What is the utility of Making Thinking Visible for STEM learning?

Engage

What defines the culture of thinking in chemistry is observations of the physical world and making hypotheses about the unseen. Most chemistry is trying to explain changes and reactions that happen on an atomic level. As in any science subject, the culture fosters the chance to make observations and challenge themselves to explain what they observed, supported by experiments.

Explore

The essential elements of mathematical and scientific thinking are finding connections and using prior knowledge to learn. While this can be applied to all subjects, it is especially prevalent in math and science in order to create a suitable curriculum in schools that help students towards success.

External representations give a visual for students and teachers to see the connections. Instead of simply talking about connections and making predictions about how each thing relates, the external representations allows for teachers to see what connections the students are seeing. In order to make these external representations, students must evaluate and organize their own thoughts and opinions on the topic before making these representations. External representations encourage students to think more about the things they are learning in school.