Traditional classrooms are teacher-centered where teachers are in charge of the class and are fully responsible for the learning environment. Teachers are the primary source of information for teaching and imparting knowledge to students. Teachers are more concerned about getting their students to do activities and assignments on time rather than improving their thinking and knowledge. The efficiency of teachers was measured by their grasp of the topic and their use of diverse delivery styles to deliver the content. Teachers are neither concerned nor judged by how much the students are understanding and how are they understanding the concept. Further, students are not provided any space to explore their thinking and are forced to memorize the content without engaging with the content. Whereas, learner-centered classrooms are the classrooms where the role of the teachers is to nurture students' involvement with ideas rather than focusing on covering the standardized course material. Teachers need to attend to students' understanding by analyzing what children understand and how they understand. They have to make students’ thinking visible. By making thinking visible, students become aware of their own ideas and mental processes, as well as those of their peers. Making thinking visible helps the teachers to understand the students better as they get a peep into their thought process. Teachers can alter their lessons to ensure that everyone gets the topic when they have a better understanding of what their students know (or don't know). Moreover, students are able to explore their thinking and make their ideas explicit.
In the classroom, there are three main techniques to make thought visible: (1) questioning, (2) listening, and (3) documenting.
Questioning: teachers can ask questions that can model students’ interest in the concepts being discussed, assist students in learning, or assist students in understanding their own thought processes. For example, teachers can ask questions like "I was curious if the arguments that we made for this case are also valid for any other instances that we've looked at in this unit?", “Why do you think this will be the answer and not that?” and so on.
Listening: We may learn about student thinking through listening, but only if we genuinely understand how to listen. The teacher has to effectively listen to the students. Effective listening is about actively absorbing information from the students, demonstrating that you are paying attention and engaged by asking mediating questions and offering feedback to the students so that they understand that the message has been heard. Furthermore, listening demonstrates respect for and interest in students' ideas which encourages them to express their ideas in the future.
Documenting: documenting is about capturing students’ thinking. Notes on a whiteboard, pictures of student work, audiotapes of class conversations, memos, or written notes of students' contributions can all be used to do this. However, documentation is not just about capturing students’ learning, through documentation students must be able to reflect on and monitor their progress.
There are a lot of benefits of making thinking visible for the teaching-learning process in the classroom. It boosts students' motivation, engagement, and enthusiasm in studying. Allows them to think critically and makes learning more engaging. Improves conceptual learning, encourages reasoning, sense-making, and conversation inside the classroom. Finally, it encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning in order to create a learning community.
