*This is the fourth post in the **Playful Thinking** series, exploring Harvard Project Zero’s Visible Thinking Routines and how they can make learning more purposeful, more playful, and more powerful for every learner.*
The Student Who Learned Nothing
We had just finished our solar system unit. The one where we watched a film crew drive seven miles into the Nevada desert to place planets at true scale — with Earth the size of a marble. The one where my learners built their own scale models and wrestled with the beautiful, humbling impossibility of fitting our solar system into ten metres of classroom space.
I asked them to complete an “I Used to Think… Now I Think…” reflection.
One student looked up from his paper almost immediately. I walked over. He had written one thing in the “Now I Think…” column.
“I learned nothing.”
I paused. The room carried on.
Me: “You learned nothing?”
Him: “I already knew all this.”
Me: “Oh — really? Cool – you already knew about the scale model of the Solar System filmed in the Nevada desert?”
A beat.
“No…”
Another beat.
Me: “So…”
Him: “Oh. Yeah. I guess I did learn something.”
That small, quiet “oh” is exactly what this routine is designed to produce. Not always immediately. Sometimes it needs a little prompting.
He wasn’t trying to be difficult. He is a confident kid who hadn’t yet stopped to look at what he actually knew from then to now. The routine — and a couple of gentle questions — gave him the chance to do that. And he got there.
“I Used to Think… Now I Think…” is, in my experience, the reflection routine that makes learning visible to the learner themselves. Not just to me. To them. Sometimes that happens quietly and independently. Sometimes it needs a little support. Either way, the moment of recognition — *oh, I did learn something* — is worth waiting for.
What Is “I Used to Think… Now I Think…”?
I Used to “Think… Now I Think…” is a Visible Thinking Routine from Harvard Project Zero’s Visible Thinking framework. The structure is simple:
“I used to think…”
“Now I think…”
Two sentence stems. One before. One after. The space between them is where learning lives.
The routine is designed to be used at the end of a learning experience — a lesson, a unit, a discussion, a video, a project — to help learners reflect on how their thinking has shifted. What did they believe before? What do they believe now? What changed?
That gap between the two statements is more than just a reflection exercise. It is evidence. Of thinking. Of learning. Of growth.
How I Use It — Both Ways
I use this routine in two different ways depending on the class and the context, and both have their place.
**As a whole-group activity**
In my English language classes, where all of my learners are English language learners, I run it as a shared class activity on the board. I write the before thinking together, we have the learning experience, and then we build the after thinking together.
This scaffolds it beautifully. Learners with less confidence can see and hear the responses of their more confident classmates. They can hear me restate, reframe and extend answers. They have a safe entry point — they can contribute one word, agree with someone else’s idea, or simply absorb what is being built collectively before adding their own thought. The board becomes a shared document of the class’s thinking.
**As an individual reflection**
In my science classes, where learners tend to have stronger language skills, I am more likely to run it individually — each learner completing their own before and after. This is where the solar system student found himself contemplating his first answer.
Individual responses give me something special: each learner’s private before. What did *this* person specifically bring into the room? What did *this* person specifically take out of it? That information is valuable — for planning, for feedback, and occasionally for a quiet, well-timed conversation.
The Flower Film that Changed Thinking
In English class recently, I opened a lesson with a simple question on the board:
*What do you know or think about flowers?*
With the sentence frame: *I think flowers are ___.*
The responses were exactly what you would expect. Beautiful. Smell good. Part of nature. Used as decoration. There are many colours. Need to be preserved in a greenhouse. Important for nature — respiration, pollination, bees, butterflies, oxygen.
Solid. Sensible. A little predictable.
Then we watched a video.
It was about edible flowers — the kind that chefs actually use in cooking. Not as decoration. As food. As flavour. As ingredients in real dishes.
The sounds that came from the room were wonderful. Surprise. Hunger. Confusion. Disbelief. Several learners leaned forward. Several made the face that says: *wait, really?*
Then we built the “Now I Think…” board together.
*that flowers are food.*
*we can eat flowers just like fries.*
*flowers are even more important and I would like to discover the taste of flowers in cooking.*
*flowers are very important for nature and humans.*
*flowers could be good for eating.*
*flowers are delicious and can be healthy.*
When the learner said “We can eat flowers just like fries,” other learners laughed. Some nodded with complete seriousness. Several announced they wanted to try them. I told them honestly: I want to try them too.
That shift — from *beautiful, make good gifts* to *flowers are food and I want to eat them* — happened in the space of one video, played a few times, and one conversation. The two boards together made it visible. Not just to me. To them.
A Word of Caution
Here is something I want to say clearly, because I think it matters.
These routines are not self-running.
The solar system student who wrote “I learned nothing” did not arrive at his “oh” moment on his own. I walked over. I asked a question. I waited. I asked another question. The routine created the conditions — but getting there required a teacher in the room, paying attention, willing to ask gently and give him the space to find his own answer.
VTRs are powerful tools. But autopilot is not sufficient. Sometimes learners can use them to see their own thinking independently and brilliantly. Sometimes they need support, reframing, and a well-timed “so…” from someone who noticed what they wrote.
