Art Costa and Bena Kallicks 2008 2009 Habits of Mind Framework
xvi Habits of Listen Nautical chart
HABITS OF MIND
(Available for download)
Arthur 50. Costa, Ed. D.
Professor Emeritus,
California State University, Sacramento
A "Habit of Listen" means having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with bug. When humans experience dichotomies, are confused by dilemmas, or come up confront to confront with uncertainties–our most effective deportment crave cartoon forth certain patterns of intellectual behavior. When we draw upon these intellectual resources, the results that are produced are more powerful, of higher quality and of greater significance than if we fail to use those intellectual behaviors.
Employing "Habits of Mind" requires a blended of many skills, attitudes, cues, past experiences and proclivities. It means that we value one pattern of thinking over another and therefore it implies choice making about which pattern should exist employed at this time. It includes alertness to the contextual cues that signal this every bit an advisable time and circumstance in which the employment of this design would exist useful. Information technology requires a level of skillfulness to employ and carry through the behaviors finer over time. It suggests that every bit a result of each experience in which these behaviors were employed, the effects of their use are reflected upon, evaluated, modified and carried forth to future applications.
HABITS OF MIND ATTEND TO:
DESCRIBING HABITS OF MIND
What behaviors are indicative of the efficient, effective problem solver? But what do human being beings practise when they behave intelligently? Enquiry in constructive thinking and intelligent behavior past Feuerstein (1980), Glatthorn and Baron (1985), Sternberg (1985), Perkins (1985), and Ennis (1985) indicates that there are some identifiable characteristics of effective thinkers. These are not necessarily scientists, artists, mathematicians or the wealthy who demonstrate these behaviors. These characteristics have been identified in successful mechanics, teachers, entrepreneurs, salespeople, and parents—people in all walks of life.
Post-obit are descriptions and an elaboration of 16 attributes of what human beings do when they comport intelligently. Nosotros choose to refer to them as Habits of Mind. They are the characteristics of what intelligent people do when they are confronted with problems, the resolution to which are not immediately apparent.
These behaviors are seldom performed in isolation. Rather, clusters of such behaviors are fatigued forth and employed in various situations. When listening intently, for case, 1 employs flexibility, metacognition, precise language and perhaps questioning.
Please do not think that there are only sixteen ways in which humans brandish their intelligence. It should be understood that this listing is not meant to be complete. Information technology should serve to initiate the drove of additional attributes. Although 16 Habits of Heed are described here, you, your colleagues and your students will want to continue the search for additional Habits of Mind by calculation to and elaborating on this list and the descriptions.
ane. Persisting
One is a affair of quality; the other, a matter of time. ~Marabel Morgan, The Electric Adult female
Efficacious people stick to a job until it is completed. They don't give up easily. They are able to analyze a problem, to develop a system, structure, or strategy to attack a trouble. They employ a range and have repertoire of culling strategies for trouble solving. They collect prove to signal their problem-solving strategy is working, and if 1 strategy doesn't piece of work, they know how to back up and try another. They recognize when a theory or thought must exist rejected and another employed. They accept systematic methods of analyzing a problem which include knowing how to begin, knowing what steps must be performed, and what information need to be generated or collected. Because they are able to sustain a problem solving process over time, they are comfortable with cryptic situations.
Students often give up in despair when the answer to a problem is non immediately known. They sometimes crumple their papers and throw them away proverb, "I can't do this," "It's too hard," or, they write down any answer to become the task over with as apace as possible. Some accept attention deficits; they have difficulty staying focused for any length of time, they are easily distracted, they lack the ability to analyze a trouble, to develop a system, construction, or strategy of problem attack. They may surrender considering they have a limited repertoire of problem solving strategies. If their strategy doesn't work, they give up because they accept no alternatives.
