Clinton Golding 2013
Teaching critical thinking by building a culture of visible thinking
Principle
Action
1. Articulate thinking
 Make explicit the sorts of tasks that require critical
thinking and what is involved in thinking critically
 What are the standards of critical thinking from the
curriculum?
 What do critical thinkers do?
 Reverse engineer your own thinking. Explain and
describe how you think through problems and issues
2. Make concrete and visible
 Identify thinking behaviours – what expert thinkers
ask and say when they engage in thinking
4. Refine, chunk & sequence
 Refine and group the thinking behaviours into useful
heuristics – thinking routines
 For example PMI (Plus, minus and interesting) or
POET (predict, observe, explain, theorise)
5. Enculturate
 Make the thinking a routine part of your teaching
 Repeat and model thinking routines
 Encourage students to frequently and regularly use
these routines
6. Encourage
 Encourage students to do the thinking work
themselves