Making Student Thinking Visible- Circle Back to Thinking Maps!

One of our goals as educators is to understand what our students know, and what better way than to have them share their thinking. One practical way to make student thinking visible is through the use of Thinking Maps. At St. Edward, we challenge ourselves to intentionally use these tools in our instruction across all grade levels and subject areas. Thinking Maps provide universal scaffolding for students because they are a predictable visual structure for organizing their ideas. They also serve as a powerful formative assessment tool, allowing us to quickly scan student work for misconceptions, gaps, and evidence of understanding. Thinking Maps also align with different levels of thinking and can help us intentionally move students toward deeper thinking, shifting the cognitive heavy lifting from the teacher to the student. Instead of simply giving students information, teachers can use these structures to help students organize, connect, analyze, and communicate their own thinking.

Teachers in our building regularly look for opportunities to capture student thinking and to make it visible on our classroom and hallway walls.

Fourth graders use Thinking Maps during partner discussions to share, connect, and build on one another’s ideas.

Cause and Effect Thinking Maps help students explore historical events by identifying what led to them and the impact they had.

Students visually map each stage of a plant’s life cycle, demonstrating their understanding of the sequence in which plants grow and change.