Observations in a Thinking Classroom

A Thinking Classroom is a classroom where students are engaged collaboratively in tasks designed to help with learning new concepts. It is a classroom where students are guided by the teacher and actively seek understanding from each other. Current research on Thinking classrooms is prescriptive in describing strategies for teachers to implement in order to break down existing classrooms norms and put in place new norms that are conducive to students working together and solving problems. I have implemented such a Thinking Classroom and in this thesis I look at what students and teachers are doing in a Thinking Classroom. Through analysis of classroom video, conclusions indicate that high mobility of students and ideas, autonomous behaviour in students, and a significant amount of class time spent on tasks were some of the observations that were noticed in a Thinking Classroom.