Tag Archives: Life-Long Habits of Mind

Multiple Pathways Blog: Top 5 Posts From 2013 and the 5 Most Popular Posts

Top 5 Multiple Pathways posts written in 2013:

#5 – The Series on the New MLTI: Choice, Auburn, and Learning – This year, Maine's 13-year-old learning with “laptop” initiative offered schools a choice of devices. This series describes the change in approach to the state initiative, why Auburn chose iPads, and what we still hope to get from our technology, despite the changes.

#4 – The Phases of Implementing Customized Learning: The Series – One lesson our district has learned from working with other districts further along with implementing Customized Learning is “not all at once!”

#3 – Life-Long Habits of Mind: Curriculum for Customized Learning – Districts in the Customized Learning Consortium have expanded their curriculum model beyond simply content knowledge. Life-Long Habits of Mind is the third domain of our curriculum model.

#2 – We Need Keyboards With Our iPads. Not! – While some believe that schools should buy keyboards to make iPads useful, lessons from experienced iPad schools suggest the opposite.

#1 – How Does Auburn Select Apps? – Ever since we started Advantage 2014, our primary grades 1to1 iPads initiative, we’ve had educators and parents ask us what apps we’re using.

 

The 5 Most Popular Multiple Pathways posts in 2013:

#1 – What Makes for Good Learning Experiences?

#2 – 10 Key Components of Customized Learning

#3 – Tone of Voice Matters (In Surprising Ways)

#4 – Motivating Students: Focus on 5 Strategies

#5 – Student Motivation: What Level of Engagement Are Your Students At?

 

Life-Long Habits of Mind: Curriculum for Customized Learning

Districts in the Customized Learning Consortium have expanded their curriculum model beyond simply content knowledge. Lesson planning and unit development happens at the intersection of Content Knowledge, Complex Reasoning, and Life-Long Habits of Mind. Life-Long Habits of Mind is the third domain of our curriculum model.

The Life-Long Habits of Mind curriculum is where Customized Learning schools will be addressing the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of students, built around foundational work, such as the Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets. All students must be guided in developing the “soft skills” that are so often left dormant in our populations (e.g. resilience, self-confidence, mental toughness).

Districts in the Maine Cohort for Customized Learning are working with Bea McGarvey to create a Life-Long Habits of Mind curriculum.

Educators collaborating on this writing effort, will create teacher materials for Life-Long Habits of Mind in a similar format to the Dimensions of Learning: Teacher's Manual, used for the Complex Reasoning curriculum. Also as with the Complex Reasoning curriculum, instruction in the Habits will progress from helping students develop an understanding of the “habit” through examples, to providing students with written guidelines and graphic organizers, and then to lots of modeling. Once the teacher materials are developed, the curriculum may be organized into the Marzano curriculum framework, to facilitate the tracking of students' development of thes skills.

The current draft outline of the Life-Long Habits of Mind curriculum includes the following:

 

Reflective Learner (Understanding Oneself)

  • Understanding One’s Learning Style
  • Cultivating Creativity & Imagination
  • Maintaining a Growth Mindset
  • Responding Appropriately to Feedback

 

Self-Directed Learner (Improving Oneself)

  • Meeting Quality Standards
  • Persevering
  • Setting and Monitoring Goals
  • Managing Impulsivity

 

Collaborative Worker (Working with Others)

  • Working Toward Team Goals
  • Listening With Understanding/Empathy
  • Seeking To Be Understood
  • Seeking to Resolve Conflicts

This approach of looking at the intersection of Content Knowledge, Complex Reasoning, and Life-Long Habits of Mind allows student to not only master critical academic content but to also develop skills and traits important to career and life readiness, such as goal-setting, teamwork, perseverance, critical thinking, communication, creativity, and problem-solving.