During the Process
Record-keeping forms are useful for students to document their obser-
vations about the Habits of Mind. In one high school class, students keep
a log of their process during project development. Group members rotate
responsibility for log entries for each day that they are working together.
They reflect on the following questions:
•What did we learn today?
•What did we notice about the way the group is working?
•What did the group and group member do to contribute to the
group’s success?
•What might we do to be more effective as a group?
•Which Habits of Mind would help us to be more productive?
During the Presentation
During a presentation, students are required to focus on striving for
accuracy; thinking and communicating with clarity and precision; cre-
ating, imagining, innovating; questioning and posing problems; and
thinking about thinking (metacognition). The audience is asked to pay
attention to the accuracy of the information. They also take note of the
use of proper terminology. Figure 11.10 shows an example of a rubric
developed by educators in the Mamaroneck Public Schools for judging
the quality of a 6th grade exhibition.
In a book by Wasley, Hempel, and Clark (1997), the authors discuss
the gains that students have made as a result of developing exhibitions:
We s aw y o u n g p e o p l e l i k e To m m y, S e a n , a n d H a k i m di s c o v e r
topics of interest and develop them over time so that they build
legitimate skills, recognized by adults and other students—recog-
nition they would not have easily obtained had the school not
changed its requirements. We saw evidence that students under-
stood important concepts thoroughly and could apply them in
new circumstances: math in building boats, data gathering and
analysis in forecasting weather, electronics in wiring car radios.
We n o t e d g a i n s t h a t w e r e e m b e d d e d i n s t u d e n t s ’ a b i l i t i e s t o w o r kAssessing Habits of Mind 211