Running head: MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 1

My Habits and Mindsets Journey: Part II

Rhiannon Lewis

Johns Hopkins University

MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 2

Abstract

By persisting, thinking interdependently, and listening with understanding and empathy in class,

my students are more interested and joyful learners. My students have made great progress in

persisting, thinking interdependently, and listening with understanding and empathy in class.

Learning how to persist, think interdependently, and listen with understanding and empathy in

the academic context has helped students invest in the classroom vision and achieve big goal of

college preparedness. As I continue to integrate Habits of Mind, character strengths, and the idea

of a growth mindset into my lessons, I predict that I will observe higher levels of engagement

and academic achievement, more positive behavioral choices with less management issues, and

richer discussion of character motivation in literary analysis. Since I have observed the positive

impact Habits of Mind can have on my students and in the case students that Costa and Kallick

(2009) presented, I look forward to the continued integration of Habits of Mind in later units.
MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 3

My Habits and Mindsets Journey: Part II

By persisting, thinking interdependently, and listening with understanding and empathy

in class, my students are more interested and joyful learners. When students are persisting and

using strategies to overcome difficult skills, students feel more equipped to access the work and

are more interested in it. Encouraging more group work in class and giving opportunities to think

interdependently has brought levels of engagement from students that I have not seen before. The

joyful nature students approach group work has shown me the importance of giving students

opportunities to learn from each other. Similarly, I have seen increased engagement when

students are pushed to listen with understanding and use accountable talk phrases in discussions

with each other. During these discussions, I push students to address misconceptions among each

other and pass the dialogue between one another. The initial integration of Habits of Mind in my

curriculum has created students that are more engaged, joyful, respectful, and invested in our

vision and big goals, which has motivated me to continue to integrate Habits of Mind in my

curriculum and observe the positive impact they have on students.

My students have made great progress in persisting, thinking interdependently, and

listening with understanding and empathy in class. When developing the Habit of Mind of

persisting, I explicitly taught my students that persistence is about following a strategy to

overcome a difficult task. To encourage students to practice persistence by strategizing, I have

shifted my teaching to be strategy-based when approaching a new and potentially skill. To

remind students of the relationship between strategy and persistence, I use Costa and Kallicks

(2009) strategy of Talk the Talk and use the vocabulary to positively narrate to students things

like, show persistence and use the strategy or show persistence and look at it a different way.

The result of this strategy-based persistence approach was that students were more engaged in
MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 4

the work as they were likely to attempt the work when following a strategy than without a

strategy. To encourage students to think interdependently, I have developed a Group Work

Thursday routine in class and more turn-and-talk opportunities in class that helps students

consider others perspectives and learn from other students. The result of providing more

opportunities to work with others and think interdependently has resulted in more cohesive group

collaboration and more respectful conversation compared to when I gave very few opportunities

for group work. Though I initially observed the unproductive and disrespectful way my students

behaved in groups, I responded by teaching students how to speak respectfully to one another

and conferenced with individuals on how to be better group members. Continuing group work

with a sense of order and security while also observing how my students interacted in relaxed

flexibly that encouraged experimentation showed me the areas I needed to prioritize in teaching

my students to work interdependently and led to very positive results (Costa and Kallick, 2009).

I have pushed student-led discussion in my class using accountable talk phrases like I agree

with you because and I respectfully disagree with you because before suggesting a new

idea, which ensures students listen to one another with some level of understanding and

respectful language. The result of using these phrases is that it has trained students to respectfully

build off each others ideas rather than just bringing in a new idea without connection to other

speakers.

Learning how to persist, think interdependently, and listen with understanding and

empathy in the academic context has helped students invest in the classroom vision and achieve

big goal of college preparedness. At school, students who persist are less likely to stray off task,

and they are less likely to interrupt the learning environment for others, which shows how

persisting can help achieve a higher level of engagement, less classroom disruption, and less
MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 5

office visits (Costa and Kallick, 2009). As a result, students are more engaged in learning in the

classroom on their journey to achieving academic goals, which is something I observed after I

taught persisting to students. Thinking interdependently has led to higher levels of classroom

cohesiveness as students develop an appreciation for the talents and skills of those around

them[and] value their classmates contributions rather than shut them down or respond

disrespectfully to them (Costa and Kallick, 2009). With higher levels of cohesiveness and a

better sense of community, students supported each other as learners developing collaboration

skills and learning from each other. As a result, students learn to work with each other

respectfully, a facet of our classroom vision, and gain important 21st century skills in working,

planning, and thinking with a group that helps them achieve our big goals of college-

preparedness. Costa and Kallick (2009) state, When [students] understand others, [they] are less

likely to get into disagreements. Listening with understanding and empathy has created a

classroom culture with significantly more respectful language. Students have engaged with each

other much more freely and respectfully when taught how to listen to each other. When listening

with understanding and empathy, students have higher-level discussions that demonstrate critical

thinking rather than unproductive disagreements.

As I continue to integrate Habits of Mind, character strengths, and the idea of a growth

mindset into my lessons, I predict that I will observe higher levels of engagement and academic

achievement, more positive behavioral choices with less management issues, and richer

discussion of character motivation in literary analysis. By building Habits of Mind, I will be

developing my students social and emotional competence that will help them understand,

manage, and express social/emotional aspects of ones life in ways that enable successful

management of life tasks such as learning (Elias et al., 2009). My prediction is that with
MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 6

continued integration of Habits of Mind, I will see higher levels of engagement and academic

achievement because students will better understand, manage, and express the social and

emotional aspects of their lives. Like the results of the case study at Friendship Valley, I believe

that through more robust teaching of Habits of Mind, I will see fewer behavioral issues due

development of a thoughtful student body that [uses] intelligent behaviors and [takes] time to

think before taking action, (Costa and Kallick, 2009). As I introduce, explicitly teach, and

positively narrate other Habits of Mind, I will see students making more intelligent choices in the

classroom causing less management issues. Costa and Kallick (2009) state that Habits of Mind

can be touchstones for character analysis, and students [should gain] a sense of power as they

[make] resonant connections to their own behaviors. I plan to integrate the Habits of Mind in

my curriculum throughout this year and develop an introductory unit of Habits of Mind in my

first unit next year and predict that I will see a rich literary analysis of characters based on the

Habits of Mind. Costa and Kallick (2009) feature a teacher who uses Habits of Mind in her

curriculum and states, Moving beyond surface evaluations, I asked them to consider how the

characters could've behaved more intelligently and to name alternative strategies the characters

could have used, (Costa and Kallick, 2009). By engaging students in this higher-level thinking,

I will see deeper levels of character analysis and increased levels of engagement and and

learning overall.

Since I have observed the positive impact Habits of Mind can have on my students and in

the case students that Costa and Kallick (2009) presented, I look forward to the continued

integration of Habits of Mind in later units. Integrating Habits of Mind has helped increase levels

of engagement and foster more respectful dialogue and productive work among students and will

lead to a richer understanding of characters in our literary texts.

MY HABITS AND MINDSETS JOURNEY: PART II 7

References

Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (Eds.). (2009). Habits of Mind across the curriculum: Practical and

creative strategies for teachers. Alexandria, VA: ASC.

Elias, M., Zins, J., Weissberg, R. Frey, K., Greenberg, M., Haynes, N., Kessler, R., Schwab-

Stone, M., & Shriver, T. (1997). Promoting social and emotional learning: Guidelines for

educators. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.