The routine is the scaffold. You are still the builder.
Why It Works — The Thinking Behind the Shift
What makes “I Used to Think… Now I Think…” different from other reflection tools is where it places the learner.
Most assessment makes the teacher the witness to learning. We mark the test. We read the essay. We decide what was understood.
This routine makes the **learner** the witness. They are the ones who wrote the before. They are the ones completing the after. The gap between the two is something they can see themselves. That is a genuinely different cognitive experience — and a more powerful one.
It also does something quietly important: it normalises changed thinking. In many classrooms, changing your mind feels like admitting you were wrong. “I Used to Think… Now I Think…” reframes that entirely. Changing your mind is not a mistake. It is the point. It is what learning looks like from the inside.
The student who wrote *“We can eat flowers just like fries”* was not embarrassed to have not known that before. She was delighted to know it now. That delight — that sense of *my thinking has shifted* — is what this routine makes possible.
Why It’s Perfect for Language Learners — The CI Connection
The two sentence frames — “I used to think… Now I think…” — are doing more than structuring reflection. They are past tense and present tense, held side by side.
For English language learners, that is rich grammatical territory. Not as a grammar lesson. As a natural, meaningful context for using both tenses in a single breath, anchored to something they actually experienced and actually feel.
Used repeatedly across units and subjects, these frames become acquired structures. They just use it — because they have used it before, in a real situation, for a real communicative purpose.
The whole-group version adds another layer. When a learner with emerging language hears a more confident classmate say *“Now I think flowers are food”*, they hear the frame modelled correctly in a meaningful context. They can reproduce it at their own level. A single word counts. Agreement counts. The board holds space for every level of response.
And the affective filter? A class making hungry sounds at a video about edible flowers, laughing about eating petals like fries, genuinely surprised and curious — that is about as low-stakes and joyful as a classroom moment gets. That is exactly when language learning happens best.
Why It Belongs in Every Classroom
I have used this routine in English class and in science. It travels.
In **mathematics**: Use it at the end of a unit to capture conceptual shift. What did learners think before the lesson about number sense, measurement, multiplication, or geometric patterns ? What do they think now? The gap reveals exactly where teaching landed — and where it didn’t.
In **history**: “I used to think this historical event was… Now I think…” A simple frame that turns content recall into genuine historical thinking. Learners are not just remembering — they are evaluating how their understanding has changed.
In **literature**: After reading, after discussion, after sitting with a character’s decision for a while. “I used to think this character was… Now I think…” The routine holds space for the kind of slow, evolving interpretation that good reading produces.
In **any subject with a project or inquiry component**: Run it at the start and at the end. Save both. Then ask learners to compare them. That comparison is some of the richest reflection you will ever read — and learners are often quietly astonished by how much has shifted.
The Playful Twist
**Before and After Reveal**
Collect the *I Used to Think* responses before the learning experience — anonymously — and display them for the class. Then, after the learning, display the *Now I Think* responses alongside. Let the class try to match befores and afters. The detective work is genuinely fun, and the shifts are often surprising even to the learners themselves.
**The Gallery Walk**
Post individual responses around the room — before on one colour, after on another. Ask learners to walk the gallery and place a small dot next to any *Now I Think* that surprised them, or that they share. Patterns emerge. Shared surprises spark conversation. And learners see that they were not the only one who did not know flowers were food.
**The Time Capsule**
At the start of a unit, collect *I Used to Think* responses and seal them — literally, in an envelope, or digitally in a shared document no one can edit. Open them at the end. The gap between what learners thought then and what they think now is often bigger than anyone expected, including you. The reveal is always worth it.
**Turn It Around**
Ask learners to write an “I Used to Think… Now I Think…” — about themselves as learners. Not about content. About their own abilities, habits, or relationship to the subject. “I used to think I was bad at science. Now I think…” This version requires trust and a safe classroom culture. When it works, it can reinforce the power of a growth mindset.
**Let Them Run It**
Once the class knows the routine, ask learners to design their own before-and-after experience. What would they show? What would they use to change someone’s thinking? That act of designing the shift is itself profound — and they will think more carefully about the content than they ever would filling in a worksheet.
Try It Yourself
Find a moment coming up in your classroom where something is about to change — a new unit, a surprising video, a project coming to its end. Before the experience, ask: *What do you think you know about this?* Write it down. Keep it.
Then have the experience. Then ask: *Now what do you think?*
Hold the two answers side by side. Let your learners see them together.
Watch for the shift. Watch for the surprise — in them, and maybe in yourself.
And if a student tells you they learned nothing — walk over. Ask a question. Give them a moment.
The “oh” is usually not far away.
If something unexpected, funny, or genuinely surprising comes out of it — I would love to hear about it in the comments. And if you are an audio learner, come and find me on YouTube where I walk through all of this — and more — in each video.
Thanks for being here. I hope your day is full of play.
*Maureen | Playful Pedagogy*
*[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@PlayfulPedagogy)*
*Next in the series: Think Pair Share — deceptively simple, endlessly powerful.*