Habits of the Mind Meeting

Published
13 January 2011
By mattbproadmin

I had the opportunity a couple of months ago to meet Arthur Costa who is the man behind the habits of the mind institute.

The take away lessons from the day were:

1. That all teachers when asked how they would like to improve, regardless of which country they taught in all said that they want their students to do the following 16 things better…

Persisting
Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
Managing Impulsivity
Gathering Data Through all Senses
Listening with Understanding and Empathy
Creating, imagining and Innovation
Thinking Flexibly
Responding with Wonderment and Awe
Thinking about Thinking (Metacognition)
Taking Responsible Risks
Striving for Accuracy
Finding Humour
Questioning and Posing Problems
Thinking Interdependently
Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

2. That we need to undergo a mindset shift from not only needing to know what the right answer is; to how to behave when you don’t know the answer. It would appear that this is becoming increasingly important in the world we live in. Where logical solutions are taken care of by computers leaving us to do the work that computers can’t; that is find creative solutions to questions requiring us to think outside the box.

This requires me as a teacher to be aware of how I behave when the answers aren’t immediately apparent and help model that for my students.

3. For those of us teaching Senior School – when we teach keywords we should teach the verb (the thinking skill) that enables the student to answer the question.

4. I found it interesting that the syllabus (or content) doesn’t get a mention in the 16 habits. As I talked with other teachers in the room one of the main concerns that those teachers had was how do they implement these principles when their day is already so full with a very demanding syllabus.