Developing skillful thinkers and Agenda successful … skillful thinkers and successful learners Infusing “Habits of Mind” into the culture and curriculum of the school Pat and

Developing skillful thinkers and successful learners

Infusing “Habits of Mind” into the culture and curriculum of the school

Pat and Martin Buoncristiani

Thinking and Learning in Concert

23 -24th January 2008Northside Christian College

Brisbane, Australia

AgendaDay one

Session 1 9:00 - 10:40 Introduction – How People Learn

Session 2 11:00 - 12:45 Unpacking skills behind a Habit

Session 3 1:30 - 3:30 How Habits develop

Implementing Habits – Lesson planning 1

Day Two

Session 5 9:00 - 10:40 Metacognition & Thinking Habits

Session 6 11:00 - 12:45 Language of thinking & quality questioning

Session 7 1:30 - 3:30 Implementing Habits – Lesson planning 2

Who are you?

• Primary• Middle• Secondary

• Year 7 - 8• Year 9 - 10• Year 11- 12

• Leadership team• Principal• Special Educator• Other • Experience with

HOM?

Pat:

Teacher educator in Melbourne for 15 years

Primary school teacher

Primary school principal in both Australia and United States

Martin:

Professor of physics

Scientific researcher

Secondary science educator

Who were we?

Worked with Art Costa and Bena Kallick in the USA and Australia.

Worked with clusters, schools and administrators in both Australia and the United States to incorporate Habits of Mind into the curriculum

Collaborated with NASA and the National Institute of Aerospace to provide workshops encouraging integrating teaching thinking skills into science curriculum.

Regularly present our research findings at national and international conferences.

The bottom line:We have both used the Habits of Mind in the classroom and with curriculum design and come to realize how important it is to the teaching of skillful thinking.

Who are we now?

Each table has been allocated two Habits of Mind

Thinking and working interdependently, come up with a word or short phrase that sums up each of these

habits

Select someone from the table group to write your choice on each habit poster

3 minute walk around

processing Activating what you already know about

Habits of Mind

A cold, hard fact about your students

Students starting school at age 5 in 2008 will graduate from secondary school at 18 in 2021.

If they enter the work force immediately and work until age 60, they will retire in 2063.

They will work for 42 years at a series of jobs that, most likely, do not exist right now.

So, how do we prepare them for this future?

Meaningful content in a context of Habits of Mind

Here is a Question to Start us Off

processing

Thinking about the future your students will face, what do you want them to be able to do five years after they

leave this school?

How does your list match with this list from educators and parents in both the USA and Australia?

Discover his or her abilitiesBe creativeBe able to solve problemsKnow what and how to studyBe self- motivated, self-directed and confidentBe able to operate in a variety of environmentsHave basic skills that enable on going learningBe productive citizensBe lifelong learnersWork well in teamsKnow how to find outThink before actingAppreciate the value of educationMake connectionsBe curious Thinking and Learning in Concert

How People LearnA Study Commissioned by the US National Academies of Science and Engineering

Committee on Developments inthe Science of Learning

&Committee on Learning Research

& Educational Practice

National Academy PressWashington DC

2002

This book is available online: http://newton.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/


Recent research on the brain and its function has led to a new understanding of How People Learn.

This knowledge suggests how teaching can be changed to increase effectiveness.

How People Learn, Bransford, Brown et al, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 2002


“How People Learn”Describes a synthesis of recent research by

cognitive psychologistsdevelopmental researchers

social psychologistscognitive psychologists

anthropologistsneuroscientistsand educators

and leads tothree significant findings.


Finding 1“Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works.

If their initial understanding is not engaged they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for the purpose of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.”“How People Learn”, Bransford, Brown et al, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 2002


Finding 2To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must:

(a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge,(b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and(c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.



Finding 3

A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.


Metacognition –thinking about our own thinking – is not an innate ability.

It requires skills that need to be taught.

The Habits of Mind are a set of 16 dispositions or behaviors that characterize successful people.

They describe the ways in which successful people behave when dealing with problems whose answers are not immediately apparent.

Our task is to design pedagogy and curriculum that develop these dispositions, these Habits of Mind, so that students can use them more effectively and become successful contributors to our society.

The Habits of Mind are a way of explicitly teaching students about their own thinking.

Using Habits of Mind, students develop the ability to monitor, evaluate and adapt their thinking strategies.

