Developing Transferable Thinking through Concept Lenses and Thinking Routines

Dept.: CLC

Leaders: Luo Ziwei

Member: Yeo Hwee Yanne

What was the current need/gap that you were addressing?

Students often prepared for Higher Chinese Oral Conversation by learning topic-specific content, examples and possible responses. While this helped with familiar topics, students could struggle when they encountered an unfamiliar context or lacked relevant background knowledge. There was therefore a need to move students beyond knowing what to say towards learning how to think. Students needed transferable strategies to approach unfamiliar issues, consider different perspectives and develop their own well-reasoned viewpoints.

How had it been experimented and enacted?

The team developed a Thinking Card Game that combined Concept Lenses, Thinking Routines and structured collaborative dialogue. Students used Concept Lenses such as responsibility, sustainability, innovation, community, fairness and identity to approach issues from different perspectives. Thinking Routine cards guided them to question assumptions, build on ideas and take their thinking further. During the game, students listened to one another, responded to peers’ ideas and co-constructed deeper viewpoints instead of simply giving prepared answers. The learning process moved from teacher modelling → guided discussion → collaborative inquiry → independent response, with scaffolds gradually reduced as students became more familiar with the routines. The approach has since been extended from speaking to writing（从说到写）. Using the same familiar Thinking Card format, an extension activity for stimulus-based argumentative writing（材料议论文） has been prototyped in one class, with beta testing also conducted with interested students from two other classes.

What was the positive impact?

For students More flexible thinking: Students learnt to find different entry points into unfamiliar issues instead of relying mainly on memorised content. Deeper dialogue: Concept Lenses encouraged students to shift perspectives, while Thinking Routines helped them build on peers’ ideas and develop their reasoning further. Greater independence: As students became familiar with the routines, they became less reliant on the physical cards and more confident in applying the thinking strategies independently. Progressive transfer from speaking to writing: Students can now encounter the same Thinking Card structure in argumentative writing, helping them transfer familiar habits of questioning, perspective-taking and reasoning from oral discussion to written argumentation. For teachers Teacher and student learning support coach feedback highlighted the value of the visual resources and game-based approach, while suggesting refinements such as longer discussion time, closer integration into the overall lesson, and additional scaffolds for students who need more support.

What is a future need that this IdEas@work could meet?

The next step is to deepen and scale the progressive transfer from speaking to writing（从说到写）. Rather than teaching oral communication and writing as separate sets of strategies, the same Thinking Card format can provide students with a common thinking language across genres. Students first practise making their thinking visible through collaborative talk, where they can hear different perspectives and refine ideas with peers. They then transfer these thinking habits to the more independent task of constructing written arguments. This transfer has already begun. The Thinking Card extension for stimulus-based argumentative writing has been prototyped in one class, with a beta version offered to interested students from two other classes. The next phase is to refine the prototype based on student experience before exploring wider implementation. In the longer term, the same design principle can be adapted to other genres and levels. This allows the Thinking Cards to grow from an oral activity into a scalable cross-genre thinking toolkit, helping students recognise that while the mode may change from speaking to writing, the underlying habits of thinking can transfer. Hence, we intend to share it with the cluster , and start a professional learning community next year.