What are thinking routines?
"What did you think about the reading?” This common opening discussion question is often met with blank stares and silence from even the most engaged students because they are not sure what to say or the types of insights the instructor seeks. In the classroom, we generally want students to engage in deep, complex, and critical thinking around the materials they are reading. However, the process of teaching, learning, and assessing critical thinking can be opaque for both instructors and students.
“Thinking routines” offer a framework to address this challenge by using specific prompts to make thinking visible. A thinking routine is “a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking...to deepen students’ thinking and to help make that thinking ‘visible’” (Project Zero, n.d.). Routines often consist of a short series of questions that students discuss and respond to individually or in small groups. These routines may ask students to “Claim, Support, Question" by prompting them to identify a claim, support it with evidence, and question both the initial claim and resulting evidence. Or perhaps students need to “Connect, Extend, Challenge” new material by relating the new content to their prior knowledge, consider how their thinking has been extended, and identify areas of uncertainty or tension.
These structured prompts are designed to reduce the ambiguity of questions like "what did you think about...” by giving instructors and students clear, actionable steps to engage in deeper thinking. These routines, or similar ones, are likely already embedded in how faculty, as experts in their disciplines, analyze or critique new information. By providing students with specific questions to answer, we can encourage the same thoughtfulness in them.
Why use thinking routines?
Thinking routines offer a practical and easy-to-implement series of steps that students and instructors can use to support the development of critical thinking skills. They do this by helping to:
- Break down abstract or poorly-defined reasoning processes into concrete, observable steps.
- Scaffold deeper engagement with course content and others’ perspectives.
- Help students interrogate and critique new information thoughtfully.
- Visualize and document learning as it happens in the classroom.
- Monitor how students’ ideas and skills evolve over time.
An additional benefit of thinking routines is that they offer students entry points into complex discussions, which can help reduce barriers to participation. Many students enter higher education without explicit instruction in how, when, or why to participate in class, an aspect of the “hidden curriculum” of higher education (Gable, 2021). Thinking routines provide students clear processes they can follow to participate and engage meaningfully in class, which allows all learners, not just those who are the most outspoken or knowledgeable about the content, to offer their insights. (For more information about helping students uncover the processes of participation, see the CCTL resource “Reconceptualizing Participation.”) This inclusive approach ensures that a wide range of perspectives are included in class discussions, which benefits everyone.
The effectiveness of thinking routines is supported by substantial research. Thinking routines have been shown to not only increase the quantity of student engagement, but also the quality of those contributions (Ramos-Vallecillo et al., 2024; Tham, 2024). Additional research demonstrates that students using thinking routines show improved grades and exam scores (Larraguibel & Venegas-Muggli, 2019), as well as enhanced ability to articulate their reasoning and justify their decisions (Delany & Golding, 2014). Finally, the use of structured questioning techniques can contribute to students’ ability and “willingness to cultivate a professional perspective” (Tinnesz et al., 2006).
How do I use thinking routines?
Thinking routines are flexible and can be integrated in any class session. Some routines can be completed in five minutes, while others could be organized to fill an entire class session. They can be used across disciplines, class sizes, and instructional modes, such as online, in-person, or hybrid classes. Routines are short and meant to be reused throughout the term, and thus they may be slotted into class sessions without requiring major course redesign. Lastly, because the questions are already developed and meant to be used multiple times, they require low levels of preparatory work for instructors.
To use thinking routines, first, consider the skills you want students to practice with the routine. Are students exploring new ideas and content? Are they analyzing art, images, or objects? Are they taking different perspectives or exploring the diversity of theories on a given topic? The Project Zero website organizes thinking routines into different categories to help you choose the right routine, such as investigating objects and systems; considering controversies, dilemmas, and perspectives; and synthesizing and organizing ideas. You can also search thinking routines for those that are particularly helpful in a given discipline, or by a competency or habit of mind you want your students to develop that is emphasized by a particular routine (such as transfer of content and skills, reasoning, or communicating ideas). If you’re not sure where to start, we suggest beginning with the “Core Routines” that target common skills and that can be used in many different disciplines and with different class sizes.
