Differentiating Thinking Routines

This year at Chapman, we do not have monthly staff meetings. Instead, our administration has put us in groups of about 10 teachers that cover almost every teaching area here at Chapman. These groups have been given the freedom to examine our own pedagogy and collaboratively develop topics of study that will benefit all of the teachers in our groups.

 The group of teachers that I am facilitating has identified the following through-line questions that will guide our professional development this year:



One concern around thinking routines and the culture of enrichment that we have heard a lot is the feeling that thinking routines often rely on communication (or other) skills that not all of our students possess. For our November meeting, our group focused on ways of differentiating thinking routines to increase the inclusion of all learners.

Each educator in the group focused on one student who they often find themselves differentiating for (a student who is gifted, a student with a disability, a student learning English for their first time, etc.). As we watched video examples of thinking routines, each educator identified difficulties that the thinking routine might present their students.

The entire group then worked collaboratively to brainstorm ways to differentiate the thinking routine so that all of the concerns brought up for each individual student were addressed. I am taking the different possibilities for differentiation and formatting them into documents that can be available to other educators. Check out our document for how to differentiate See-Think-Wonder below!



These documents, as well as other resources for creating a culture of thinking, will be available on my Weebly, www.acescultureofthinking.weebly.com.