Past Virtual Workshops

In case you missed learning with us, here are some of the topics we explored in previous workshops. To keep up to date on our latest offerings, sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

Past Virtual Workshops

(Re)Designing Unjust Systems: (Re)Imagining Voice, Power, and Participation

Injustices are by design. Supporting young people to recognize inequities in everyday design is a step toward reimagining a more just world. Launched with educators across Washington, D.C., and with support from the Washington International School, the JusticexDesign (JxD) initiative investigates how Project Zero and Agency by Design frameworks might encourage young people to engage critically with the design of their worlds, while paying particular attention to systems of power and access. Implicit biases and systemic oppressions are built into human-made systems like media, architecture, government, transportation, and time. These systems—by design—empower and amplify, oppress and silence. Using JxD protocols, participants in this two-session workshop will carefully consider the roles of power, representation, and participation in the design of everyday systems. Participants will have the opportunity to redesign—or reimagine—oppressive systems as well as consider 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.

Building Community in Our Online Classrooms

How can we build authentic communities with our students when teaching and learning remotely? Feelings of trust and connection are essential to teaching and learning. Now that physical distancing is a necessity, fostering relationships becomes even more important. How can we use time and tools online in ways that nurture engagement and trust?

Tina Blythe, Project Zero’s Director of Learning and Outreach, and Kurt Wootton, Founder of The Habla Institute, will offer approaches to help you and your students to connect and work collaboratively online. In this highly interactive workshop, you will participate in activities that can be easily transferred to your virtual classrooms.

This course is recommended for primary and secondary teachers of all subjects.

Considering Project Zero Ideas from a Mathematics Perspective

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.

Digital Citizenship & Supporting Young People’s Lives Online

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.

Educating for a Complex World

How can we deepen and broaden learning for the lives today's learners are likely to lead? In our era, the demands of a rapidly changing world on education urge us to reach beyond the traditional agendas of achievement, information and expertise. In more adventurous school settings, innovations thrive when learning is reimagined using big understandings and big ideas. This session explores how teachers and schools can define their own visionary directions, drawing on a flexible framework about learning that matters and ways of fostering and leading it, developed collaboratively between Project Zero and Independent Schools Victoria. It shares this general approach along with examples from Australian settings of how educating for big understandings and big questions can become powerful levers for teacher and school development.

Educating for Civic Agency

At a moment of intense social and political upheaval and uncertainty, how can schools prepare children to be active participants in their communities? How can building connections between the classroom and community enhance our ability to live together in diverse societies and learn from and with each other? Grounded in the belief that children are not just future citizens, but are citizens of the here and now, this workshop explores innovative ways in which children and adolescents can develop civic agency through voice, dialogue, and listening. The workshop will support educators working with learners from pre-K through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.

Exploring the 6 Powers of Making Thinking Visible

Two decades into the use of thinking routines as vehicles of instruction, we understand more about their usefulness to teachers and their effects on learners. This course explores Ritchhart and Church's six specific areas of “powerful effects” while introducing participants to some new thinking routines. Session One delves into how making thinking visible practices foster deep learning, cultivate engagement, and change the role of both the students and teachers. Session Two focuses on using thinking routines with three specific aims: as a formative assessment practice, to improve learning, and to develop thinking dispositions. The workshop will support educators working with learners from pre-K through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.

Making Injustice Visible: Exploring the Complexity of Power and Participation

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., 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.

Making Thinking Visible in the World Language Classroom

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. Therefore, 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 how Making Thinking Visible might shift the culture of our world language classrooms to one that is more student-centered, inquiry-based and responsive. We will discover how the use of thinking routines, developed by Ron Ritchhart and other PZ researchers can engage our students in meaningful learning opportunities that not only introduce and practice new vocabulary and language patterns but also develop students as thinkers who seek and reach a deeper understanding of language and culture. We will explore how thinking routines can make our students’ thinking visible so that we can perceive what they know and understand, adjusting our teaching accordingly. This workshop will support teachers of any language, working with elementary, secondary or adult learners at any level, but especially at the advanced beginner (A2) to native speaking level.

Mapping Systems with Our Students

In this two-session workshop, participants will be introduced to thinking routines that were developed to foster a sensitivity to the design of systems as part of PZ’s Agency by Design research project. As our students engage with a myriad of complex systems every day, there are tools that can support them in teasing out the parts, people, and dynamics inherent in any system so that they can analyze, engage with, and even redesign systems. Participants will have the opportunity to try out thinking routines that support the mapping and analysis of systems and consider ways these routines and practices might support learning in their own context. The workshop will support educators working with learners from pre-K through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.

