Building a Culture of Thinking: Exploring the Levers of Mindsets of Effect

This New Workshop design brings together Dr. Ron Ritchhart’s seminal work on understanding how group, organisational, and classroom culture is built by leveraging the eight cultural forces with his latest research identifying the mindsets, believes, and values that drive a cultural of thinking and allow it to thrive. This workshop incorporates new, as yet unpublished, thinking routines and recent videos, which highlight how teachers a building a culture of thinking.

Effective teaching requires more than good planning and instructional design. It also requires attention to the social and cultural dimensions of the classroom in which those plans and designs are to be carried out.  This is particularly important as we think about the future of learning.  For new content, new technologies, and new methods to have a positive effect on learning, they must be fostered within a meaningful and receptive context.  Thus, creating a culture of thinking in today’s classrooms is more important than ever.  How can teachers build, foster, and support such a culture?

This New Workshop design brings together Dr. Ron Ritchhart’s seminal work on understanding how group, organizational, and classroom culture is built by leveraging the eight cultural forces with his latest research identifying the mindsets, believes, and values that drive a cultural of thinking and allow it to thrive.  This workshop incorporates new, as yet unpublished, thinking routines and recent videos, which highlight how teachers a building a culture of thinking.  In this workshop participants will explore:

• What is a culture of thinking?

• How can the cultural forces that exist in each classroom be leveraged to support and further develop a culture of thinking?

• How can educators use thinking routines to structure, scaffold, and support students’ thinking?

• What are the 10 Mindsets and core messages that underpin the effective development of a culture of thinking and which ones provide the best personal entry point for you?

• Why must and how can we make thinking central to students’ learning in our classrooms?

• How can we use both teacher and student questions to drive thinking and learning?

• How do we and might we further enhance the sense of Agency and Belonging in our schools and classrooms?

This workshop will draw on the books Creating Cultures of Thinking (2015) and Cultures of Thinking in Action (2023).  Participants may find having these books useful to continue their learning.

Host or Publisher International School of Amsterdam