From Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education -

A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking.

The thinking routines included in this toolbox are organized in four ways –

• by a small set of “Core Routines” that target different types of thinking, are easy to get started with, and are commonly used by teachers in many disciplines and with learners of many ages
• by the way educators use routines during a unit of study
• by the subject-area or topic the routines were developed to explore
• by the way educators use routines for conceptual exploration

The Toolbox organizes the Thinking Routines into categories that describe the types of thinking the routines help to facilitate. Some routines appear in more than one category, and some routines have different versions that offer modifications for specific age groups or more specific conceptual challenges.