to life, what puts it to work, what tests it against the standard of evidence, what mobilizes it to make connections and predictions, and what shapes it toward creative products and outcomes."
Building assessments that require deeper thinking
One way to bridge the difference between building knowledge versus understanding is through assessments. To ensure that we are requiring our students to think deeper and build an understanding of the topic at hand, teachers must evaluate whether their assessments require students to think.
What does that look like in action? Here’s an example from a first-grade classroom, during a reading of the picture book A Day in the City, which features illustrations of things going on in a city. The teacher asked her students what they saw on each page and a student noticed a man walking down the street reading a book. He shared emphatically that this was not something the man should be doing! Later in the book, this character barely misses getting hit by a car, slips on a banana peel, and crashes into a hotdog cart.
What are the types of assessments that this teacher could have used to see if her students were paying attention? She could have asked, “What color hat was the man wearing?” This example is a recall question that requires very low-level thinking – pay attention to the main character and share a fact about them. Instead, this teacher wanted to know what students were thinking and asked the student who identified the main character’s bad behavior early on a follow-up question: “Tell me more about what you’re thinking. Why are you worried about this man?”
This is a type of formative assessment that engages students to think deeper about the reading while they are in the middle of it. Now everyone is clued into the bad behavior. Together, this class of young students is making connections between the character’s actions, what happened to him, and how it could have been worse – for both him and for his fellow city dwellers. They learned that a small thing noticed early on can help you better understand a story. These young readers achieved a deeper level of understanding about the story by extending their reasoning. Compare these results to the students who were only asked to remember facts.
Helping students understand the importance of thinking in studying and learning
In this chapter the author also writes, “Research shows that studying for a test is most effectively done through thinking versus review, repetition, or memorization. Creating explanations, constructing new concept maps, and self-questioning have all been shown to be far superior to reviewing one’s notes or engaging in last minute cramming when it comes to knowledge retention, recall and application.”
If we know this to be true, why is it so difficult to make the leap to prioritizing understanding over sharing and memorizing facts – for both teachers and students? One challenge is overcoming the status quo, that students themselves often don't believe the quote above is true. Studies have shown that students think they learn best when being lectured to, taking notes, and then reviewing them. Students have been enculturated to believe that learning comes from collecting knowledge, not building understanding.
Part of this comes from the assessments students see in school. Testing students on low level skills (like recall) that don’t require them to develop or show an understanding of the subject matter minimizes the importance of thinking and understanding in their minds. One way we can change the game is by improving our metrics for success and requiring students to show mastery by demonstrating their understanding in contexts novel to them. Implementing formative assessments that give students the feedback they need when they need it, rather than waiting until the end of a unit, also helps them to achieve understanding and to identify the importance of thinking and “figuring things out” to understand them.
Making thinking visible in the classroom
How can we help students better understand the importance of thinking in their own studying and learning? One way is to make our own thinking more visible as teachers in the classroom. Here’s an example of that in practice – at the start of an activity, ask your students to identify the thinking moves they think they are going to need to use to complete it. In addition, ask them to explain their own thinking by asking follow-up questions that prompt them to go below the surface, reason, and wonder. Encourage students to make stronger connections between what they know and what they’re learning by reflecting on it together as a class.
By focusing on building understanding, rather than on sharing facts, educators can emphasize the important role thinking plays in the process of learning. We can provide more opportunities for students to show their understanding through hands-on investigations, small group discussions, and periodic check-ins with their teacher that require them to explain their thinking.
Knowledge, understanding, and standardized tests
One example of requiring students to think deeper can be seen in how we prepare for tests. What does that look like in practice? When preparing for a standardized test, a classroom focused on thinking might use concept mapping or engage in a group discussion that reflects on what they’ve learned. In contrast, a classroom focused on knowledge over understanding might be studying a list of vocabulary words.
What does this look like for parents who want to help their student succeed in a classroom that prioritizes thinking and understanding? Parents can also provide opportunities for students to use what they’re learning in action – by discussing it, challenging their knowledge of it, and asking them to explain it. While doing this, these parents model wondering and asking thought intensive questions.
How does a focus on thinking translate to better performance on standardized testing? One result may be less pressure on students and teachers when preparing for exams. Instead of cramming for a test by memorizing vocabulary terms and reviewing key concepts, a focus on thinking and understanding translates into doing and connecting. In action, this looks like reminding students about the tools they’ve learned to help them investigate, figure things out, make connections, and more. These students have the knowledge and the critical thinking skills, along with the confidence that comes from using them daily in the classroom, to figure things out on their own. This level of understanding provides a stronger foundation for students to excel in all types of situations – including on standardized tests.
