Building Thinking Classrooms

What is a "Thinking Classroom"?

Building thinking classrooms is the new Math pedagogy that creates the conditions for students to be cognitively present in the classroom by giving them opportunities to think critically and creatively, engage actively in learning, and make "live" notes for their future forgetful selves, rather than listen passively to their teacher and take "dead" notes for record-keeping purposes at their desks.  This new Math pedagogy was created by Dr. Peter Liljedahl, a professor of mathematics education at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, in 2020.

What do students do in a "Thinking Classroom"?

In the Math thinking classroom, students are the focus of the learning and are like the drivers of their own learning.  They spend most of their time working in visibly randomized groups to solve Math problems at vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) such as wipebook flipcharts or vertical whiteboards.  

What does a teacher do in a "Thinking Classroom"?

The teacher in the Math thinking classroom takes on the role of the facilitator who will provide students with timely and effective feedback that is specific to the task, specific to the students, specific to where the students are in their learning, and specific to where they are going (i.e., their learning goals).  In doing so, it is like lifting the students out of the maze so that they obtain the skills needed to solve the problems.

Is the "Thinking Classroom" teaching method better than traditional direct instruction?

Many teachers ask Mr. Ho if Dr. Peter Liljedahl's "Thinking Classroom" teaching method is better than traditional direct instruction.  Mr. Ho gave some thought to this, and he said: "Yes, in some cases."

Mr. Ho defines a successful lesson to be when all students are actively engaged throughout the entire class and when they are happy and satisfied with their learning, as planned by the teacher, not just when the class average of an assessment is high.  Here is a photo, taken on Friday, September 29th, 2023 in the last period of the school day, showing Mr. Ho's MDM4U1 students fully engaged:

To be honest, Mr. Ho had never seen this kind of active student engagement before, when he used purely traditional direct instruction to deliver a lesson.  By walking around the classroom, listening to his students' conversations, observing their learning progress, and seeing their products (or their solutions to the math problems) written on the vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS), Mr. Ho feels and sees that the triangulation of learning (i.e., conversations, observations, and products) is occurring.  It is the students who are actively doing the math at the VNPS throughout the entire class, not the teacher in front of the classroom.  This is the part that Mr. Ho likes the most from Dr. Peter Liljedahl's "Thinking Classroom" teaching method.

When Mr. Ho is following Dr. Peter Liljedahl's "Thinking Classroom" teaching method, he also finds that his students are sometimes unaware that the period of the class is over.  His students continue to talk about math and do not want to stop until they figure out a solution to a math problem and experience an "Aha!" moment.  Here is a photo, taken on Friday, September 29th, 2023 in the second period of the school day, showing Mr. Ho's MDM4U1 students, Grace Breen (left) and David Berger (right), who were fully engaged even after the period was over.  Well done, Grace and David!