It's Getting a Little Sketchy In Here

Let's talk about the power of visible thinking. 

Learning is the consequence of thinking. Expecting students to think deeply can be a challenge. How exactly should we expect our students to do this? What does it mean to think? How do we know what or how they're thinking about something if we can't see their thoughts? When we give our students specific tools to help them better structure and deploy their own thinking, learning outcomes improve. When we help them build, connect, and refine their thinking in more overt (ie. visible) ways, we are essentially helping them to develop their metacognitive skills, which leads to better thinking. Visible thinking routines provide a window into what students understand and how they understand it. As teachers, this offers us an opportunity to be intentional about how we plan and adjust our learning experiences to help our learners dig deeper into content, and hear and see each other's questions, insights, and perspectives so that we can support the development their thinking habits and refine their thinking as needed.

There are many ways to make thinking visible and we will explore many of them in The Hive this year. One of the ways we recently asked students to process information visually, was through a sketchnoting exercise related to the the earliest civilizations of North America and how geography shaped how these earliest people lived. Sketchnoting is a form of visual note-taking where students (or really anyone) synthesize and visualize ideas about what they are learning through a combination of picture drawings, diagrams, and text. This exercise trains us to summarize ideas and establish connections between them. Creating these visual notes during our exploration of weathering, erosion, and deposition and then having students participate in a gallery walk of their classmates' sketchnotes, was an engaging way for students to share and build upon one another's knowledge, ultimately gaining a deeper understanding of this scientific information.

This week's guest bloggers reflect on this experience. Enjoy.

Sketchnoting is helpful to me because I can make better sense of what I am reading if I have a visual. It also helps when I am confused and don't understand what I am reading. I can sketch what I'm thinking as I'm reading. It's also really fun.   - @SODA

Sketchnoting helps me further understand what I'm being taught. It's a really fun way to learn. Drawing what I learn helps me remember it better.   - @DollyParton101

Sketchnoting helps me make sense of my learning. It's just like writing about your learning, but it's so much more effective and organized. They help create a more descriptive visual for my mind.    - @HockeyGirl24

Sketchnoting is helpful because you can make more sense of what you read. For example, sketchnoting about the different Native American cultural regions helps me visualize and understand what we are reading about. You can draw what your brain is thinking, which for me, is much more helpful than using a graphic organizer. It's an amazing tool.   - @PotatoPie

Sketchnoting helps me make sense of my learning because if I have a visual of what I am learning about, it helps me understand it differently. I like how I am not judged by it and can draw interesting and sometimes funny things.   - @JuniorBean

Sketchnoting is helpful because it helps me interact with the different regions we're reading about. You can draw funny pictures, but in a helpful way. I love learning about the different Native American cultural regions and then sketchnoting about them - it just makes it more fun. Sketchnoting allows me to learn while doing something I love - drawing.     - @Coconut5

Sketchnotning gives me a chance to show off my art skills and learn new things - and keep them there, stored in my mind.    - @Rosita

Sketchnoting is helpful to me because it opens my mind to what I am learning about in class. It is also really fun to see what your classmates' sketchnotes look like to understand things even better. I think sketchnoting is the best.    - @Avocado234

Sketchnoting is helpful because it can help you remember things - like history or math, or really anything. Other reasons are it's helpful and anyone can do it, and it's fun. Sketchnotning is really just finding fun and creative ways to remember what you've learned.    - @PotatoHead

Sketchnotning has helped me understand everything we have learned about the different Native American cultural regions. You don't have to be good at drawing. You just have to draw it in a way that makes sense to you.     - @TheGK15