Understand the importance of the General Education Habits of Mind to your success both during and after college
- The organization of the course should emphasize opportunities for students to actually practice and develop the Habits of Mind (HoM).
- The Habits of Mind are: Purposeful Communication, Problem-Solving, Integrated Perspective, and Self-Regulated Learning.
- It is not enough to say things like “Students will talk to each other so they are practicing Purposeful Communication.” In order to actually develop the HoM, students need feedback about their efforts. They need to discuss the various signposts that comprise each HoM and have activities that target those signposts.
- We hope that at the end of the class, students will have reached the Basecamp level of achievement for each of the Habits of Mind. For this reason, the OER that we use for the class only shows this level of achievement to students. It is developmentally appropriate for them to not be at the Climbing or Summit level of achievement. Of course, some of them may have moved beyond the Basecamp level of achievement on one or more of the HoM.
- Discussion of the HoM should not be limited to a separate unit of the course. Instead, discussion of the HoM should be woven throughout the semester. In fact, the common assignment for the class requires regular self-reflection about development of the HoM throughout the semester. As much as possible, we need to help students understand how central to their success as students and as people the HoM are.