2. Managing Impulsivity
Constructive trouble solvers take a sense of deliberativeness: They call up before they act. They intentionally form a vision of a product, plan of activity, goal or a destination before they begin. They strive to clarify and understand directions, develop a strategy for approaching a problem and withhold immediate value judgments about an idea before fully understanding it. Reflective individuals consider alternatives and consequences of several possible directions prior to taking action. They decrease their need for trial and error by gathering information, taking fourth dimension to reflect on an reply before giving it, making sure they understand directions, and listening to alternative points of view.
Oft students blurt the first respond that comes to mind. Sometimes they shout out an answer, outset to work without fully understanding the directions, lack an organized plan or strategy for approaching a problem or make firsthand value judgments virtually an idea—criticizing or praising it— before fully understanding it. They may have the first suggestion given or operate on the first thought that comes to mind rather than considering alternatives and consequences of several possible directions.
3. Listening To Others—With Agreement and Empathy
Highly effective people spend an inordinate amount of fourth dimension and energy listening (Covey, 1989). Some psychologists believe that the power to heed to some other person, to empathize with, and to sympathise their betoken of view is ane of the highest forms of intelligent behavior. Being able to paraphrase another person'southward ideas, detecting indicators (cues) of their feelings or emotional states in their oral and body language (empathy), accurately expressing another person'southward concepts, emotions and bug—all are indications of listening behavior (Piaget called it "overcoming ego-centrism"). They are able to run across through the diverse perspectives of others. They gently nourish to another person demonstrating their understanding of and empathy for an idea or feeling by paraphrasing it accurately, edifice upon it, clarifying it, or giving an example of information technology.
Senge and his colleagues (1994) suggest that to heed fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the "music", but as well to the essence of the person speaking. You listen non only for what someone knows, but as well for what he or she is trying to stand for. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the fine art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so yous can slow your heed's hearing to your ears' natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning.
We spend 55 percent of our lives listening yet information technology is one of the to the lowest degree taught skills in schools. We frequently say we are listening simply in actuality, we are rehearsing in our caput what nosotros are going to say next when our partner is finished. Some students ridicule, laugh at, or put down other students' ideas. They interrupt are unable to build upon, consider the claim of, or operate on another person's ideas. We desire our students to learn to devote their mental energies to another person and invest themselves in their partner's ideas.
We wish students to learn to concur in abeyance their ain values, judgments, opinions, and prejudices in
lodge to listen to and entertain some other person'due south thoughts. This is a very complex skill requiring the power to monitor 1'due south own thoughts while, at the same time, attention to the partner's words. This does not mean that nosotros can't disagree with someone. A good listener tries to sympathise what the other person is proverb. In the end he may disagree sharply, just because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what information technology is he is disagreeing with.
4. Thinking Flexibly
An amazing discovery about the human brain is its plasticity–its power to "rewire", alter and even repair itself to go smarter. Flexible people are the ones with the nearly control. They have the capacity to change their mind every bit they receive boosted information. They engage in multiple and simultaneous outcomes and activities, draw upon a repertoire of trouble solving strategies and can do style flexibility, knowing when it is appropriate to exist broad and global in their thinking and when a situation requires detailed precision. They create and seek novel approaches and take a well-developed sense of humor. They envision a range of consequences.
Flexible people tin can approach a problem from a new angle using a novel approach {deBono (1970) refers to this as lateral thinking.} They consider culling points of view or deal with several sources of information simultaneously. Their minds are open up to change based on additional information and data or reasoning, which contradicts their beliefs. Flexible people know that they have and can develop options and alternatives to consider. They understand mean-ends relationships being able to work within rules, criteria and regulations and they can predict the consequences of flouting them. They empathize non only the immediate reactions merely are also able to perceive the bigger purposes that such constraints serve. Thus, flexibility of mind is essential for working with social multifariousness, enabling an individual to recognize the wholeness and distinctness of other people'southward ways of experiencing and making meaning.
