Tools, Platforms and Visible Thinking Routines: Upgrade your KWL Chart to the 21st Century

January 9, 2020 - Documenting4Learning, Featured Carousel

This is the third post in a three part series of posts around the KWHLAQ chart and its use for reflection, metacognition and documenting learning.

Visible Thinking Routines (VTR)

Visible Thinking Routines developed by Project Zero from Harvard University, researched and defined visible thinking, as “ practices that help make thinking visible: Thinking Routines loosely guide learners’ thought processes and encourage active processing.

Visible Thinking Routines’ purpose and goals are described as:

“Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based approach to integrating the development of students’ thinking with content learning across subject matters. An extensive and adaptable collection of practices, Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students’ thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning. By thinking dispositions, we mean curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, a creative mindset, not just being skilled but also alert to thinking and learning opportunities and eager to take them”

There are specific routines well suited for each step of the KWHLAQ chart. Revisiting a Visible Thinking Routine is also good practice to document changes in thinking over time.

Step “K”– What do I know?

  • Headlines A routine for capturing the essence
  • Colour, Symbol, Image A routine for distilling the essence of ideas non-verbally
  • Generate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate A routine for organizing one’s understanding of a topic through concept mapping
  • Chalk Talk (from the book Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart)- A routine that asks learners to consider ideas, questions, or problems by silently responding in writing both to the prompt and the thoughts of others

Take step “W”– What do I want to learn?

  • Headlines A routine for capturing the essence
  • See Think Wonder A routine for exploring works of art and other interesting things
  • Chalk Talk (from the book Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart)-  A routine that asks learners to consider ideas, questions, or problems by silently responding in writing both to the prompt and the thoughts of others
  • Compass Points A routine for examining propositions
  • Connect Extend Challenge A routine for connecting new ideas to prior knowledge

Take step “H”– How will I find out?

Take step “L” -What have I learned?

Take step “A”– What action will I take??

Take step “Q”– What further questions do I have?

Platforms and Tools

There is nothing written in stone that says that you or your students need to use a paper and pencil to “fill out” the KWHLAQ chart. Nothing holds you back from doing so, but there are many other options you can mix and match to learn and document with the KWHLAQ chart. Try out these different platforms and tools, add your own, and see which ones suit your learning, thinking and documenting style best.

Step “K”– What do I know?

  • Mind Maps & BrainstormingUse mind maps and brainstorming tools (on paper or in digital form) to capture your thoughts and arrange them in ways that make sense to you.
  • Blog Posts Create a separate blog post for each step in the KWHLAQ chart, to be connected by links to later steps in the KWHLAQ process
  • Video Journal use of video to brainstorm and reflectively think about pre-existing knowledge of a topic
  • Sketchnoting Use visual note taking techniques to represent pre-existing knowledge of a topic
  • Analog Sticky Notes Use paper sticky notes to brainstorm and organize your thoughts. There is a possibility to scan, organize and archive them digitally afterward with the Post-It app (iOs)
  • Collaborative Pinwalls Collaboratively contribute knowledge of the group with websites such as Padlet or Linoit
  • Graphic Organizer template (analog) Using pen & paper to fill out the KWHLAQ chart as you move along the learning process. You can also use chart paper to create an anchor chart for collaborative classroom use.
  • Graphic Organizer template (digital) Use a Word Processor (ex. Google Docs ), a Spreadsheet ( Google Sheets) or presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote or Google Presentation to create your own template of the KWHLAQ chart.

Step “W”– What do I want to learn?

  • Blog Posts Create a separate blog post for each step in the KWHLAQ chart, to be connected by links to later steps in the KWHLAQ process.  Reflectively think about your needs and interest in the area of the topic.
  • Paper Journal Have students write each step in their paper journal to have documentation that can be re-visited later in order to draw conclusions and make comparisons. Reflectively think about your needs and interests in the area of the topic.
  • Mind Maps & BrainstormingUse mind maps and brainstorming tools (on paper or in digital form) to capture your thoughts and arrange them in ways that make sense to you.
  • Analog Sticky Notes Use paper sticky notes to brainstorm and organize your thoughts. There is a possibility to scan, organize and archive them digitally afterward with the Post-It app (iOs)
  • Sketchnoting Use visual note taking and doodling to create visual representations of the learners’ expectations regarding what they want to learn further about a given topic and specific areas to investigate.

