Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Habits of Mind

In February everyone will be participating in a Habits of Mind based portfolio presentation. Juniors will be presenting their portfolios and discussing their work based on Brooklyn Prep's Habits of Mind. Seniors will be sitting in on the conferences to offer their insight and feedback.

Many students have a hard time talking about their work in the context of the Habits of Mind. What exactly are habits of mind?

By definition, a problem is any stimulus, question, task, phenomenon, or discrepancy, the explanation for which is not immediately known. Thus, we are interested in focusing on student performance under those challenging conditions that demand strategic reasoning, insightfulness, perseverance, creativity, and craftsmanship to resolve a complex problem. Not only are we interested in how many answers students know, but also in knowing how to behave when they DON'T know. Habits of Mind are performed in response to those questions and problems the answers to which are NOT immediately known. We are interested in observing how students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce knowledge. The critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information, but also knowing how to act on it. - Arthur L. Costa, Ed. D. and Bena Kallick, Ph.D.
Think back to yesterday's rubric for your project. The first HOM was Perspective and stated "Student has posed a question and offered a possible solution in the form of a creative project."
Many of you are unable to think about your project in the form of a question, but it really just a problem for which the explanation is not immediately known. Think about your project and try to explain it as one of the following tasks. First, we will have to define what these categories are.
  • stimulus
  • question
  • task
  • phenomenon
  • discrepancy
Now that we have defined these categories, go ahead and leave a comment describing which category your project falls under and why. Please use the rest of your class time to continue solving your problem, answering your question, completing your task, or understanding a phenomenon...

10 comments:

Chris Lancaster said...

Mostly the thought of building that popsicle stick bridge was made on impulse and excitement.

Keemie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

i think my project falls under PHENOMENON because teen conflicts is a big issue in todays society

Anonymous said...

My project is a task. My task is to finish my project on adobe illustrator

Quadasia R said...

My project is a phenomenon because teen pregnancy is a problem that is being seen everyday and a problem that needs to be solved.

Tyree said...

I think i have alot of information to answer the question of my project. It can't really be a sure fire definite answer.It pretty much has to do with the chance of what the stock market shows.

Keemie said...

TASK & QUESTION

- My project more like a task but a question at the same time. My task is to find out if psychology actually works on people who have serious issues. My questions are to kill my curiosity about the process of a psychologist

STIMULUS

- My Stimulation for this project is my motivation in life, which is to become a psychologist.

Domonique said...

I WOULD CONSIDER MY PROJECT TO BE A TASK BECAUSE ITS SOMETHING I CHOSE TO DO AND INVOLVES ME GIVING EXPLANATIONS ON MY OPINION ON A CERTAIN TOPIC, ....ITS A MUST DO AND IF I DONT COMPLETE TASKS THAT I SET I END UP FALLING BEHIND.

Sha Dajahia said...

I would say that my project is based on stimulus because fashion is in our everyday life and its something that keeps you going.

Jasmine said...

I think my project is a phenomenon because the issues im addressing in my project is a huge issue that most teens have to deal with everyday. also issues they may not be aware of.