Flexible thinkers are able to shift, at will, through multiple perceptual positions. 1 perceptual orientation is what Jean Piaget called, egocentrism–perceiving from our own point of view. Past contrast, allocentrism is the position in which we perceive through another persons' orientation. We operate from this second position when we empathize with other'south feelings, predict how others are thinking, and conceptualize potential misunderstandings.
Some other perceptual position is "macro-centric". It is similar to looking down from a balcony at ourselves and our interactions with others. This bird's-center view is useful for discerning themes and patterns from assortments of information. It is intuitive, holistic and conceptual. Since we often need to solve problems with incomplete data, we need the capacity to perceive full general patterns and bound beyond gaps of incomplete knowledge or when some of the pieces are missing.
Yet another perceptual orientation is micro-centric–examining the individual and sometimes minute parts that make up the whole. This "worm'due south-eye view", without which scientific discipline, technology, and any circuitous enterprise could not function, involves logical analytical computation searching for causality in methodical steps. It requires attending to item, precision, and orderly progressions.
Flexible thinkers display conviction in their intuition. They tolerate defoliation and ambiguity upwards to a point, and are willing to let go of a trouble trusting their hidden to continue creative and productive work on information technology. Flexibility is the cradle of humor, creativity and repertoire. While there are many possible perceptual positions–past, present, future, egocentric, allocentric, macro centric, visual, auditory, kinesthetic—the flexible listen is activated by knowing when to shift perceptual positions.
Some students have difficulty in considering alternative points of view or dealing with more than ane classification system simultaneously. THEIR way to solve a problem seems to exist the ONLY mode. They perceive situations from a very ego-centered point of view: "My way or the highway!" Their heed is made up; "Don't confuse me with facts, that's information technology."
5. Thinking About our Thinking (Metacognition)
Probably the major components of metacognition are developing a plan of action, maintaining that programme in mind over a period of time, and then reflecting dorsum on and evaluating the program upon its completion. Planning a strategy before embarking on a course of action assists us in keeping track of the steps in the sequence of planned behavior at the conscious sensation level for the duration of the action. Information technology facilitates making temporal and comparative judgments, assessing the readiness for more or unlike activities, and monitoring our interpretations, perceptions, decisions and behaviors. An instance of this would be what superior teachers do daily: developing a educational activity strategy for a lesson, keeping that strategy in listen throughout the pedagogy, and then reflecting back upon the strategy to evaluate its effectiveness in producing the desired educatee outcomes.
Intelligent people plan for, reflect on, and evaluate the quality of their ain thinking skills and strategies. Metacognition means becoming increasingly aware of one'southward deportment and the effect of those actions on others and on the environs; forming internal questions equally one searches for information and meaning, developing mental maps or plans of action, mentally rehearsing prior to performance, monitoring those plans every bit they are employed–existence conscious of the need for midcourse correction if the plan is non meeting expectations, reflecting on the plan upon completion of the implementation for the purpose of self-evaluation, and editing mental pictures for improved performance.
Interestingly, not all humans achieve the level of formal operations (Chiabetta, 1976). And as Alexander Luria, the Russian psychologist institute, non all adults metacogitate (Whimbey, 1976). The near likely reason is that nosotros exercise not take the fourth dimension to reverberate on our experiences. Students often do not take the time to wonder why we are doing what we are doing. They seldom question themselves about their own learning strategies or evaluate the efficiency of their own operation. Some children virtually accept no idea of what they should do when they confront a trouble and are often unable to explain their strategies of decision making (Sternberg and Wagner, 1982). When teachers ask, "How did you solve that trouble; what strategies did y'all have in heed"? or, "Tell us what went on in your head to come up up with that conclusion". Students often respond past maxim, "I don't know, I just did it.'
We want our students to perform well on circuitous cognitive tasks. A simple case of this might be fatigued from a reading job. Information technology is a common experience while reading a passage to have our minds "wander" from the pages. We "come across" the words but no meaning is being produced. Suddenly we realize that nosotros are not concentrating and that we've lost contact with the meaning of the text. We "recover" by returning to the passage to find our place, matching it with the last idea we tin can remember, and, one time having plant information technology, reading on with connectedness. This inner sensation and the strategy of recovery are components of metacognition.
6. Striving For Accuracy and Precision
Embodied in the stamina, grace and elegance of a ballerina or a shoemaker, is the desire for adroitness, mastery, flawlessness and economy of energy to produce exceptional results. People who value accuracy, precision and craftsmanship have time to check over their products. They review the rules by which they are to bide; they review the models and visions they are to follow; and they review the criteria they are to employ and ostend that their finish production matches the criteria exactly. To be craftsmanlike means knowing that ane tin continually perfect 1'due south arts and crafts by working to attain the highest possible standards, and pursue ongoing learning in order to bring a laser like focus of energies to task accomplishment. These people take pride in their work and accept a want for accuracy as they have time to check over their work. Adroitness includes exactness, precision, accuracy, correctness, faithfulness, and allegiance. For some people, craftsmanship requires continuous reworking. Mario Cuomo, a great speechwriter and politico, once said that his speeches were never done—it was only a deadline that made him cease working on them!
Some students may turn in sloppy, incomplete or uncorrected work. They are more broken-hearted to go rid of the assignment than to bank check it over for accuracy and precision. They are willing to suffice with minimum effort rather than investing their maximum. They may exist more than interested in expedience rather than excellence.
7. Questioning and Posing Problems
I of the distinguishing characteristics between humans and other forms of life is our inclination, and power to Notice problems to solve. Effective problem solvers know how to ask questions to fill in the gaps between what they know and what they don't know. Effective questioners are inclined to ask a range of questions. For example: requests for data to support others' conclusions and assumptions—such questions equally,
"What evidence practise yous accept…..?"
"How do you know that'southward true?"
"How reliable is this data source?"
They pose questions near alternative points of view:
"From whose viewpoint are we seeing, reading of hearing?"
"From what angle, what perspective are nosotros viewing this situation?"
Students pose questions, which make causal connections and relationships:
"How are these people (events) (situations) related to each other?"
"What produced this connectedness?"
They pose hypothetical problems characterized by "iffy"-type questions:
"What do y'all recall would happen IF…..?"
"IF that is true, then what might happen if….?"
Inquirers recognize discrepancies and phenomena in their environs and probe into their causes: "Why do cats purr?" "How high can birds fly?" "Why does the hair on my head grow so fast, while the hair on my arms and legs grows then slowly? "What would happen if we put the saltwater fish in a fresh water aquarium?" "What are some alternative solutions to international conflicts other than wars?"
Some students may exist unaware of the functions, classes, syntax or intentions in questions. They may not realize that questions vary in complexity, structure and purpose. They may pose simple questions intending to derive maximal results. When confronted with a discrepancy, they may lack an overall strategy of search and solution finding.
viii. Applying By Noesis to New Situations
Intelligent human beings learn from experience. When confronted with a new and perplexing problem they will often depict forth feel from their past. They can often be heard to say, "This reminds me of…." or "This is just like the fourth dimension when I…" They explain what they are doing now in terms of analogies with or references to previous experiences. They call upon their store of knowledge and experience equally sources of information to support, theories to explain, or processes to solve each new challenge. Furthermore, they are able to abstract meaning from one feel, behave it forth, and use it in a new and novel situation.
Besides oft students begin each new task every bit if information technology were existence approached for the very first time. Teachers are often dismayed when they invite students to recall how they solved a similar problem previously and students don't remember. It'due south as if they never heard of information technology before, fifty-fifty though they had the same blazon of problem just recently. Information technology is as if each experience is encapsulated and has no human relationship to what has come up before or what comes later. Their thinking is what psychologists refer to as an "episodic grasp of reality" (Feuerstein 1980). That is, each issue in life is a separate and discrete event with no connections to what may have come before or with no relation to what follows. Furthermore, their learning is then encapsulated that they seem unable to draw forth from one event and apply it in some other context.
9. Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
Language refinement plays a critical role in enhancing a person'due south cerebral maps, and their ability to think critically which is the cognition base for efficacious activity. Enriching the complexity and specificity of linguistic communication simultaneously produces constructive thinking.
Language and thinking are closely entwined. Similar either side of a coin, they are inseparable. When you hear fuzzy linguistic communication, it is a reflection of fuzzy thinking. Intelligent people strive to communicate accurately in both written and oral form taking care to use precise linguistic communication, defining terms, using correct names and universal labels and analogies. They strive to avert overgeneralizations, deletions and distortions. Instead they support their statements with explanations, comparisons, quantification, and evidence.
Nosotros sometimes hear students and other adults using vague and imprecise linguistic communication. They draw objects or events with words like weird, nice, or OK. They phone call specific objects using such not-descriptive words as stuff, junk and things. They punctuate sentences with meaningless interjections like ya know, er and uh. They use vague or general nouns and pronouns: "They told me to practise it". "Everybody has one." "Teachers don't empathize me. They use not-specific verbs: "Let's do it." and unqualified comparatives: "This soda is better; I like information technology more".
10. Gathering Data through All Senses
Intelligent people know that all information gets into the brain through the sensory pathways: gustatory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, auditory, visual, About linguistic, cultural, and physical learning is derived from the environment by observing or taking in through the senses. To know a wine it must be drunk; to know a role it must be acted; to know a game it must be played; to know a dance it must be moved; to know a goal it must be envisioned. Those whose sensory pathways are open, alert, and acute absorb more information from the environment than those whose pathways are withered, allowed, and oblivious to sensory stimuli.
Furthermore, we are learning more about the impact of arts and music on improved mental operation. Forming mental images is of import in mathematics and engineering; listening to classical music seems to improve spatial reasoning.
Social scientists solve issues through scenarios and role-playing; scientists build models; engineers utilize cad-cam; mechanics learn through hands-on experimentation; artists experiment with colors and textures. Musicians experiment by producing combinations of instrumental and vocal music.
Some students, however, get through school and life oblivious to the textures, rhythms, patterns sounds and colors around them. Sometimes children are afraid to touch, go their hands "dirty" or experience some object might be "slimy" or "disgusting". They operate within a narrow range of sensory trouble solving strategies wanting only to "describe it but not illustrate or act it", or "listen but not participate".
eleven. Creating, Imagining, and Innovating
Students, nonetheless, are oft heard maxim, "I tin't depict," "I was never very good at fine art," "I can't sing a note," "I'm not creative". Some people believe creative humans are just born that way; in their genes and chromosomes.
12. Responding with Wonderment and Awe
lifetimes.
Some children and adults avoid bug and are "turned off" to learning. They brand such comments every bit, "I was never adept at these brain teasers," or "Go ask your begetter; he's the encephalon in this family. "It'southward boring." "When am I always going to utilise this stuff?" "Who cares?" "Lighten up, instructor, thinking is hard work," or "I don't do thinking!" Many people never enrolled in another math course or other "hard" bookish subjects later they didn't have to in high school or college. Many people perceive thinking as hard piece of work and therefore recoil from situations, which demand "likewise much" of information technology.
We desire our students, withal to be curious; to commune with the earth around them; to reflect on the changing formations of a deject; feel charmed by the opening of a bud; sense the logical simplicity ofmathematical club. Students can find beauty in a sunset, intrigue in the geometric of a spider spider web, and exhilaration at the iridescence of a hummingbird'due south wings. They see the congruity and intricacies in the derivation of a mathematical formula, recognize the orderliness and adroitness of a chemical change, and district with the serenity of a afar constellation. We desire them feel compelled, enthusiastic and passionate about learning, inquiring and mastering.
xiii. Taking Responsible Risks.
Source: https://www.habitsofmindinstitute.org/hear-art/