Introduction

Learning and innovation skills are what separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the 21st century from those who do not. Today’s life and work environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge.

Professor Art Costa, an Emeritus Professor of Education at California State University, designed the 16 Habits of Mind™ back in the 1990s. It is designed for the 21st Century Thinker and Doer. The recent release of the skills and attitudes valued by 21st-century employers and the desired outcome of education by the MOE correlates extremely well with the 16 Habits of Mind™. The 16 Habits of Mind™ also serve well to build the social and emotional competencies of a child.

Habits of Mind™ are thinking depositions towards behaving intelligently when one is confronted with problems with no apparent solutions. In teaching for Habits of Mind, we are interested in not only how many answers our students know but also how the students behave when they do not have the answers. A critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information but also knowing how to act on it.

The Habits of Mind™ as identified by Costa and Kallick are:

• Persisting
• Managing impulsivity
• Listening with Understanding and Empathy
• Thinking Flexibly
• Metacognition
• Striving for Accuracy
• Questioning and Posing Problem
• Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
• Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
• Gathering Data Through all Senses
• Creating, Imagining and Innovating
• Responding with Wonderment and Awe
• Taking Responsible Risks
• Finding Humor
• Thinking Interdependently
• Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

Course: Habits Of S.U.C.C.E.S.S.-ful Student

Duration: 1 hour 30 mins per habits student

Introduction

The duration of this workshop depends on the number of Habits chosen by the school. One Habit would be taught in a 1.5hr-long session. Our NIE and Habits of Mind trainers will explicitly teach students what the Habits look and sound like, and to experience them through games and activities. The students will also learn strategies and use mental models to habituate their habits and apply them to their school work.

Outcome:

• To understand the nature of each Habit
• To speak the lingo of each Habit
• To experience each Habit
• To transfer knowledge of the Habits to their school work

Course: HOM In Action

Introduction

These series of workshops transfer the cognitive knowledge and explicit learning gained from the Habits of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. workshops into hands-on experiences. The Experiential Learning process supports students who habituate these Habits to implement them in their daily lives. The activities in these workshops focus on the application of the Habits in practical situations through skill-based repetition as well as transference into application in real-life scenarios.

Students apply the mental models taught in a skill-based experiential learning approach to habituate the Habits.

Outcome:

• To transfer cognitive strategies into practical situations
• To deepen the understanding of each Habit
• To transfer the Habits to day-to-day situations
• To habituate each Habit

Profiling Tools: The Habits of Mind Assessment Scales (THOMAS)

“ How would we know that teaching the Habits of Mind is working? One way of knowing is to measure it. T.H.O.M.A.S. is an excellent complementary addition to academic reports and qualitative reports of student’s progress in Habits of Mind™ ” – Prof Costa and Dr. Kallick

Benefits of using THOMAS

RELATION MANAGEMENT

Improves interaction between peers, colleagues and family members.

SELF AWARENESS

Understand your own thinking dispositions 

• Its strengths and weakness

SOCIAL AWARENESS

Excellent tool for research studies.

SELF MANAGEMENT

Manage mental processes in a VUCA* world

DECISION MAKING

Enable teachers to engage students better in problem solving

If it is worth doing, it is worth measuring. T.H.O.M.A.S. measures the 16 Habits of Mind™

Based on the 16 Habits’ competencies. It is an online response to a set of 80 carefully crafted questions to assess past behaviours. Report of the assessment is generated upon completion of the questionnaires and can be downloaded from email accounts. A set of Strategies accompanies the report to help one to improve on his weaker dispositions.

For more information on T.H.O.M.A.S, to www.

*VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous