27/6/2017 AuthenticEducationHabitsofMind

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HabitsofMind
UbD GrantWiggins
Design Dec09,2009
Guide returntoBigIdeasHome
Like 3

"Habits of Mind are the characteristics of what intelligent people

do when they are confronted with problems, the resolutions of
which are not immediately apparent." (Costa)
Advanced
Conceptsin What is a habit of mind and how should teachers work with them?
Creating&
You cannot learn for understanding without developing such dispositions as the
ReviewingUnits
ability to persist in ambiguity or the courage to ask questions. (Have a look at the
4 nice booklets by Bena Kallick and Arthur Costa on Habits of Mind. They
Feedback summarized the last thirty or forty years of work on the subject and came up with
a list of sixteen habits of mind.)

"Itwasanexciting Think of a habit of mind as the selfdiscipline to overcome natural inhibitions to

andthought deep thought: A disposition to be openminded, to suspend disbelief, to persevere
provokingday!" in the face of ambiguity and complexity. So let's take one: persistence. There's a
lot of research to show that math and science students rarely persist beyond 10
BarbaraKlatt, seconds if the problem is too initially puzzling. So, the question becomes: what do
TheCulver you do when you don't know what to do? You at least persist, and you try out
Academies,IN strategies (hence, the reading strategy approach in literacy development). To
persist, you need a strategy when you are stuck thats what will get you unstuck
Learnmoreabout and help you learn to persist.
ourconsulting
I find that very frustrating as a teacher. The students' first response is so
services.
often, "I can't do it."
Stayin
"I can't do it!" "I give up." "Tell me." This indicates the problem!
Touch
This is not a new concern: philosophers have written about this for twothousand
years. You can go back to Plato and Aristotle and Dewey, and this is what they
pondered and discussed. But it doesn't take philosophy coursees to realize that
developing mature habits is what an education is all about in the long run.

Take openmindedness as an example: how quickly people are not dismissive of a

new idea that sounds weird. Rather than saying, "Wait a minute, I wonder what
the truth in this is?" or "I know it makes me feel uncomfortable, but maybe there's
some wisdom in it" we often make a kneejerk negative comment.

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27/6/2017 AuthenticEducationHabitsofMind

In a very famous book called How to Solve It G. Polya wrote 60 years ago about
developing problem solving ability. A key part of his whole attempt was to say,
never mind merely giving people problems and teaching skills: how do you help
them learn to be better problemsolvers to transfer their learning to NEW
problens in high school and college math? Polya talks about what he calls the
scientific attitude, which means having the intellectual honesty to admit that
perhaps a belief doesn't fit with the data, and not dismissing it or being self
deceiving. Another key idea he offers is not to jump to conclusions but to suspend
judgment and say, "Wait a minute, is it really supported, is it really justified, and
can I prove it?" All of these qualify as habits of mind.

What do educators need to be doing to develop habits of mind in students?

Well, the beauty of the phrase is that it underscores what we need to do versus
what we typically fail to do. You don't develop a habit by direct instruction or
informing students of the value of the habit, and you don't develop a habit by
having it merely demanded of you. (If that were all we needed, no one would be
overweight; no one would smoke.) To talk of better habits is to talk about
something becoming second nature. It depends upon incentives, reinforcement,
modeling. It means that you have to recognize when the old habit is acting, when
to try a new habit, and practice in using the new habit and seeing its value. That
takes time, repetition, situations which reward the new habit; and it takes wise,
savvy, tactful teaching. Alas, we have too many teachers who think that their job
is to get people to know stuff and to do stuff. It's all too exclusively shortterm.

What do you mean by shortterm?

Teachers tend to focus on shortterm goals. Know this, do that. But understanding
is baout transfer: being able, on your own, to handle new challenges. That requires
not just knowledge and skill but good judgment and good habits. After all, the
point of school is effective use of knowledge and skill in real situations. Content
knowledge is a means, not the end. Ask yourself: whats the point of knowing a lot
of content if you lack the habits and attitudes needed to use the content in new,
challenging or problematic settings? An irony, of course, is that often teachers as
well as parents fail to have the requisite habits of mind to develop those very
habits in their kids patience, persistence, openness to novelty, etc.

So, where do Habits of Mind go in UbD?

In the revised version of the Template, they go in the box called Longterm or
Established Goals. Like Missionrelated goals, they are longterm and beyond
subjectarea boundaries, so they go in the Goals box.

This is a key issue of instructional design. You have to design opportunities to see
the value of the habit and the bad consequences of its absence. That's why I like to
call teaching for understanding Intellectual Outward Bound. The idea of that
analogy is, you're out in the wilderness, and nobody's telling you what to do and
nobody's really watching: have you internalized the right things? Do you know what
to do, on your own?

So teachers need to create those conditions.

Teachers need to create the conditions to develop it, to test it, and to challenge
it. A simple example of a test of the habit of mind persistence, is to deliberately
give a kid a book that's slightly too hard for his reading level. You have to do that.

Now the kid knows both where he stands and what the next challenge ahead is.
When your habits help you see both, you are on your way.

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27/6/2017 AuthenticEducationHabitsofMind

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Wouldyousuggestthatagreaterconcentrationonbuilding'SoftSkills'wouldinsomeway
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May25,2015

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