Disciplinary Thinking, Language, and Deeper Learning
How do I make meaning and communicate my thinking?
Strengthen disciplinary thinking across every classroom.
Accelerate language development without lowering rigor.
Develop analytical thinking through reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning.
Empower every learner to communicate ideas with confidence and clarity.
Explore the pathways that ensure every learner has the language to think deeply, communicate clearly, and make a meaningful contribution.
Develop confident readers who integrate word recognition, language, knowledge, and self-regulation to make meaning from complex texts.
View PD OptionsDevelop adolescent learners who read, write, reason, and communicate with growing expertise across every content area.
View PD OptionsDevelop learners who reason, model, justify, solve problems, and apply mathematics with growing confidence, agency, and independence.
View PD OptionsDevelop learners who investigate phenomena, model ideas, analyze evidence, construct explanations, and transfer scientific thinking to new problems.
View PD OptionsDevelop learners who analyze sources, consider perspective, construct evidence-based arguments, and use disciplinary knowledge to inform decisions and action.
View PD OptionsEnable multilingual learners to participate in rigorous grade-level learning while building language, confidence, and agency.
View PD OptionsStrengthen discipline-specific teaching while helping learners build deeper knowledge, make thinking visible, and take greater ownership.
View PD OptionsHuman-Centered Learning Builds Disciplinary Expertise
Every learner deserves to develop deep knowledge and engage in the authentic thinking, language, and problem solving of English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and other disciplines. Human-Centered MTSS recognizes that disciplinary learning and language development happen together through meaningful participation in rigorous learning.
Across tiers, schools build a coherent system of support:
- Tier 1: Rigorous, knowledge-rich, grade-level disciplinary learning for every learner.
- Tier 2: Timely, targeted support while maintaining access to grade-level learning.
- Tier 3: Intensive, evidence-based intervention for significant foundational needs while preserving connection to rigorous learning.
Grounded in the science of learning and language acquisition, Driver 4 develops the knowledge, language, reasoning, and metacognition learners need to transfer learning to new situations.
Design Effective Reading Systems
Advancing the Active View of Reading helps schools build comprehensive reading systems in which word recognition, language comprehension, knowledge, executive functioning, self-regulation, and metacognition work together. Through rich texts, purposeful discussion, and evidence-based writing, learners strengthen comprehension, build knowledge, communicate their thinking, and become confident readers of increasingly complex texts.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design literacy systems grounded in the Active View of Reading.
- Build coherent knowledge-building experiences across the curriculum.
- Strengthen language comprehension alongside word recognition.
- Use evidence to differentiate literacy instruction.
- Develop readers who confidently construct meaning from increasingly complex texts.
Advancing the Active View of Reading
The Core Collaborative Learning Lab
Build Disciplinary Expertise with Science of Secondary Reading
Science of Secondary Reading helps schools integrate reading, writing, discourse, inquiry, modeling, performance, and evidence-based reasoning across subjects. Grounded in disciplinary literacy and the science of learning, educators help learners develop the ways experts think, communicate, and create knowledge, along with the metacognition and transferable capabilities needed for school, careers, and civic life.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Build disciplinary thinking across all subjects.
- Strengthen reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning.
- Support learners across all tiers of support.
- Increase access to rigorous learning.
- Develop disciplinary thinkers.
Science of Secondary Reading
Develop Mathematical Thinkers
Building Mathematical Thinking helps educators create rigorous mathematics learning where conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, reasoning, modeling, discourse, and problem solving work together. Through strong Tier 1 instruction and responsive support, learners make their thinking visible, strengthen foundational understanding, and develop the confidence, metacognition, and agency to apply mathematics in new situations.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design mathematics learning that develops conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and mathematical practices.
- Make reasoning, modeling, problem solving, and justification visible.
- Use evidence to identify strengths, misconceptions, and unfinished learning.
- Provide responsive support while maintaining connections to rigorous, grade-level mathematics.
- Develop mathematical identity, metacognition, confidence, agency, and transfer.
Develop Scientific Thinkers
Building Scientific Thinking helps educators design knowledge-rich science learning where learners investigate phenomena, develop and use models, analyze evidence, construct explanations, and revise their thinking. Through inquiry, scientific discourse, data analysis, reading, writing, and argument from evidence, learners build scientific knowledge while developing the metacognition, identity, and agency to apply scientific thinking to new phenomena and problems.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design knowledge-rich, phenomenon-driven science learning.
- Integrate Science and Engineering Practices into instruction and assessment.
- Strengthen inquiry, modeling, data analysis, and evidence-based reasoning.
- Develop scientific language through purposeful reading, writing, and discourse.
- Develop scientific identity, metacognition, agency, and transfer.
Strengthen Historical and Civic Thinking
Building Historical & Civic Thinking helps educators create rigorous learning where learners investigate meaningful questions, analyze sources, consider perspective and context, evaluate evidence, and construct informed arguments. Through disciplinary inquiry, learners build historical and civic knowledge while developing the judgment, metacognition, and agency to apply their thinking to contemporary questions and informed action.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design inquiry around compelling historical and civic questions.
- Build knowledge through rich primary and secondary sources.
- Develop sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, and perspective taking.
- Strengthen evidence-based reasoning, argumentation, and disciplinary writing.
- Develop historical and civic identity, judgment, agency, and transfer.
Build Language, Thinking, and Agency for Multilingual Learners
Using the Map-Talk-Write routine helps educators create language-rich classrooms where multilingual learners strengthen speaking, listening, reading, writing, and collaborative meaning-making while engaging in rigorous grade-level disciplinary learning. Through transferable language and thinking routines, learners develop academic and disciplinary language, reasoning, metacognition, confidence, and agency while receiving responsive support without lowering expectations.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design language-rich learning experiences across every discipline.
- Integrate language development with rigorous grade-level learning.
- Scaffold language without lowering cognitive demand.
- Build academic and disciplinary language through talk, reading, writing, and inquiry.
- Use evidence to respond to language development needs across tiers of support.
- Foster multilingual learner identity, belonging, confidence, and agency.
A Visual Step-by-Step Guide for Amplifying Language Development: Map • Talk • Write
Rachel Carrillo Fairchild and Loan Mascorro
Advance Teaching and Build Agency Through Impact Teams
Impact Teams for Disciplinary Learning provides personalized, discipline-specific coaching that helps educators design rigorous, knowledge-rich learning. Through cycles of planning, classroom implementation, observation, feedback, student work analysis, and reflection, teachers integrate explicit instruction, high-impact practices, formative assessment, and learner agency while students develop deeper disciplinary knowledge and transferable capabilities.
Educators Will Develop the Capacity To:
- Design authentic, knowledge-rich learning experiences that develop disciplinary expertise.
- Integrate explicit instruction with high-impact instructional practices that promote deep learning and engagement.
- Use purposeful questioning, academic discourse, writing-to-learn, and performance tasks to make thinking visible.
- Build learner agency through success criteria, feedback, self-assessment, reflection, and revision.
- Analyze student work collaboratively to continuously improve teaching, learning, and learner outcomes.
- Personalize instruction to the unique practices, language, and habits of mind that define every discipline.
Leading Impact Teams: Building A Culture of Efficacy and Agency
Paul J. Bloomberg Ed.D. and Barb Pitchford
Resources
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