Virginia Mahlke is a consultant who works with educators and administrators nationwide. Her experience as both a teacher and administrator allows her to connect with all levels of school staff.
School Is a Home for the Mind
"School is a home for the mind." - Arthur Costa
Ask most teachers and they will tell you they wish they had more strategies/training/resources to challenge their students to think for themselves; to acquire and use a repertoire of strategies that will help them attack a problem or situation for which there is no immediate or obvious answer. The importance of this aspect of student learning has become glaringly obvious with the increased rigor of Common Core standards and the assessments used to measure proficiency in those standards.
When we confronted this issue at my school, we did some action research and shared learning to see what we could infuse into our instructional program to teach students to be confident problem attackers and solvers. We settled on Arthur Costa’s Habits of Mind as our guide. Rebecca DuFour refers to these as “dispositions of learning.”
At the time we brought these into our lesson planning, there were 16 of them:
- PERSISTENCE – keep trying; don’t give up
- DECREASING IMPULSIVITY – think before you say or do something
- LISTENING TO OTHERS WITH UNDERSTANDING – listen well and try to imagine yourself as the other person
- FLEXIBILITY IN THINKING – try hard to think of lots of ideas or answers
- METACOGNITION – think about how you learn and process information
- CHECKING FOR ACCURACY – always go back and check your work; look hard for mistakes
- QUESTIONING AND PROBLEM POSING – ask questions to help you learn more
- DRAWING ON PAST KNOWLEDGE – think about what you already know and how it can help you learn something new
- PRECISION OF LANGUAGE – try to find the BEST word, not the first word you think of
- USING ALL THE SENSES – be aware of things around you and use your eyes and ears, as well as your brain
- INGENUITY AND ORIGINALITY – try to think of a question or an answer that no one else will think of
- WONDERMENT AND CURIOSITY – always be ready to learn something new; make learning an adventure
- TAKING RESPONSIBLE RISKS – try new things that seem hard, always keeping safety in mind
- FINDING HUMOR – have fun learning; laugh at situations, not at people
- THINKING INTERDEPENDENTLY – work well with others; share ideas and materials
- REMAINING OPEN TO CONTINUOUS LEARNING – always keep an open mind; you can learn something from each person in the class
We asked our K–6 students to:
- Set a personal goal to improve on a habit
- Determine how characters in a story demonstrated the habits
- Analyze how historical figures used the habits
- Talk about the habits when they went home
We asked our teachers to:
- Emphasize the habits in all of their content
- Inform parents of the habits they were working on
- Incorporate the use of the habits into assessments
The outcomes surprised us. We had parents ask for a list to take to work. We had a first grader tell her parents “I know – I need to decrease my impulsivity” when scolded for acting out at the dinner table. Students, including those in kindergarten, began to talk in an informed way about the habits. Classroom management issues were resolved by discussing the habit the student needed to work on. Students became clear about not only WHAT they needed to learn but also about HOW they needed to approach learning.
As I have worked with the PLC at Work model, with the emphasis on teacher collaboration, I see definite and specific applications of Costa’s Habits of Mind to the collaborative process. I’d recommend them to a team looking for more sophisticated and substantive norms to drive their work (those teams who are ready to move on from norms addressing being on time or coming prepared with materials).
Resources that may support your research and application of Habits of Mind:
1. Habits of Mind Across the Curriculum: Practical and Creative Strategies for Teachers, Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick, 2009
2. Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success, Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick, 2008
Comments
Jo-Ann Stephens
Thank you, so much, for this article! I definitely see this culture of helplessness in my students and at a loss as to help them overcome this mindset. I've seen perfectly capable children just stare at me after asking them a question, waiting for me to give them an answer, instead of thinking for themselves or taking a chance at problem solving. Most of my colleagues are in the same boat so we complain about a lack of responsibility and "stick-to-it-iveness" that we all remember having as children, but we didn't know where to start with a solution. I will definitely read those additional resources, too. I am hoping that we can move our students forward to both incorporating what they need to learn and taking the initiative to do it.
Posted on
Brent Hilston
As a classroom teacher, your blog post caused me to reflect on how my team has recently approached the challenge of teaching students to think for themselves.
One thing that I feel my team has done really well to help students think and reflect on their own learning was adopting the model of student led conferences for our parent/teacher conference nights. In the weeks leading up to the conferences, we provide a frame for students to reflect on their performance, habits, and goals by having each student fill out a reflection sheet for every class. Using these reflection sheets, students rate themselves on their persistence, how well they check over their own work for mistakes, effort in class, and willingness to try new things. Many of these being habits you mentioned in your blog post. Students also comment on what practices they feel are working well for them in class and what practices they feel need the most improvement. Along with their self-reflections, students also collect work samples that they feel demonstrate what they have learned and how they have grown in each class.
During the night of the student lead conferences, the traditional two way conversation between teacher and parent becomes a three way conversation between student, parent, and teacher. The student uses their class reflections and work samples to lead the discussion. The parent then asks their child the questions about their progress, with the teacher present to step in as needed or requested. The conference ends with the student setting goals for the next part of the school year, in collaboration with the teachers and parent(s).
Posted on
Brent Hilston
As a classroom teacher, your blog post caused me to reflect on how my team has recently approached the challenge of teaching students to think for themselves.
One thing that I feel my team has done really well to help students think and reflect on their own learning was adopting the model of student led conferences for our parent/teacher conference nights. In the weeks leading up to the conferences, we provide a frame for students to reflect on their performance, habits, and goals by having each student fill out a reflection sheet for every class. Using these reflection sheets, students rate themselves on how well the are persisting, if they are taking their time and checking for mistakes, if they are putting forth adequate effort in class, and their willingness to try new things. Many of these being habits you mentioned in your blog post. Students also comment on what practices they feel are working well for them in class and what practices they feel need the most improvement. Along with their self-reflections, students also collect work samples that they feel demonstrate what they have learned and how they have grown in each class.
During the night of the student lead conferences, the traditional two way conversation between teacher and parent becomes a three way conversation between student, parent, and teacher. The student uses their class reflections and work samples to lead the discussion. The parent then asks their child the questions about their progress, with the teacher present to step in as needed or requested. The conference ends with the student setting goals for the next part of the school year, in collaboration with the teachers and parent(s).
Posted on