Step “H”– How will I find out?

  • Online Search Information literacy requires from us the skills to find, evaluate, analyze, filter, categorize, tag, archive, remix and create new information. We need to know to possess search skills that allow us to use specific keywords and apply filters to be able to narrow down and sift through hundreds of thousands of search results.
  • Learning Network Search With the ever-increasing information available online, we need to learn how to not only rely on algorithms of search engines to get the information that we seek but increasingly rely on members of our learning network to filter and curate the information that we desire.
  • Books/Magazines/Journals/Newspaper Traditional information sources in analog or digital version
  • Face2Face Interviews We can’t underestimate the power of our network that we know personally
  • Contact with Experts & Authors The middle man is gone. Many subject area experts and authors are available to be contacted directly via their social media presence. Part of the 21st-century mind shift consists in being aware of the option and taking the necessary steps to get in contact.
  • Video Conferences Through the power of free video conferencing tools, being able to hold a conversation, conduct an interview and to receive information from people who are geographically not available to ask them in person.

Step “L” -What have I learned?

  • Blog Post The blogging platform is ideal to post a reflective entry about what was learned.
  • Reflective, hyperlinked product Create an audio or video journal that demonstrates your reflective learning process and learning evidence.
  • Artifact serves as evidence of learning Create any artifact, in any media (text, image, video, audio, multimedia, analog or digital) to show evidence of your learning.
  • Visually represent learning Don’t discount the power of visuals. Demonstrating what you have learned does not necessarily have to be in text format. How can images, illustrations, or videos serve the purpose of making learning visible?
  • Sketchnote “Visual notes created from a mix of handwriting, drawings, hand-drawn typography, shapes, and visual elements like arrows, boxes, and lines” are a popular option to demonstrate what you have learned.
  • Visual annotated Image Using photographs or images and adding text to make learning that occured evident and visible for the viewer
  • Infographic Infographics are a visual representation of content and data. Infographics can be an ideal medium to show your understanding of what was learned.

Step “A”– What action will I take?

  • Blog post Continue writing on your blog by posting a new entry (and linking to the other blog posts of each step of your KWHLAQ). Share the action steps you plan to take, now that you have gained new understanding.
  • Lessons Create lesson plans to teach others what you have learned
  • Teach someone else Create sharable tutorials to teach someone else what you have learned
  • Create/make something new What can you create, now that you have knowledge and understanding that you did not have before? How can you solve a problem by creating something new and useful?
  • Share/disseminate your learning on a local/global scale Take the next step to amplify your learning and do not keep it to yourself. Find a way to share your learning with others in your classroom, school building, community, city, country and the rest of the world.
  • What? So What?Now What? Use the last segment (Now What? To help you think about what action you will take)
    • What? Describe the experience; outline what happened that compelled you to think about and change your behavior (i.e. learn).
    • So What? Describe what difference it makes; outline what impact or meaning it has for you (or why it should matter to others).
    • Now What? Describe what’s in store for the future now that you’ve learned from this experience; outline what you are going to do to continue your professional development in light of this learning.

Step “Q”– What further questions do I have?

  • Reflect on the process of learning metacognition Thinking about your thinking can be messy. It is nevertheless a vital component of our learning process. Use reflection routines, such as
  • Google Site Use a platform, such as Google Site, to create a website to collect further questions you have and link resources and answers to your questions as you are continuing to investigate
  • Continue exploring questions around the topic collaboratively Find a platform, such as a Wiki, Google Docs, Google Presentation or a  Google Site where you can collaboratively collect questions with other learners about the topic you have learned about. Find ways to connect with others who seem to have the same questions to continue the investigation into a topic and to continue learning.

Action Steps

We have looked at specific Visible Thinking Routines (VTR) that support each step of the KWHLAQ graphic organizer as well as tools and platforms that allow the learner to mix and match to their specific learning style and needs. What action steps can you take to create and share your KWHLAQ learning process?

  1. Choose a Visible Thinking Routine to make your thinking visible in each step of the KWHLAQ chart
  2. Choose a platform or a combination of different platforms to create an artifact that shows evidence of your thinking and learning
  3. Share your learning with others

This was the third post in a three part series of posts around the KWHLAQ chart and its use for reflection, metacognition and documenting learning.