Thinking routines can be incorporated into your existing class structure. These routines can be the start or close of class, integrated into lectures, or incorporated into class discussions. For example, a “Think-Puzzle-Explore" routine might be used as part of a warm-up to class or introduction to a new topic, prompting students to consider what they think they know about a topic or what puzzles them about the topic and how they might explore those questions. This allows students to retrieve and connect their prior knowledge with the topic of the day and can help the instructor get a sense of students’ current understanding of a topic before beginning class. The commonly used “Think-Pair-Share” routine may be used during an interactive lecture to allow students to wrestle with a difficult question, discuss their thoughts with their peers, and then share their answers.
Perhaps most importantly, choose only a few routines covering the key skills you want students to develop during the quarter. While it may be tempting to select a different routine for each class session, thinking routines show the greatest benefit for students when practiced multiple times. According to Project Zero, they are comparable to physical exercises because physical exercises “need to be repeated in order to develop certain muscles” and “thinking routines, used repeatedly, help students to develop certain kinds of thinking” (Project Zero, n.d.). In addition, repeating thinking routines can help students focus on the content rather than trying to understand new procedural steps each class session thereby reducing their cognitive load. Through this repeated use, they can help students internalize habits of inquiry and reflection. This encourages students’ metacognitive awareness and prepares them to take ownership of their learning.
Disciplinary applications of thinking routines
Cell Biology
In a cell biology course, students are reading journal articles from the primary scientific literature for the first time. To prompt their scientific thinking and help them focus their attention the way experts do, students complete the “Headlines” routine. In this version of the Headlines routine, students are asked to write a headline (such as for a magazine article) for each figure presented in the paper. Students must distill the key information from the figure and present it in a concise and accessible format using plain language understandable to a non-scientific audience. They then discuss their headlines in small groups to identify misconceptions about the conclusions, and work to combine their headlines into a finalized product that gets presented to the rest of the class. This routine prompts expert-like thinking (interpreting the data from figures when reading scientific articles), and students also practice analyzing data with peers, crafting accessible scientific communication, consensus building, and sharing their conclusions more broadly.
Art History
In an art history class, students have recently been introduced to abstract art and are analyzing the works of Mark Rothko. At the end of the day’s class, students engage in a quick “I used to think, now I think” routine. This routine prompts students to reflect on their previous conceptions of a topic and how those conceptions changed through instruction. Students respond to the paired prompts “I used to think [blank] about abstract art” and “I now think [blank] about abstract art.” This helps students to understand how and why their thinking has changed and normalizes how ideas and perspectives should and can change throughout the learning process.
Literature
In a literature course, students are reading and analyzing Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Students are exploring the perspectives of different characters on the idea of joining an alliance of different nations. To do so, students complete the “Circle of Viewpoints” routine. First, they list different characters in the novel. Then, they describe the perspectives of those characters in relation to joining the alliance. Finally, they discuss the similarities and differences of the viewpoints and questions characters holding those viewpoints may ask. This routine helps students to interpret and analyze a main conflict of the novel.
Conclusion
Thinking routines supports the development of students’ critical thinking skills by offering a series of structured prompts that make their thinking visible. These routines are easily implementable by instructors because they provide specific questions instructors can use, and they can be implemented in a variety of ways during class and adapted to different class content and purposes. If you are interested in learning more about thinking routines or how to implement them, or about other ways to engage students in class, please schedule a pedagogy consultation with the CCTL.
References
Delany, C., & Golding, C. (2014). Teaching clinical reasoning by making thinking visible: An action research project with allied health clinical educators. BMC Medical Education, 14, 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-20
Gable, R. (2021). The Hidden Curriculum: First Generation Students at Legacy Universities. Princeton University Press.
Larraguibel, Y. S., & Venegas-Muggli, J. I. (2019). Effects of Using Thinking Routines on the Academic Results of Business Students at a Chilean Tertiary Education Institution. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 17(4), 405–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12191
Project Zero. n.d. "PZ's Thinking Routines Toolbox. Retrieved October 16, 2025, from https://pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines
Ramos-Vallecillo, N., Murillo-Ligorred, V., & Lozano-Blasco, R. (2024). University Students’ Achievement of Meaningful Learning through Participation in Thinking Routines. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 14(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe14040066
Tham, C. T. H. (2024). Augmenting Discussion Effectiveness through the Implementation of Thinking Routines to Visualize Learners’ Cognitive Processes. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 07(07). https://doi.org/10.47191/ijcsrr/V7-i7-99
Tinnesz, C. G., Ahuna, K. H., & Kiener, M. (2006). Toward College Success: Internalizing Active and Dynamic Strategies. College Teaching, 54(4), 302–306.