WISIT Summer Institute 2026: Full Schedule

WISIT Summer Institute 2026

August 3 to 7, 2026
Washington International School, Tregaron Campus

1:45pm EDT

Questions Drive Thinking and Learning

LIMITED

Monday August 3, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Limited Capacity seats available

Feedback Survey

Questions are drivers of inquiry, catalysts for changing our perceptions, vehicles for developing understanding, promoters of action, and opportunities to clarify our thinking . . . and, a major way that teachers interact with their students. There is evidence that shows that teacher questions consume between 10-20% of the time students spend in classrooms. However, research shows that more than 80% of all teacher questions only require students to recall facts. Is this true in our classrooms? How can we collect data to help us better understand our own questioning and the questions students experience across our schools? How can we better understand what effective questioning looks, feels, and sounds like in a cultures of thinking classroom? In addition, if we recognize questions are important vehicles for learning, they shouldn’t totally be the purview of teachers. How can we engage students in asking better questions that increase engagement and deepen learning? Questions are one of the most powerful ways learners to express their thinking, enhance problem-solving, monitor understanding, and improve as active and autonomous learners. How can we harness the potential of questioning to develop more independent learners?

Speakers

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

Cultures of Thinking

Monday August 3, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Interactive Course

1:45pm EDT

Making Thinking Visible 2.0: New Routines, New Maps, and New Possibilities

LIMITED

Tuesday August 4, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Limited Capacity seats available

Feedback Survey

Since their introduction some 20 years ago, thinking routines have become enormously popular with teachers around the world and have continued to evolve through the ongoing work of researchers at Harvard Project Zero. It has now been over 15 years since Making Thinking Visible first appeared, and Mark Church, Karen Morrison, and Ron Ritchhart are currently at work on a revised and updated edition: Making Thinking Visible 2.0.
In this interactive course, participants will get an early look at some of the new routines being developed for the new book, explore an updated version of the Understanding Map, and examine a new section we are adding to help folks understand and discuss with colleagues how routines look in action: “A Closer Look: Examining A Video Picture of Practice.” Together, we will consider what we have learned over the past two decades about how teachers can frame, launch, and situate thinking routines so that they do more than structure an activity. This will include some of the common pitfalls of why thinking routines fail to launch in some classrooms. Following WISIT, we hope participants try out some of these new routines in their own contexts and share examples of student thinking and classroom practice with us. We are always looking for powerful examples, and we would be delighted to consider participants’ work for possible inclusion in the new book.

Speakers

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

Cultures of Thinking

Tuesday August 4, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Interactive Course

1:45pm EDT

Intro to Digital Thriving: Essential Tools for Educators Living & Teaching in a Tech-Filled World

LIMITED

Thursday August 6, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Limited Capacity seats available

Feedback Survey

Technology is both helpful and harmful, connecting and dividing, inspiring and dispiriting. Our students’ experiences with technology are multi-faceted and our approach needs to be, too. In this mini course, you’ll get hands-on with resources from the Center for Digital Thriving and engage specific mindshifts that help you go from assuming to asking, from referee to coach, from an abstinence model to agency. We’ll engage in activities that are designed to surface values, make our thinking visible, and support digital agency for educators and students alike. You'll experience these activities yourself and explore how to adapt them for your context where you can use them right away.

Speakers

Dr. Carrie James

Co-Director of Project Zero, Center for Digital Thriving

Dr. Carrie James (she/her) is a sociologist, researcher, and the current Co-Director of Project Zero. Emphasizing qualitative methods, her work focuses on young people’s digital experiences, including opportunities and challenges for their well-being, social connections, and civic... Read More →

Dr. Beck Tench

Center for Digital Thriving

Dr. Beck Tench (she/her) has deep and abiding curiosities about how to live well in a radically connected world. She is a Principal Investigator at Project Zero, where she serves as a senior researcher, designer, and co-leader of the IMAGINE AI portfolio of work at the Center for Digital Thriving. Her research explores how people find hope and digital agency, individually and collectively. Beck also teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.Beck earned her Ph.D. in Information Science at the University of Washington, where... Read More →

Dan Be Kim

Center for Digital Thriving

Dan Be Kim is a startup founder turned educational technologist, committed to reimagining how we teach and learn in the age of AI. Her current work centers on designing human-centered AI literacy programming for educators and learners. As a third culture kid with a multicultural upbringing... Read More →

Thursday August 6, 2026 1:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
The Gallery - Le Centre Brown

Interactive Course