Helping parents view the work of school differently
Parents play an important role in helping to change the focus to thinking in the classroom. But first, we may need to help them view the work of school differently than when they were students themselves. Educators need to communicate to parents that our classroom is not about the work of completing tasks, it’s about challenging students to think deeper and build an understanding that can be used outside of it. Remember that many parents experienced school very differently than their kids will today, and those who were high achievers did so by memorizing facts and building knowledge – not by thinking outside the box.
Here's one way we can explain the difference within the context of driver’s education. In driver’s ed, students can watch videos and read books. The understanding of how to drive a car, however, develops behind the wheel. Students can learn basic knowledge in the classroom, but they must perform it and interact with it safely in the real world to show proficiency. That’s why in the driver's ed context, students have someone next to them with access to a brake pedal to support their practice of understanding traffic laws.
Or consider learning how to cook. The difference between learning by listening to someone tell you how to cook versus cooking yourself is stark. Cooking students must learn by doing, tasting, testing, and mistake making. Those students are doing the heavy lifting by applying their understanding of cooking basics and their understanding evolves as their experience grows. If the cooking school only allows students to listen and watch, the teacher is the one doing the thinking.
The difference between who is doing the thinking in our classrooms is at the heart of the difference between knowledge and understanding. That’s because lecture-based, transactional teaching is not student-centered nor learning-centered. It doesn’t require students to think for themselves. Instead, someone or something is showing, telling, explaining, and demonstrating. The students are passive participants, which doesn’t encourage or require them to think.
Making students aware of the different kinds of thinking
“The word think is one of the most frequently used words in the English language, and yet it's not always clear what we're talking about… it's important to develop a robust language of learning and thinking that enables us to talk about thinking explicitly with kids…” writes Dr. R. Ritchhart.
When we describe to students what we mean by the act of thinking, we can help them better understand its importance. Dr. R. Ritchhart identifies eight thinking moves that are core to building students’ understanding, including making connections, considering different viewpoints, and wondering. What does this look like in the classroom? As teachers, we can try to do a better job of explaining the what and the why to our students by clarifying our own thinking. We can also model thinking moves like wondering, explaining, and going below the surface on things for our students.
In an example in this chapter, a teacher explains in detail to her students how they are going to examine the idea of bravery. “It's important to look at your own ideas and to share your own ideas, but also consider the different perspectives of others and that's going to enrich your understanding,” she says. Learning about the importance of discourse, how to be a good listener, asking great questions, and that it’s okay to consider different perspectives and then change your mind is happening more and more in our classrooms. When we give our students a chance to practice thinking critically, including defending their ideas using evidence and reasoning, we are helping them build the career and life skills they need to become life-long learners.
Giving students classroom tasks that promote thinking
When we think about what we want students to accomplish in the short amount of time they have with us, the value of those tasks must be on learning and thinking – not on doing and completing. When we are designing activities for students, they should require students to create, explain, perform in different ways, and ‘play’ with knowledge. Those are the tasks that promote thinking and understanding.
This goes against one of the main schools of thought still prevalent in our schools today. Many educators and students still think of school as work. Some parents believe that their student’s job is to “do the work,” just like they do every day in their own career. But if we think about a science classroom as engaging the scientists and engineers of the future – these are careers that are built on critical thinking. These professionals ask questions, wonder, challenge the status quote, collaborate, and respond creatively to different situations. Memorizing facts is not what makes a scientist successful or an engineer great.
There is still a belief by some that just doing work in the classroom inherently leads to value. That’s a myth that we can overcome by teaching our students the important role thinking plays in learning and allowing them the space to practice their thinking skills. By asking ourselves what the result of the work students do in our classrooms is, we can ensure that the tasks we set out are engaging students to think deeper and build understanding.
Modeling active listening and learning from different points of view
For teachers, one of the best results of creating a culture that is focused on thinking is the act of learning from and with our students. As students get better at thinking and engaging in discourse with their peers, it provides the opportunity for teachers to step back and let them do the heavy lifting. When a student provides an explanation that helps their peers come to a better understanding, these students are learning that there are a lot of different ways to think and to develop mastery. They are building confidence in their own thinking and reasoning skills.
One of the superpowers that we have as humans is our collective ability to work together, think socially, be responsive to our peers, and change our perspectives. When we give students the space to wonder, experiment, struggle, make mistakes, and learn from one another, we’re giving them the opportunity to see that the unique ways of thinking we each bring are beneficial to the collective group.
When we think about the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI in our lives, this example highlights what makes AI content highly detectable. When humans communicate about something complex, we make inferences, we pivot from one idea to another, and we pull our thoughts together based on connections and deeper understanding. That is part of what makes us human – the way we communicate and connect complex ideas and concepts with empathy. Computers still can’t do that, which we can infer to mean that while AI models have a lot of knowledge and can produce it much faster than humans, what they still lack is understanding and the ability to build understanding.
