Research School Network: Thinking Teaching – How can we drive the thought in our classrooms? Durrington Director Chris Runeckles explains how his school frames routines for driving the thinking of students.

Most of the thinking that happens in our classrooms is hidden from us. As teachers, we get to shine a light on a fraction of it. The more we uncover the better, as it allows us to adapt based on what we find, but even the most proficient formative assessment routines will still only scratch the surface.

Therefore, the endeavour to direct student thinking is both a vital one, but also shrouded in uncertainty. We do our very best to fill the minds of our pupils with what we want them to learn, but ultimately our classrooms are not Orwellian dystopias, and so we can’t actual control what they think about. However, as Willingham tells us, memory is the residue of thought and so given the importance of thinking, we have to do our best to drive it in the direction we want it to go.

To support our teachers at Durrington in driving thought, we have described five classroom routines that we feel are our best bets in achieving this. Below are short summaries of these routines. It is worth saying these require a base layer of knowledge in each of these areas, which we have worked to build up over the past few years. For example, it requires teachers to understand cognitive load theory and how it impacts thinking. These routines are also contextualised through subject specific professional development. They are:

1. Plan lessons around what pupils will be thinking about, rather than the activities they will be completing.

2. Retrieval practice:

- Often, we will direct pupils to retrieve knowledge from their long-term memory. This ensures they remember and make links within the curriculum we deliver.
- We must ensure retrieval is done strictly from memory with no checking notes or books or sharing with a partner beforehand.

3. Questioning:

- Asking questions, particularly elaborative questions (often ​‘why’ or ​‘how’) is a reliable way to drive thought towards specific sections of knowledge and deepen thinking around it. E.g. ​“To what extent is Scrooge the villain of A Christmas Carol?”

4. Cognitive load theory:

- Working memory has a limited capacity. Any extraneous cognitive load that directs thinking away from the content we want pupils to think about will inhibit hard thinking. For example, talking to the class while pupils are working independently or an overly busy powerpoint slide will increase extraneous cognitive load.

5. Metacognition:

- Ultimately, we want pupils to purposefully direct their own thinking as they plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. We can support this by explicitly teaching metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. E.g.​“A really effective planning tool in this situation is to….” or​“Why do you think we do tasks like this….”

We also provide some high frequency errors that teachers may encounter when enacting these routines:

- Planning is activity led and considers what pupils will be doing rather than what they will be thinking about.
- Challenge is too low, not requiring hard thinking.
- Extraneous cognitive load is not managed, meaning thinking is inhibited.
- A lack of formative assessment means teachers are unaware of what pupils are thinking.

None of these are fool proof and also require a lot of practice and supporting PD to realise. Equally they are not exhaustive, and only describe a selection of methods to drive thought. However, they do gives teachers a selection of evidence-informed strategies to direct the thinking of their pupils.