One of the hardest things to make visible in a learning experience is change. People arrive with a set of assumptions. Something shifts during the session. But unless you create a specific moment to surface that shift, it mostly goes unnoticed, by the participants themselves and by whoever is facilitating.
“I used to think… now I think…” is a structured reflection routine designed to make that shift visible. Originally developed by Project Zero at Harvard, it’s one of the most widely used thinking routines in classrooms and workshops.
The idea is simple: at the end of a session, participants complete two sentences.
- I used to think…
- Now I think…
That’s the whole structure. But something interesting happens when you collect those responses from an entire group and share them back together.
Why this works
The format creates what researchers call metacognitive awareness: thinking about your own thinking. When someone writes “I used to think change was about having the right information, but now I think it’s more about creating the conditions for people to want to change,” they’re not just summarizing content. They’re articulating a genuine shift in understanding.
That articulation does two things. It consolidates learning by making it explicit. And it models for others what real conceptual change looks like, which can be more useful than any summary slide.
Try the template with your group
Here’s a live version you can use right now. Submit your own before/after, and see what others in the group are thinking.
Where it fits
This thinking routine works at any point where you want to surface changed thinking. A few contexts where it tends to be most useful:
Closing a workshop or training. Instead of ending with a summary of what was covered, you end with what actually shifted for people. These two things are often quite different.
After reading or watching something challenging. Assign a text or documentary, then use this before the group discussion. It gives everyone something concrete to share and creates an entry point into the conversation.
Team retrospectives. “I used to think this project would go smoothly, but now I think…” gives people permission to name what changed without framing it as complaint or critique.
Onboarding. A week or a month in, asking new team members to complete this reflects both their initial assumptions and how those have evolved. Useful data for the people doing the onboarding too.
A few things worth noting
The quality of responses tends to be better when you give people a few minutes to write privately before sharing. Rushing into it produces generic answers.
It also helps to model the format yourself. Sharing your own before/after, as a facilitator or teacher, signals that genuine conceptual change is normal and worth naming rather than something to hide.
And the responses don’t have to be about dramatic transformations. Small shifts in nuance are often more interesting: “I used to think data was objective. Now I think it’s always shaped by what someone chose to measure.”
What would you complete it with after your last meaningful learning experience?