Time to Think

About the Project

Teaching students to think critically and ethically about history is harder than it sounds, yet the tools for teaching these habits of mind are often missing from educators’ training and everyday classroom practice. Time to Think was created to close that gap: initiative built around Project Zero’s Thinking Routines,  simple, flexible protocols designed to make students’ reasoning visible and to cultivate deeper, more reflective engagement with history and humanities. 

Time to Think gives teachers and educators space to test these routines, adapt them to their own context and learn from each other through online peer exchanges, in-person workshops and a free Online Community Platform full of ready-to-use resources. Rather than simply distributing materials, the project is built around a professional community that  connects teachers and school-leaders with museum educators, archivists and memorial-site staff.

The Project partners are Ellipse Academy’s School and Wilhelmstadtschulen.

Project aims

Time to Think’s broader ambition is  to promote ways of teaching and learning that give students more ownership of  their own learning, while sharpening their critical thinking, reflection, creativity and ability to consider multiple perspectives.

In order to achieve its main goal, the project supports the ongoing capacity building  of teachers, school leaders and other education professionals  by offering professional development activities.  To sustain this work, an Online Community Platform will be  created: a digital space where educators  can grasp the pedagogical thinking behind these routines and reshape them for their own contexts. Alongside this, Time to Think intends to cultivate a community of teacher leaders and education innovators who support one another’s professional growth, share what they learn and serve as ambassadors carrying the project’s ideas forward.

Activities

The Time to Think project combines online learning, international mobility, classroom experimentation and knowledge sharing. The main activities are:

1. Online Peer Learning Activities: Three rounds of online sessions will guide participants through Project Zero’s Thinking Routines. Educators will engage with historical sources, design learning activities, share their experiences and examine how the routines can be tailored to different curricula and classroom contexts.
2. Winter School: Held in The Hague, the Winter School gathers project partners and newly recruited teacher leaders for intensive, hands-on collaboration. Together, they will review the initial learning activities and co-create teaching resources, map out classroom trials and lay the groundwork for upcoming peer-learning sessions.
3. Field Visits: Teachers and students will travel to partner schools in Paris and Berlin to put the project’s learning activities into practice. These visits will include learning experiences in museums, monuments and memory sites.
4. Seminar at the EuroClio Annual Conference: This seminar will present the project’s methodology and resources to the broader community of history and civics educators, giving attendees the chance to try out Thinking Routines themselves and offer feedback based on their experience.
5. Online Community Platform: This free platform will host teaching and learning resources, implementation stories, student testimonials, podcast, seminar recordings and updates on upcoming professional development opportunities.

Expected outcomes

• Develop classroom-tested teaching approaches based on Thinking Routines
• Document stories of implementation
• Gather student testimonies and feedback
• Produce podcast content sharing project insights
• Create introductory resources on Thinking Routines
• Launch a free Online Community Platform with teaching resources
• Build a peer network of teachers and teacher leaders
• Strengthen international cooperation among partners