In a sense, all of the Habits are about metacognition.

Northside has selected Habits of Mind as a framework to teach students to become skillful thinkers.

As you think about your own familiarity with the Habits of Mind and the teaching of skillful thinking in your own classroom, where would you place yourself on the roadmap?

Don’t put your name on the PostIt note, just place it where you think you are right now on the journey towards effective implementation of Habits of Mind in your classroom.

processing The Roadmap

The Habits of Mind are central to our

core task, toteach children how to

thinkusing significant

content.


An Important ReminderThe ability to think skillfully and reflect on ourthinking is not an innate human characteristic.

These skills need to be explicitly taught tochildren.

Research has shown that around 30% of the adult population does not engage inthinking about their own thoughts.

Chiabetta, E.L.A, Science Education, 60, 253-261 (1976).Whimby, A., Educational Leadership, 37 (7) (1980).


Transformation of Students

Knowledge

Mental

Structure(Context

And

Organization)

Novice Expert

Routine Expertise

“Inert Knowledge”

Adaptive Expertise

“Flexible Thinking”

Adapted from John Bransford and the “Center for Learning in Formal and Informal Environments”.

The most powerful learning occurs when we move away from inert knowledge and towards flexible thinking.

What we plan to do

In 2 days we cannot make you experts in the habits.

What we can do is give you tools to help each other build a learning community based on the Habits of Mind.

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed them for life.

Tools for UnderstandingHabits of Mind

1) Each habit has a set of skills or strategiesassociated with it – we will focus on how to unpack these strategies.

2) Each habit develops in stages from naive to sophisticated – we will explore this evolution.

3) Habits do not operate in isolation – we will discuss how they combine with each other.

4) Habits need to be integrated into the curriculum – we will describe techniques for developing lesson plans that integrate habits into the curriculum

Toolbox

Unpack the skills & strategies behind a habit

Explore how habits develop

Examine habits operating in combination

Integrate the habits into the curriculum

Stick to it!

Persevering in atask through to completion; remaining focused.

Looking for ways to reach your goal when stuck.

Not giving up.

Persisting

Think of a event in your life where you demonstrated persistence and it led to a success.

List the various skills, attitudes, feelings, strategies that you utilized in demonstrating your persistence.

Discuss and compare your list at your table.

Create a composite list.

Share with the group.

processing Think Pair Share “I’d like to be persistent but I don’t know how.”

Each of the habits has a subset of skills that need to be mastered.

With your colleagues at your table develop a map of what you actually ask your students to do when you ask them to be persistent.

processing

Persisting

Unpacking A Habitprocessing

Take Your Time!

Thinking before acting; remaining calm, thoughtful and deliberate.

Managing impulsivity

The key word in this habit is

managing.

Managing impulsivity means that sometimes a degree of

impulsivity is desirable, for example, in

brainstorming for new ideas.

Check it again!

Always doing your best.

Setting high standards.

Checking and finding ways to improve constantly.

Striving for accuracy

Use your natural pathways!

Pay attention to the world around you.

Gather data through all senses – taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight.

Gather data through all the senses

Each table has one of these three habits:

Managing Impulsivity

Striving for Accuracy

Gathering Data Through All Senses

At your table discuss the question “How do you accomplish your habit?”

Unpack your Habit to reveal the sub skills.

You might choose to represent your thinking with a mind map.

Summarize your work clearly on a piece of A4 paper and we will share them around.

processing Unpacking Exercise

What is a habit?“Habit is a cable; we weave it each day, and at last we cannot break it.”

Horace Mann, American Educator 1769 - 1859

How habits develop

Unconscious Incompetence

Conscious Incompetence

Conscious Competence

Unconscious Competence

Toolbox

Unpack the skills & strategies behind a Habit

Explore how Habits develop

Examine Habits operating in combination

Integrate the Habits into the curriculum

It is not a simple matter of having or not having a particular Habit of Mind.

Very young children can be amazingly persistent

Exploring the developmental nature of Habits of Mind

The habits are developmental and we continue to become better at them throughout our lives.

Consider the development of the ability to think interdependently.

