Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners

A proven program for enhancing students' thinking and comprehension abilities

Visible thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, begun at Harvard's Project Zero, that develops students' thinking dispositions while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.

Rather than a set of fixed lessons, visible thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines, small sets of questions, or a short sequence of steps as well as the documentation of student thinking.

Using this process, thinking becomes visible as the students' different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed, and reflected upon.


- Helps direct student thinking and structure classroom discussion
- Can be applied with students at all grade levels and in all content areas
- Includes easy-to-implement classroom strategies



Making Thinking Visible is skillfully narrated by Douglas James. The audiobook is accompanied by a supplementary PDF, which includes links to video clips featuring visible thinking in practice in different classrooms.

©2011 Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison. Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.