Students need specific thinking—or Habits of Mind—to engage with problems and become self-directed learners, write Arthur L. Costa, Bena Kallick, Jay McTighe, and Allison Zmuda. A curricular approach based on enhancing students' understanding of conceptually significant, transferable ideas can help schools teach these dispositions.

Arthur L. Costa

Bena Kallick

Jay McTighe

Allison Zmuda

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Critical thinking

Habits of Mind

Understanding by Design

Dispositions by Design

Instructional Strategies

"We might view the movement rom teacher-directed to student-driven learning as a set of controls, much like the controls on an audio sound board," write Bena Kallick and Allison Zmuda. For each element of personalization, the teacher can turn the volume up or down, amplifying or reducing the amount of student agency depending on the subject matter and students' needs. In this article, Kallick and Zmuda show how seven elements of personalization (goals, inquiry and idea generation, task and audience, evaluation, feedback, instructional plan, and cumulative demonstration of learning) change as teachers move toward greater student control.

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Challenged

Whole Child

Orchestrating the Move to Student-Driven Learning

People use various terms to refer to traits and tendencies connected to social-emotional behavior and ways of thinking or approaching problems—from 21st century skills to mindsets to habits of mind. Such traits are also often called soft skills or non-cognitive skills. The authors contend that these latter terms imply that these traits and abilities are less cognitively challenging, less measurable, and less important to teach students as we prepare them for life. They discuss how the terms soft, non-cognitive, and even skills don't do justice to the qualities and the importance of practices like drawing on past knowledge and empathizing or traits like resilience. Claxton, Costa, and Kallick argue for using the term dispositions to refer to these essential learnings and discuss both questions and strategies connected to teaching students such dispositions.

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Social-emotional learning

Communication

Collaboration

Creativity

21st century learning

Hard Thinking about Soft Skills

Masterful teachers don't just ask a lot of questions; they ask questions in a purposeful way. In this article, Costa and Kallick describe five strategies that can help teachers become more purposeful in designing and posing questions. One strategy is to plan questions that elicit student thinking at various cognitive levels, from simple recall of facts to more abstract thinking involving prediction, application, creativity, and evaluation. Another strategy is to build questions around positive assumptions; for example, the question "What goals do you have in mind for this project?" presupposes that the student has multiple goals, a plan of action, and a capable mind. Third, good questions should help students cultivate the dispositions known as Habits of Mind; for example, the teacher could ask "What might be some alternatives?" to encourage students to think flexibly. Questions are especially important in helping students become skilled in one of these Habits of Mind– metacognition, or thinking about thinking. Questions like "While you were reading, what was going on inside your head that enabled you to monitor your understanding of the story?" help students examine and take charge of their own thinking processes.

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Student engagement and motivation

Five Strategies for Questioning with Intention

Soft Cover

Print Books

Nurturing Habits of Mind in Early Childhood: Success Stories from Classrooms Around the World (Print Book)

Nurturing Habits of Mind in Early Childhood: Success Stories from Classrooms Around the World

Quick Reference Guides

Cultivating Habits of Mind (Print Book)

Cultivating Habits of Mind

Cultivating Habits of Mind (Quick Reference Guide)

Personalizing Learning in Your Classroom (Print Book)

Personalizing Learning in Your Classroom

Personalizing Learning in Your Classroom (Quick Reference Guide)

Students at the Center: Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind (Print Book)

Students at the Center: Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind

Habits of Mind Across the Curriculum: Practical and Creative Strategies for Teachers (Print Book)

Habits of Mind Across the Curriculum: Practical and Creative Strategies for Teachers

Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success (Print Book)

Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success

Bena Kallick

About

Expertise

Articles by Bena

Dispositions by Design

Orchestrating the Move to Student-Driven Learning

Hard Thinking about Soft Skills

Five Strategies for Questioning with Intention

Books by Bena

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