A focus on learning—habits of mind
Most educators and researchers agree that the focus of schooling should be on developing lifelong learners who have cultivated certain habits of mind. These desirable habits include the ability to:
- Examine evidence critically in a text.
- See the world from multiple viewpoints.
- Make connections and detect patterns among ideas and perspectives.
- Imagine alternatives (what if? what else?).
- Understand relevance (what difference does it make?).1
To meet the challenge of teaching reading and mathematics while introducing students to critical thinking and developing a taste for lifelong learning, researchers suggest that school personnel must focus on how well students are learning. For example, in Whatever It Takes, the Dufours and their team assert that instruction can no longer be about teaching; it must be about how students learn. To find out how students are learning, the authors propose three key questions:
- What is it we want all students to learn—by grade level, by course, and by unit of instruction?
- How will we know when each student has acquired the intended knowledge and skills?
- How will we respond when students experience initial difficulty so that we can improve upon current levels of learning?2
Dufour added the following fourth question in a Web conference in 2006:
- How will we enrich the learning of those who master the concept(s)?3
To encourage a focus on learning, the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) (Outside Source) promotes in The CES Common Principles (Outside Source) the concept of "student-as-worker, rather than the more familiar metaphor of teacher-as-deliverer-of-instructional-services." The coalition also suggests that when teachers act as coaches (rather than traditional dispensers of knowledge), they will be more effective in helping students to learn how to learn and how to teach themselves.4
In the Spotlight
Benjamin Holt College Preparatory Academy, Lodi Unified School District, San Joaquin County, a 2009 California Distinguished School
Benjamin Holt College Preparatory Academy is featured on the California Department of Education's Closing the Achievement Gap Web site for its Signature Practice, Exhibitions of Learning, an exemplary practice addressing rigor, and high expectations.
The academy’s approach for students in grades six through eleven is based on the principle that academic rigor, combined with the opportunity to save time and money, is a powerful motivator for students to work hard and meet serious intellectual challenges.
Ben Holt’s—Exhibitions of Learning—is based on the concept that all students should be able to demonstrate mastery and excellence in five areas, which have become the Expected School-wide Learning Results:
1. Personal Responsibility
2. Social Responsibility
3. Critical and Creative Thinking
4. Application of Knowledge
5. Effective Communication
Exhibitions prepare students for public speaking and media presentations based on what they have learned in their academic courses. Designed for all students to address these skills and five habits, preparation begins in grade six. Integration of college knowledge skills and habits into the middle grades is also part of the design.
For the presentation, students are taught to be punctual, dress professionally, greet the judges, and follow an appropriate script for their grade level. They are judged on personal responsibility, social responsibility, critical and creative thinking, key concepts, and their oral and visual presentation. Following the student presentation, judges discuss each habit on a rubric to determine the scores. Students are required to meet or exceed the standards for all habits, except for sixth and seventh graders, who may have one habit in which they approach the standards. Once the judges compile the results, the student returns to hear the decision.
As a condition of graduation, it is expected that students will pass their exhibitions for each grade level. Students who fail must present on a make-up day or present two exhibitions the following year. The success rate is typically over 90 percent in all grade levels. Students receive pins at the end of the year for successfully completing their grade-level exhibition.
The mantra College for Certain further promotes Ben Holt’s vision to be a thriving educational community where students, parents, staff and other supporters of the school practice the principles of personal responsibility, social responsibility, critical and creative thinking, application of knowledge, and effective communication.
The Closing the Achievement Gap Web site is part of a statewide initiative to close the achievement gap in California. It is an electronic hub of information, research and success stories. One of the features of the Web site is, Signature Practices, used by California Distinguished Schools to improve student achievement and close the achievement gap.
Differentiated instructional methods help teachers to focus on helping every student learn the grade-level content he or she needs by addressing individual interests, learning styles, and aptitudes. To focus on learning, teachers focus instruction on multi-tiered questioning strategies that engage students in a quest requiring higher-level thinking.
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Footnotes
1Mike Schmoker, Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006, 56.
2"Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn." Edited by Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Gayle Karhanek, and Richard Dufour. Bloomington, Ind.: National Educational Service, 2004, 2, 3.
3Dr. Rick DuFour in a Middle and High School Cyber-Summit presentation on March 1, 2006, to the Curriculum and Instruction Steering Committee of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association.
4The CES Common Principles, (Outside Source), Coalition of Essential Schools.
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