Navigating a Culturally Complex World: An Introduction to the Three O’s Framework

In this two-session workshop, participants will be introduced to emergent work from Out of Eden Learn, a research project and online learning program that connects young people from around the world to share stories and engage in thoughtful dialogue with one another. The workshop will focus on the Three O’s: overgeneralization, overconfidence, and othering—a framework that supports students to thoughtfully interpret and navigate the world and to avoid common pitfalls when engaging with difference, such as making assumptions, stereotyping, or viewing one’s own culture or perspective as the norm. In session one, participants will be introduced to the framework. Then, through a close examination of student work, they will consider how the Three O’s might help students to make sense of the world and engage in thoughtful dialogue across differences, both online and in person. In the second session, participants will have looked for evidence of the Three O’s in their own lives and will consider the implications for—and applications of—the Three O’s in their own teaching and learning contexts. Participants will exchange ideas and explore new tools to support this timely work. The workshop is intended for educators of elementary, middle, and high school-age students, as well as adult learners.

PZ Ideas in the Science Classroom

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’s 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 setting. 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.

Quality Higher Education in the COVID era— and Beyond

Join Project Zero researchers Howard Gardner & Wendy Fischman for perspectives on the current educational landscape. This 90-min session will feature a presentation by the researcher(s), meetings in small groups after the talk for guided reflection, and will close with a Question and Answer session. The sessions will be held on Zoom Meeting platform.

Reimagining Education for Uncertain Times

Join Dave Perkins, Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Professor of Teaching and Learning, Emeritus, and Project Zero Co-Founder to discuss the most recent challenges in education. Building on his renowned book Future Wise: Educating Our Children for A Changing World, Dave will share new insights from his current research projects and thinking as he considers this current and sudden “future." After his talk, participants will have the opportunity to reflect in small groups and then join together for a final Question & Answer session.

Slow Looking and Active Learning Together Online

In this two-session workshop, participants will engage in a sequence of slow looking activities that invite them to carefully observe and creatively engage with works of art in a variety of ways. The goals of the activities are: (1) to demonstrate accessible strategies for exploring works of art—strategies that can easily be used by non-arts educators; (2) encourage learners to make connections between works of art and their own lives, and (3) show how art can be a compelling way to explore civic and humanistic themes relevant in today’s world. The activities are appropriate for young people and adults, and transferable to online or in-person educational settings. The workshop will support educators working with learners in elementary school through secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.

Teaching Good Work in the Classroom

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.

The Power of Making Thinking Visible Webinar

Project Zero (PZ) is delighted to launch our three-month Virtual Workshop series with a live webinar featuring Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church as they discuss their new book, The Power of Making Thinking Visible. In the 2011 best seller Making Thinking Visible, Ron, a PZ researcher and principal investigator, and Mark, a long-time PZ institute faculty member and researcher, helped to popularize the use of thinking routines in classrooms, museums, and professional learning around the world. Since then, Ron and Mark have studied how educators use thinking routines, what effect visible thinking practices have on students and teachers, and how those practices transform classrooms. They have also developed new routines to help students engage with ideas, collaborate with peers, and take action thoughtfully and effectively. All of this learning is captured in The Power of Making Thinking Visible. Join Ron and Mark for an informal discussion moderated by Tina Blythe, PZ’s Director of Learning and Outreach, about the book, during which they’ll respond to questions and ideas collected in advance of the talk via Twitter: Where have you seen the power of visible thinking practices? What are you wondering about when it comes to visible thinking? Tweet your thoughts and questions using the hashtag #PowerofMTVChat

The Practice of Playful Learning: Supports, Strategies, and Stories from the Classroom

Play is a core resource for how children learn – socially, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Yet it is not always easy to define playful learning or know how to support it. In this workshop, we’ll offer several key strategies for promoting learning through play, along with classroom-based and virtual pre-k through middle school examples from the Pedagogy of Play research. The workshop will support educators working with learners from pre-K through middle-school.

Thinking with Text and Images: An Exploration of Thinking Routines for Looking Closely

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.

Understanding Our Complex World:Why Interdisciplinarity Matters & How We Can Teach It Well

Engaging the pressing global problems and issues we face today requires that we develop a multifaceted and complex understanding of them. Such understanding invariably draws from multiple disciplines and fields. Preparing our students to grapple with global problems and issues demands that we nurture their capacity to solve problems, create products or ask questions in ways that go beyond single disciplinary lenses. To prepare educators for the demands of quality interdisciplinary teaching, this workshop introduces a framework for designing interdisciplinary instruction. Through analysis of a concrete example, participants will address two key questions: (1) what is interdisciplinary understanding, and (2) how can we design instruction to nurture interdisciplinary understanding? The workshop will support educators working with learners in middle and secondary school as well as with all ages of adult learners.

When Thinking Becomes Routine: Using Thinking Routines as More than Activities

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 Session One of 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. In Session Two, participants will 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.

Past Virtual Workshops