The Global Achievement Gap Keynote with Tony Wagner

Whether you have or have not read Tony Wagner's book The Global Achievement Gap (and you should), you will find his perspective on 21st century learning compelling. Wagner's research has uncovered a disconnect between what potential employers are looking for and what our schools are providing, and he presents an excellent case for infusing education with a critical thinking philosophy, such as Habits of Mind.

Questioning and Posing Problems

Here's the slide show overview of this HoM as presented at the HES faculty meeting on Feb. 8, 2010. To locate and download this slideshow and all supporting documents, HES staff can access the HoM folder on the Workshare drive of the school server.

Question and Posing Problems -

The Persistence Triangle

Here's an article that addresses the complexities of teaching Persisting by providing a cognitive models to help students internalize persistent behavior. The author underscores a valid point: persistence does not necessarily pay off when students continue to use a single strategy. Trying the same thing over and over can sometimes only lead to failure and frustration. Instead, students need to behave intelligently enough to know when to change strategies. The Persistence Triangle proposed here represents a set of questions that will prompt more focused thinking. You may want to use the Persistence Triangle to help students define and analyze problems, and to generate possible solution strategies....in other words, to persist intelligently.

Life=Risk

Two Habits of Mind--Persisting and Taking Responsible Risks--are evident in this inspirational video.

Persisting through Trial and Error

New research indicates that students learn more effectively through trial and error. This article in Scientific American reports the findings of a recent study by researchers at UCLA, who discovered that trying and failing to retrieve an answer is actually helpful to learning. By practicing the Habit of Mind of persisting through the process of trial and error, students may, in fact learn better.

Finding Humor

Teacher: How do you spell "dog"?
Pupil: d, o, g, enter.

Looking for ways to find humor on the classroom? Check out the teacher page on Museum of Humor, a web site specifically designed to make you laugh and help teachers find and promote humor. Have fun with this one!

Grit = Persisting?

In this article published in the Boston Globe (8/2/09), scientific research and historical antedotes suggest that habits of mind, like persisting, contibute more to success in life than more easily measured cognitive traits, like IQ. Psychologists have termed the ability to set long-term goals and to persist in the face of obstacles as "grit," which sounds exactly like the first Habit of Mind, Persisting. The article suggests that MCAS and other tests administered by schools don't really measure what's truly important in predicting achievement.

Do you have grit? Try the Grit Scale, created by researchers at the University of Pennsylvannia.