Carrie James, Principal Investigator, Project Zero
Emily Weinstein, Senior Research Manager, Project Zero
Kelly Mendoza, Senior Director of Education Programs, Common Sense Education
This workshop is offered on the following date(s):
Digital technology use was a consistent part of everyday life before the pandemic. Now, it’s a near-constant. Our students’ learning, social lives, and entertainment are all happening largely ‘behind the screen.’ How can we support youth in this landscape? In this Digital Citizenship Week (#DigCitWeek) workshop, educators will explore how they can use authentic, engaging digital dilemmas and new thinking routines to lean into timely digital issues. These learning activities build students’ agency to get more control over their digital habits, nurture skills for empathic digital communication, navigate relationship ups and downs, and invite critical thinking about how important civic issues are playing out on social media. Educators will practice using selected tools and digital dilemmas with consideration for different teaching and learning formats (e.g., self-guided by students, in synchronous virtual environments, and in the physical classroom). These resources are featured in newly updated lessons in Common Sense Education’s (free) Digital Citizenship Curriculum. PZ-researchers Carrie James and Emily Weinstein will co-facilitate the session with Kelly Mendoza, Senior Director at Common Sense Education. Note: This workshop will focus on dilemmas and activities most relevant to learners in middle and secondary school.
Sheya, Program Manager, Project Zero & Director, JusticexDesign Projectgerald. d. smith jr., Principal, St. Thomas More AcademyJaime Chao Mignano, STEAM Community Coordinator, Washington International School
How might we make visible the ways injustices are designed? How might we encourage young people to disrupt patterns of power that perpetuate and systematize oppression and injustices? How might we support them to become sensitive to the design of their participation so they may envision ways to participate more, better, or differently? Developed with educators across Washington, D.C., and building off the Agency by Design framework, the JusticexDesign (JxD) framework fosters liberatory learning experiences through practical, hands-on pedagogies that foreground maker-centered learning and ignite the redistribution of voice and authority in a learning space. The JxD framework encourages young people to build a critical sensitivity to design, or, in other words, a sensitivity to designed injustices. In this workshop, participants will engage with JxD protocols, learn about the JxD framework, and explore connections between workshop content and their own teaching contexts. The workshop is designed for educators working with all ages of learners and will provide classroom resources to do this work with students.
Ron Ritchhart, Senior Research Associate Project Zero, Co-Author The Power of Making Thinking VisibleMark Church, Project Zero Classroom Faculty, "Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn Project" Consultant, Co-Author The Power of Making Thinking Visible
For many years, Project Zero researcher-educators have developed a number of thinking routines that encourage students to look closely, to seek connections, to uncover complexities, to reason with evidence, and to consider perspectives. When used powerfully, thinking routines not only provide teachers with a set of practices to engage students, but help advance a broader goal to create classrooms where students’ thinking is visible, valued, and actively promoted. In this virtual workshop, participants will have an opportunity to consider making thinking visible as a goal of their teaching, discussing powerful practices that bring thinking to the foreground of classroom endeavors, and look at lessons we’ve learned from teachers worldwide who use thinking routines for maximum effect. The workshop will support educators working with learners from pre-K through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.
Lynn Barendsen, Project Director, Project Zero
Shelby Clark, Senior Research Manager, Project Zero
PZ's The Good Project strives to equip individuals to reflect upon the ethical dilemmas that arise in everyday life by providing them with the tools to make thoughtful decisions. In this course, participants will be introduced to some of the key research supporting these tools and to curriculum modules developed to support young people as they learn the skills and strategies to flourish as future workers. The workshop will invite participants to experience real-world dilemmas for adolescents, reflective activities, and guided conversations that will help to prepare young people for the working world of today. Our contention is that students who engage with Good Work tools will develop the skills, understandings, and repertoires to effectively navigate their future work lives. The workshop will support educators working with learners in middle school through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.
Jessica Ross, Educator, Researcher on PZ's Artful Thinking and Visible Thinking initiatives, Co-Designer PZ's Visible Thinking Online Course
In this virtual workshop, participants will have the opportunity to engage with thinking dispositions and related thinking routines through image-based literature: picture books, graphic novels, and illustrated texts. We will look at a variety of image rich texts and consider the language of thinking routines to support specific thinking dispositions. Participants will have time to consider how these texts and routines might be employed in their own context to support their students in observing, connecting, question asking, exploring viewpoints, and reasoning. This workshop is designed for educators working with learners of all ages from pre-K through secondary school and beyond.