In the beginning –– Enjoys working in a group because she gets to work with friends– Working in a group means taking turns– Recognizes familiar situations in class when she works in a group

After some time working in groups –– Understands working in groups is about having one outcome for the group.– Group work is often about equal division of labor.– Has difficulty working with people very different to herself

After some more time –– Begins to incorporate other Habits of Mind like Listening with Empathy and Understanding while working in groups– Is able to add to others ideas, and recognizes that the product of the group is more than the sum of the parts– Can recognize situations at home, school and in the community where working in groups helps generate better results

After some more time –– Can effectively employ a range of complex cooperative strategies– Recognizes new and novel situations where it is appropriate to work cooperatively– Values diversity in a group as a positive influence

Use what you Learn! Accessing prior knowledge; transferring knowledge beyond the situation in which it was learned.

Applying past knowledge to newsituations

Students often follow instructions or perform tasks without wondering why they are doing what they are doing. They seldom question themselves about their own learning strategies or evaluate the efficiency of their own performances. They have little or no motivation to do so. Some children virtually have no idea of what they should do when they confront a problem and are often unable to explain their strategies of decision-making. For these children learning is reduced to episodic rote learning and memorization, primarily directed at passing tests and getting through school. And many of them do, but just barely. They can do better.

Art Costa and Bena Kallick

I have so much more to learn! Having humility and pride when admitting we don’t know; resisting complacency.

Remaining open to continuous learning

Venture out! Being adventuresome; living on the edge of one’s competence. Try new things constantly.

Taking responsible risks

Each person in your home group is going to become an expert on one of the following Habits

Applying past knowledge (red)Remaining open to continuous learning (blue)

Taking responsible risks (yellow)

Change tables so everyone is focusing on the same habit (all the same color) . This forms expert groups.

Identify possible sequences of development or general ways of describing changes that apply to your habit.

Return to original home group to discuss, share, and compare. (mixed colors)

Expert Jig Saw Activity

processing

Home Groups

Share the changes your expert group saw in each habit – adapt your own description as you hear others talk about theirs if necessary

What generalizations might you be able to draw that would apply to all/most of the habits?

You have a developmental continuum for individual habits. See if you can develop a developmental continuum that would apply to all or most of the habits.

Find a way to represent that general developmental continuum on chart paper and post your charts.

Select a group member to explain this generalized continuum.

The big picture of growth and development of HoM

Schools that succeed with the Habits of Mind seem to recognize the process of continuous development of the Habits of Mind and take this

into account in their implementation.

Novice ExpertSimplistic understanding of a habit Recognizes complexity of habitsRequires guidance Self-directed applicationApplies one habit at a time Integrates use of habitsLimited tools and strategies Multiple tools and strategiesPoor or inappropriate selection Appropriate and skillful selectionDifficulty recognizing habits Recognizes situations to apply

habits

processing

As you watch this video think about what is going on in the

teacher’s mind ...

and the students’minds.

A Habits of Mind LessonImplementing Habits of Mind in the Classroom

Lesson Planning 1

Toolbox






Lesson Plan% Time Activity Purpose10 - 15 Activating Prior

KnowledgeBring long-term memory forward, assess understanding, identify misconceptions

70 - 80 Cognition (New Information)

Evaluate understanding,Bloom’s taxonomy, apply new knowledge

10 - 15 Summarizing Informal evaluation, re-teach, enrichment


Pulse Learning

Focus Diffuse Focus Diffuse Focus

The brain prefers alternating focused instruction with diffuse instruction

Age ± 2 minutes for focused learning

2 – 5 minutes for diffusion and processing

Where do theHabits of Mind

fit into the curriculum and the workings of

the school?

THINKING SKILLS

HABITS OF MIND

COGNITIVE TASKSTHAT DEMAND

SKILLFUL THINKING

CONTENT

THINKING SKILLS

Content

Cognition

Conduct

When you think about your own thinking you are thinking about...

When you are planning a thinking based lesson you need to plan for:

Content – facts and concepts expressed in the language of the discipline

Cognition - types of thinking used, often included in curriculum document by reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy

Conduct - personal behavior that supports effective thinking – Habits of Mind

BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY

CreatingCreatingGenerating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things

Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.

EvaluatingEvaluatingJustifying a decision or course of action

Checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging

AnalysingAnalysingBreaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships

Comparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating, finding

ApplyingApplyingUsing information in another familiar situationImplementing, carrying out, using, executing

UnderstandingUnderstandingExplaining ideas or concepts

Interpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining

RememberingRememberingRecalling information

Recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding

Direct Instruction In Thinking Skills

• Do students know how to perform the thinking skills?

