Time to Think Webinar #2: Using Thinking Routines to Develop Evidence-Based Reasoning

(Historical Thinking Concept: Evidence)

This webinar explores how thinking routines can support the development of evidence-based reasoning, a central disciplinary skill in history education. Building on the historical thinking concept of evidence, the session focuses on how students learn to work with primary and secondary sources in order to construct informed interpretations of the past.

Thinking routines can help make the process of historical analysis visible and structured. By guiding students through stages of observation, interpretation, and questioning, these routines support learners in distinguishing between what a source shows, what it might mean, and what additional information is needed. In doing so, students learn to treat historical accounts not as fixed truths but as interpretations grounded in evidence.

The webinar will present classroom practices that use thinking routines to scaffold students’ engagement with historical sources and scholarship, helping them evaluate reliability, recognise perspective, and justify claims with evidence. While the concept of historical evidence provides the disciplinary foundation, the primary focus of the session is on how routines can strengthen students’ analytical and argumentative skills in history.