What are "Thinking Blocks" and why do they matter?

Many think scaffolding is “breaking things down” or simplifying complex ideas or processes. This alone is not scaffolding. 

By definition, scaffolding must involve a “temporary structure” that can eventually be removed—without the “building” collapsing.
The goal is agency: helping students to become expert (and independent) learners and thinkers.

A Thinking Block is a specific scaffolding tool that supports specialized learning and skill-building until it can be reliably removed. 

We know that the underlying structure of a performance assessment is a set of "formative tasks" that attend to the various skills required to accomplish the outcome successfully. These formative tasks are based on the steps that the pros take to create their expert products. 

Think of Thinking Blocks as a special set of scaffolding tools that can be used as formative tasks to supplement skill-building for a performance assessment until that learning process has been internalized and the scaffold is no longer needed. These Thinking Blocks will look familiar as they are the recurring cognitive moves that trend across various types of projects or performance assessments. Some students may need to lean on several Thinking Blocks for their learning process. Some students may only need a couple of them. Eventually, if we do this right, they won't need any of them.

What's so unique about Thinking Blocks?

• Thinking Blocks are modular and can be flexibly grouped and utilized to fit a variety of learning needs. They have been designed to be time-saving, gap-closing tools that teachers can plug-in to personalize pathways for learners. See the catalog below.
  
• Thinking Blocks are content- and discipline-agnostic. They have been designed to support a wide range of project/product types that learners will encounter in different subjects and various fields: in high school, college, and also outside of school walls in workplace and community settings.
• Thinking Blocks are organized according to reDesign's research-informed learning arc: the Creative Journey. By using this structure, learners build familiarity and can more easily self-navigate through learning pathways.
• Thinking Blocks are created so learners can use them on demand and independently with as much or as little teacher feedback as fits the situation. They are designed with student-friendly language and ready-to use student-facing tools to guide learners through the particular skill development process. 

Thinking Blocks Catalog

Click on each Thinking Block to access the learner-facing guide and the teacher tipsheet.