• Can students describe the steps in the thinking process?

• Can they correctly label the skills when they use them?

• Do they apply the skills spontaneously when solving problems?

Table Talk

One of the basic thinking skills iscompare/contrast.

At your table discuss:• How do you do this?• What are the necessary steps?• When might you want to use it?• Why is it a valuable thinking skill.

processing Use the language of thinkingLet’s look at these two pictures

What do you think will happen when …?

Let’s work this problem

How do you know this is true?

Do you think this is the best alternative?

Let’s COMPARE these pictures

What do you PREDICT will happen when …?

Let’s ANALYZE this problem

What EVIDENCE do you have?

As you EVALUATE thesealternatives …?

Habits of Mind

• Enfold everything else• Dispositions – becoming unconsciously

competent• Need to begin by being consciously

competent• Keep asking yourself “which HOMs

would serve me well here – as a learner, as a teacher?”

Toolbox





Lesson planning for the implementation of Habits of Mind

Which habit/s?

No hard and fast rulesOne at a time? A few at a time? All at once?

Which habit/s is this little girl using?

(water splashing video)

Habits rarely exist in isolation.

“Our experiences in the field have shown that habits of mind make the most sense when they are integrated as a part of the entire working process in a classroom.

Experience has shown, too, that clusters of habits go together naturally. Teachers will not – and should not –teach all 16 habits at once. Instead, they can elect which habits to incorporate based upon their assessment of the students’ needs, the content and context of the lesson, and other school priorities.

Think of the habits as a smorgasbord: You have vast array from which to choose. Which of the habits pique your interest, and which of the habits are likely to satisfy your students’ hunger to learn?”Costa & Kallick, Activating and Engaging the Habits of Mind

Which habits?

The needs of the subject area

Science – taking in data through all of the senses

Mathematics – striving for accuracy

English – listening with empathy and understanding

Physical education – persisting, taking responsible risks

The needs of your students as observed

Girl Scouts

Girl ScoutsSometimes careful observation reveals

opportunities to develop certain Habits ofMind.

These girls were not skilled at:Managing impulsivity

Thinking flexiblyPersisting

Taking responsible risks

School examples: Content and conduct

Introduce ALL the habits initially – present the smorgasbord!Not too much detail, basic understandings.

Select one, two or three habits that will be the focus in a series of lessons.

Spend time exploring a habit (see Girrawheen example on persisting).

Exploration can be incorporated into the content of a particularlesson e.g. Kaleen Science lesson integrating gathering data through all the senses.

Lessons can be designed in ways that focus on particular habits (Kaleen example of science lesson on magnetism and electricity that integrates applying past knowledge with the lesson content).

Lesson Planning

Specifies the content to be taught

Identifies the thinking skills and teaches them if necessary, revises them as appropriate

Identifies the Habits of Mind most helpful in this lesson and teaches them if necessary, revises them as

appropriate.

All in ways that engage students and stretch their thinking beyond the information given.

Observable indicatorsI teach towards the Habits of Mind

I consciously develop lessons intended to engage students’ thinking processes and Habits of Mind

I hear myself employing Habits of Mind terminology in my discussions with students

I communicate with parents about their child’s growth in thinking and HoM

I recognize and reinforce students when they display the use of effective thinking and Habits of Mind

If you were to come into my classroom you would see indicators of my students’ learning the Habits of Mind

If you were to come into my classroom you would see indicators of my teaching toward the Habits of Mind

I am aware of and assess students’ developing us of the Habits of Mind

I value and teach students how to assess their own performance of HoM

Walk and TalkTopic:

How do I see myself using HoM in my classroom?

Select a partner

Walk 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back. During the first 10 minutes one person talks and the other listens. On the return walk, roles are exchanged.

Only one person talks on the walk.NO FEEDBACK!

Return to the room in silence

Spend 10 minutes writing down what seems important among your thoughts. Keep this for work tomorrow.

Coffee Break

There is a Question Board

for you to post your questions or comments

to us.

Use the coffee break time to look at the Y charts your colleagues have posted on the

walls.

Remember the Question Board.

Documents

Developing skillful thinkers and Agenda successful … skillful thinkers and successful learners Infusing “Habits of Mind” into the culture and curriculum of the school Pat and