International schools group Nord Anglia has announced a year-long research project in collaboration with Project Zero, a research centre at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The project will explore Nord Anglia Education’s six “learner ambitions” and lead to resources that help teachers foster students who are “critical, curious, creative, compassionate, committed and collaborative”.
As part of the project, 18 bespoke “thinking routines” will be put together for Nord Anglia’s schools.
Thinking routines are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies designed to make thinking visible for students and, ultimately, to make them think more deeply.
One example is “see, think, wonder”, a thinking routine that uses three questions - “What do you see?”; “What do you think about that?”; and “What does it make you wonder?” - to help students think more deeply about objects such as artworks, images or artefacts.
Nord Anglia says the work will complement its ongoing metacognition research project with Boston College. It was launched in February and aims to deepen students’ self-awareness of their own thinking processes and the learning strategies they can use to achieve success.
Dr Kate Erricker, group head of education research at Nord Anglia Education, said: “This collaboration with Project Zero is a unique opportunity for our teachers to co-create powerful tools that will transform teaching and learning.”
She added that the goal is “a set of thinking routines that align perfectly with our education strategy, driving deeper engagement and better outcomes for our students”.
Some 27 teachers at Nord Anglia - which has 80-plus schools around the world - have been selected to participate. They will present their findings at an in-person seminar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August 2025.
Dr Flossie Chua, principal investigator at Project Zero, said: “Enabling Nord Anglia teachers to test and refine their routines in classrooms in real time is a powerful element of this project, which will serve as a model for innovative, reflective teaching practices globally.”
