Making Thinking Visible Log

Abigail Hancock (Those Five Chickens)

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bluiett

Date

Write-up

2/22/16 12:15 p.m.

In our meeting today we discussed the first 2

chapters of the book Making Thinking
Visible. Lynn and I both led this book talk.
Our group had a really good discussion and
we all talked about what we do and do not see
in our classroom placements this semester. I
really like the idea of actually seeing students
thinking. I had never thought about this
before and how there are ways to make
student thinking visible. I think the strategies
we are going to learn about will be very
helpful.
We discussed chapters 3 and 4 today and
Abby led this discussion. I really enjoyed
when we began discussion the different
routines. We all shared one that we liked the
best and how we thought we might be able to
incorporate one of these into our unit. The
one I really liked is called Zoom In. I plan on
using this in my unit when I discuss the Little
Rock Nine because I think the students
responses to the picture will change the more
I zoom out of the picture.
Today we took our MTV meeting to Chipotle
after class at Trace, and we ate outside which
made it a great atmosphere to discuss the
book. Amanda led the discussion on chapters
5 and 6 today which were full of more
routines to use with the class. We talked about
specific routines we had put in our lessons
since our lesson outlines were just due. One
of the ones I am using is the one called
Headlines. I am going to use this to engage
my students in the culminating lesson by
having them create a headline for the Civil

3/9/16 12:30 p.m.

3/16/16 12:00 p.m.

4/11/16 12:35 p.m.

Rights Movement. We also discussed how

these routines can be used outside of the
classroom in situations such as camps.
Emily led our final discussion today on
chapters 7 and 8. Todays discussion was
different because this is our only meeting we
have had when we are not at Trace, so we
talked a lot about our new placements and
how we do not see a lot of making thinking
visible in these environments. We also talked
about what we would put on a bulletin board
if we could only have one in the classroom
and we all agreed that we would want to
showcase the students and their work on it. I
loved learning about these routines and that
this book gives me a whole new resource of
ways to teach and engage students in new
material, as well as help me see what they are
thinking!