Routines, structures, and experiences that promote deeper understanding
“When teachers focus on students getting the correct answers or completing the assignment correctly, there is a tendency to over-scaffold the task in such a way that it is stripped of learning. In contrast, when teachers pay attention to students’ thinking, they are able to prompt the thinking students will need to be successful independently,” writes Dr. R. Ritchhart in this chapter.
We can reintroduce wonder into the classroom by identifying the types of thinking that are available to students and requiring them to practice them in practical ways. To do that, we must give them the space for wondering and show students that it’s okay to not understand. We have to build a community where it’s safe to ask questions, depend on peers for help, and enter into a discussion with, “I don't understand this, can you explain what you were thinking?”
In contrast, when we don’t focus on the wonder and the thinking, students feel like a classroom discussion is about showing what they know. The students who think they understand get all the airtime. But when we allow students to work together, wonder, explain, practice, build an understanding, and require them to show and explain how they got there – we’re allowing more opportunities for everyone to get involved. These types of robust discussions can start very early. When we ask kindergartners what is amazing to you, what are you wondering, what do you want to know more about – we can start them on a journey of wondering, thinking, and understanding.
Classroom routines that promote authentic learning
To think about routines, structures, and classroom experiences that promote deeper learning, we want to promote active engagement, collaboration, and hands-on experiences. We want to give students a chance to do the heavy lifting and require them to explain what they are thinking and reflect on what they’ve learned. Classroom activities and routines must allow students the time and space to come at a problem from many different ways, rather than providing or seeking a clear path to one right answer.
Classroom activities like Socratic dialogue, concept mapping, and hands-on investigations allow students to activate their current knowledge and connect it to what they are learning. This type of authentic learning puts students in the drivers’ seat as they transfer what they’re learning in class to respond to novel situations and contexts. When we require them to connect classroom learning to real-world experiences, we give more students an entry point into the discussion.
When students are leading their own learning journey, classroom routines and formative assessments are there to help support their success. Clear routines give students the confidence to take risks with their thinking. Teachers have more time to step back and assess the learning that’s going on. With formative assessments built into classroom routines, teachers can provide tailored feedback when students need it most. It's empowering as a teacher to see students respond immediately and incorporate feedback into their understanding in real time.
Teacher as facilitator and lab manager
When the thinking comes first, we’re encouraging students to come to their own understanding in unique ways. Classroom routines provide the signage along the way to help them stay on the road. The role of the teacher is more as a facilitator or lab manager in these classrooms. Routines help keep students on track and confident that they have the space to be creative. When teachers give their students agency, it shows that we believe in their ability. In classrooms where finishing the work is more important than getting to a collective understanding, teachers can feel like more of a gatekeeper to information than as a facilitator of learning.
Activities that engage students in authentic learning both honor the struggle required to build an understanding of complex topics and help them develop positive coping mechanisms to overcome obstacles. When we come back together to reflect on what we’ve learned; we can better understand the importance of thinking in learning. Formative assessments help identify when students are struggling and need support, but it’s important to allow them to continue to do the heavy lifting rather than saving them.
In contrast, the transactional model of teaching can feel more like a quiz show. If a task has one right answer and you get it, you win. If you don’t, you lose. This environment provides less opportunities for students of all levels to be curious and engaged. That’s when we have some students shutting down. Instead, when we create an environment where students are developing the critical thinking skills they need to engage with and understand new knowledge, and the routines they need to turn struggle into productive results, we can better encourage thinking in the classroom.
Building trust in your students and their ability to think and learn
As a teacher, do you find yourself over-scaffolding activities so that they don’t leave room for authentic learning. Do you find that you are always coming to the rescue when students are struggling? How can you instead build your own trust in your students and in their ability to think and learn? How do we effectively release responsibility to our students to take the lead?
The first thing to remember is that it’s not easy. Clear classroom routines are designed to help. But when we show our students that we trust them and believe in their ability, we’re giving them the confidence they need to do the hard work of thinking and understanding, rather than depend on us to do it for them. When we show students that they are deserving of our trust and the agency to conduct themselves in an appropriate way, whether that’s in using materials to design an experiment or in taking the lead in a classroom discussion, we’re giving them the confidence they need to accomplish their goals.
The opposite is true as well. When students have their agency taken away, that lack of trust and lack of empowerment can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of students misbehaving and acting exactly how we most feared. They are automatically pushing against the boundaries that we’ve set for them. Instead, when we believe our students are capable and show them our trust in their decision-making and in their own thinking, they respond instantly and palpably to that trust and can achieve more than we ever imagined.