Randy “Dolph” Hardigree, Teacher, LaGrange High School, Troup County Public Schools, Georgia (US)
In this workshop, educators will learn about how PZ thinking routines and protocols have been adapted for science content and classrooms. Dolph Hardigree will share his experiences as a high school science teacher in a diverse Georgia (US) public secondary school working with and integrating Project Zero research and frameworks. Participants will explore some of PZ’s thinking routines to consider how they specifically support learning in the sciences and help students become more engaged in classrooms and more effective as independent and collaborative learners. This workshop will include specific before & after examples, as well as time to work in small groups to develop applications for educators’ own school settings. This workshop is designed to support educators teaching in the sciences with learners in middle and secondary school as well as science-focused instructional coaches and museum educators.
Faraday de la Camara, Former Coordinator of the Lower School Spanish Department, American School of Madrid
When we want to improve education, we often focus on changing the curriculum without paying much attention to how that curriculum is enacted or carried out by teachers and students together. However, teachers have the power to improve or enhance the learning experience in their classrooms by reflecting on and shifting their practices. As language teachers, we might wonder, which shifts can we make that will truly enhance, or maybe even transform, language learning for our students? In this virtual workshop, we will explore Project Zero’s Visible Thinking framework, and specifically the use of PZ thinking routines as approaches to enhancing teacher practice that might shift the culture of our world language classrooms to one that is more student-centered, inquiry-based and responsive. We will discover how focusing on the kinds of thinking to which we aspire in students - and identifying thinking routines that leverage those skills - can engage our students in meaningful learning opportunities that not only introduce and practice new vocabulary and language patterns but also develop a deeper understanding of language and culture. We will also discuss how the use of thinking routines can make our students’ thinking visible so that we as teachers can better perceive what they know and understand, adjusting our teaching accordingly. This workshop is an introduction to teaching routines for teachers of any language, working with elementary, secondary or adult learners at any level, but especially at the advance beginner (A2) to native speaking level.
Considering Project Zero Ideas from a Mathematics Perspective
Mark Church, Project Zero Classroom Faculty, PZ’s "Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn Project" Consultant, Co-AuthorThe Power of Making Thinking Visible
What is understanding? How does it develop? What types of thinking moves help students both retain what they learn and transfer it to new and unfamiliar contexts? The ideas of Project Zero – particularly Teaching for Understanding and Making Thinking Visible – have had a lot of resonance with teachers across a variety of grade levels and subject areas for a number of years. This workshop is designed to reflect upon these overarching questions specifically with mathematics teaching and learning in mind. Though not a “how to implement” workshop, participants will find it useful to consider examples from a wide range of K-12 mathematics experiences that give perspective as to how other teachers in the mathematics context have come to grow legs to Project Zero ideas. This workshop is designed for educators teaching mathematics and working with learners of all ages from pre-K through secondary school as well as mathematics instructional coaches, and school leaders interested in the teaching and learning of mathematics and Project Zero ideas.
Project Zero's Zaentz Professional Learning Scholarships are made possible through a generous gift from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation.
This financial assistance seeks to support educators in a range of schools, districts, and organizations, especially those working in under-resourced contexts and/or with historically marginalized students.
Generally, applications are considered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Scholarships will cover 70% of the offering tuition.
Scholarship Application
To register for this workshop without a scholarship, please click the orange button at the bottom of this page.
Group discounts are available for US$10 off the price of the workshop for groups of 10 or more. Group discounts are automatically applied at the time of the initial registration: all members of the group must be registered at the same time on one registration form. We are not able to add additional members to the group once a group of 10 or more has registered. Once registered at the full price, an individual participant may not subsequently join a group of 10 or more and receive a discount.
Substitutions for registered participants, including those registered for a group, will be made only on a limited basis, and for significant, qualifying events (e.g. death in the family, serious illness, etc.). In the case of a significant, qualifying event, requests for substitutions must be made in writing, via email to pzlearn@gse.harvard.edu.
Refunds for workshops will be processed up to 2 business days prior to the workshop start date. A 5% processing fee will be subtracted from the amount of the paid workshop fee. PZ is unable to process refunds with less than 2 business days’ notice. Please be sure to direct all cancellation requests to pzlearn@gse.harvard.edu.