Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM

13 Strategies for Making Thinking Visible in the Classroom

For many educators focusing on the process and not the product has been a gradual change. The pandemic has forced this shift rapidly and educators are gracefully embracing it in many cases. This requires a growth mindset and ideas and suggestions from supportive colleagues. Susan Riley’s Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM has put together a comprehensive list of strategies that you can apply (in person and/or remotely) in your classroom environment that will make your students thinking visible.

Why make learning more visible you may wonder? Critical and creative thinking skills are an integral part of teaching and learning, always have been part of arts education. I’m glad that other educators have gotten on board with this in this 21st century. One key for developing and assessing critical and creating thinking skills is to making thinking more visible. If we can see the process students are using to analyze problems, make predictions and draw conclusions, teaching and guiding students thinking becomes easier.

I encourage you to take a look at the ideas Susan Riley suggestions below to support your teaching and students learning.

1. Use Artful Thinking Routines
2. Try Close Reading of an Art Composition
3. Connect with Cooperative Poetry
4. Explore Ekphrasis Poetry for Vivid Language
5. Generate One Word Focal Points
6. Develop Collaborative Narrative
7. Sketch to Write
8. Create an Art Recipe
9. Design Haibun Poems
10. Perform a Human Slideshow
11. Build Summarizing Skills
12. Composing a Soundtrack
13. Produce Curriculum-Based Reader’s Theatre