My school has entered into a Cultures of Thinking Rounds partnership with Mark Church and Ron Ritchhart (authors of Making Thinking Visible and connected to Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education). This is a hybrid profesional learning model based on the Cultures of Thinking work and Instructional Rounds.

The aim is to strengthen our efforts to create a school-wide culture of thinking, specifically by providing a structured way to receive feedback from critical friends, and our school has been paired up with Pymble Ladies College for this purpose.

Our school team is drawn from three departments and these three teams have been considering their targets of advancement (puzzles that they have about the development of thinking in their students). Their three puzzles that have emerged are as follows:

Prep – If we modelled how to pose probing questions and provided opportunities for groups to work towards a common goal, would our students move beyond surface learning and engage in deeper thinking?

Science – If we adjust the types of questions we ask, would deep thinking/thoughts be encouraged in our students along with student discussion of ideas?

Maths – If we give students opportunities to get stuck, model how to get unstuck and make potential pitfalls explicit, will students develop greater independence when solving problems in Mathematics?

The next steps are for us to visit PLC and observe their teaching through the Rounds process, helping them document and progress towards solutions for their own puzzles. The PLC teachers will then come to our school and reciprocate.

I think this might be the best professional learning model I have seen. Teachers from my school are collaboratively working in teams to identify problems with their practice, we are working in partnership with another school, and it is ongoing throughout the year.