Learning & Leading With Habits of Mind

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Is Your Instruction Habit Forming?

James Anderson and Arthur L. Costa

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Creative, powerful teachers have a repertoire of teaching strategies and
techniques. They draw forth strategies from this repertoire depending on
the lesson’s content and purposes, the students’ levels of development,
the current interests of the students, the adopted standards, and the agree-
ments of the staff and school about what should be taught when. Also,
effective teachers remain alert to that “teachable moment” when students
are ready, excited, and open to the learning at hand.
How, then, might we design instruction, lessons, and units of work
that help students progress along the journey of continual growth toward
internalizing the Habits of Mind described in Chapter 4? What follows
are several suggestions that might be included in the design of lessons.

Designing Instruction with Habits of Mind in Mind

Armed with an understanding of how students acquire the Habits of Mind
through a continuous journey of growth over time, we can develop a
repertoire of instructional strategies and use a range of approaches to les-
son design that will skillfully craft learning experiences that develop the
Habits of Mind.
As we plan our lessons, we usually have in mind the learning goals for
our students. We have a clear idea of the evidence that would indicate
the students have achieved these learning goals. We take into account the