Making Thinking Visible

To help students connect science instruction to their own understanding, their thinking needs to made visible. WISE provides students with opportunities and software to represent their own thinking, as well as that of other students and even scientists, and to respond to one another's ideas. Thus, student receive feedback about their current models and can compare their models with others'.

The video (at right) illustrates a lesson in which a WISE teacher uses an on-line graphing tool to help students see how their predictions about light and heat match up against the results of an experiment they perform.

An Example from the "Wolves in Your Backyard" Curriculum

One way this project makes student thinking visible is through an electronic discussion about wildlife management. Unlike traditional classroom participation, where a small minority of students typically offers the vast majority of insight, WISE electronic discussions allow for universal participation. Moreover, they enable students to respond to each other, instead of only to the teacher.

Click on the picture to see the video: How can we make thinking visible?

Source material from the Computer as Learning Partner video