Some years ago I was introduced to a rather wonderful book by a colleague. In his book, Intellectual Character; What it is, Why it matters, and How to get It, Ron Ritchhart talks passionately about the need to create a culture of thinking in our classrooms and schools, to make thinking visible and accessible. His philosophy really struck a chord with me and I was forced to reflect long and hard about much of my teaching practice. I came to the conclusion that I was guilty of a common error; I equip my students with a beautiful ‘tool box’ of skills and knowledge but many of them are tools that my students will probably never use – in some cases the ‘tool box’ may never be opened again after they have left the education system.I muddled along for a year or so and was pleased with the resulting changes in my teaching practice. My students were more enthusiastic about their learning and this was particularly evident in my numeracy program. I managed to create a classroom culture that celebrated original thinking, which allowed all students to ‘have a go’, which removed the fear factor common in so many maths classes. Through open-ended problem solving my students developed the confidence to share their mathematical thinking, to be challenged by their peers and to justify their solutions. The classroom was a vibrant, noisy place filled with discussion and debate. I suddenly had a room full of kids who felt really excited about their learning. This came from giving my students the time to explore, to ask questions, to trial strategies and test hypotheses; by allowing failure and encouraging further exploration. One of my biggest successes was a girl in my class, (I’ll call her Emma), who was literally terrified of maths. At the start of the year I only had to mention the word ‘maths’ and she would burst into tears, put her head on her desk and wail, “I can’t do it! I hate it!” By the end of second term maths was her favourite subject. Emma reveled in the opportunities to ask all those questions that had puzzled her for years: “Why do we need fractions?” “How do I know what to do with the numbers?” She stopped asking me, “Is this wrong?” and started saying things like: “I thought I’d try it this way and it worked!”One problem I posed came from my husband’s on-going battle with the large wallaby population where we live:

The students tackled this problem in an amazing variety of ways. Some drew diagrams showing the possible dimensions of the vegetable patch. Others started by setting out blocks in different arrays and quite a few students were able to quickly identify a pattern and completed the calculations without the use of blocks or diagrams.Emma’s strategy was delightful! She used cm squared paper to draw up some scale versions and was fairly sure she’d found the best option, but was not totally convinced. She came and asked me for “…a big ball of string and a very long tape measure.”We raided the maths resource room for the necessary equipment and off she went, out onto the school oval and proceeded to measure out Tim’s vegetable garden. Once she had

Tim wants to plant a vegetable garden but we have a lot of trouble with wallabies eating everything we plant. He has bought a 60m roll of very expensive wallaby-proof fencing wire to fence in an area of land where we can grow vegetables. What is the largest possible area he can fence in with his 60m roll of wire?

the string pegged into place and she was happy with her solution she decided that she should mark out the garden beds, pathways, even a space for a compost bin. Three months earlier Emma would have gazed bleakly at this problem and wouldn’t have had a clue where to start. She would have been unable to tell me what the term ‘area’ meant and would have really struggled to visualize a 60m length. And now here she was, ‘garden’ in place, measurements accurate, confidently showing the rest of the class her creation and explaining the lay-out of the beds: “I’ve made the pathways 60cm wide so Tim can fit his wheelbarrow.” (See Figure 1)

Figure 1. Tim’s vegetable garden

By the end of that year I knew I was on the right track. I had a ceremonial burning of the vast piles of now redundant maths worksheets that I had collected over the years and started hunting for more of Ritchhart’s work. I hit the Project Zero website and discovered the vast amount of research that has been done over the last four decades exploring the many issues around Thinking and Learning.In 2006 the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme offered a professional learning course on Visible Thinking, run by the guru himself – Dr Ron Ritchhart! I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the program and have spent six sessions with this amazing man, exploring the use of thinking routines in the classroom. Ron is a polite, civilized, unassuming man; one of those truly remarkable people who can see things that have been staring us in the face for so long, put them into words and leave you wondering: “Why didn’t I think of that?”Ron has devised a large number of thinking routines. They are just that – routines not ‘activities’. They are designed to become quickly embedded, part of your daily teaching and learning practice. They have few steps, are easy to teach and easy to learn.The first routine I decided to test drive is called ‘Think, Puzzle, Explore.” It is an excellent routine for kick starting a new topic or concept.This particular cohort of Grade 6 students was a lively, rowdy bunch with some ‘interesting’ characters that sorely tested my patience at times. I had planned a unit called

“What’s in a Shape?” investigating shape and spatial concepts. I was very proud of this unit; it had clearly stated understanding goals, addressed curriculum requirements and contained lots of open-ended tasks that should quickly engage students. Armed only with some butchers paper and wads of multi-coloured sticky notes I took a deep breath and attempted my first thinking routine with the class.

We then proceeded to discuss what had been written – and what an eye-opener! Almost every student had written down 2D and 3D shapes as something they already knew about. However when asked to explain what those terms meant it was a whole different story. Their understanding of those terms was that 2D meant flat, like a piece of paper, and 3D meant round, like a pencil. This led to a lengthy discussion and note to self to give opportunities to explore the concepts involved.Some of the puzzles they had were ‘thin’ questions such as, “How many different shapes are there in the world?” But others were very ‘fat’ questions: “Does air have a shape?” “Does water have a shape?” “What shape is the sky?”It was at this point that I mentally sent my beautifully planned unit of work to the incinerator with the redundant worksheets. There were huge gaps in the understanding of these students. There were huge scientific and mathematical concepts to be explored. I had uncovered so many misunderstandings and misconceptions that it took a whole term to delve into shape and spatial concepts and we barely scratched the surface. But I bet those students will remember the discussions, the exploration and the discoveries we made!

Think, Puzzle, Explore…Step one: On a sticky note write down some things you think you already know about the topic - shape.Step two: On a sticky note write down some things that puzzle you about the topic- shape.Step three: On yet another sticky note write some things that you would like to explore further about this topic.