Week # 32 Thinking 💭 Out Loud 🔈

Modelling the Invisible

Some of the most powerful tools in a leader of learning’s toolbox are not visible. They are instead cognitive and internal. Unless…we share and model them out loud.

When we think out loud, we unlock access to expert processing: problem solving, insights, recognising intervening variables, past experience and schema application from long-term memory. This is not just offering learners access to witness the expert’s actions, but instead offering a unique lens into the expert’s thinking.

Learners benefit when we model our thinking, not just our doing.

To think aloud is to make our decisions visible. It’s narrating what a skilled practitioner considers, notices, prioritises, and evaluates in real time. It might look like:

- A teacher reading a passage and verbalising inference strategies

- A coach walking through video footage and speaking about their observation and therefore offering their tactical logic

Thinking out loud gifts a form of cognitive apprenticeship. It allows learners access to expert thought and processing to influence their own self-awareness (metacognition). This reveal mental models and schema which underpin the expert’s performance.

For thinking out loud to be successful, though, it must be intentional, carefully structured and planned within the learning design.