A goal of education is to assist growth toward greater complexity
and integration and to assist in the process of self-organization—
to modify individuals’ capacity to modify themselves.
—Reuven FeuersteinSo, how might we know students are getting better at the Habits of Mind?
Part III, Assessing and Reporting on Habits of Mind, provides a framework
as well as many strategies for collecting evidence of students’ increasing
capacities and propensities for the Habits of Mind. The most important
persons collecting and reflecting on that evidence are the students them-
selves. One of the great powers of the Habits of Mind is that they provide
many opportunities for students to set goals for themselves, to monitor their
own performance, to reflect, to self-evaluate, and to self-modify.
In Chapter 10 we describe indicators of growth in each of the Habits
of Mind. Teachers need to be alert, observing how students perform over
time as they confront problems and tackle challenging, discrepant events.
Te a c h e r s n e e d t o l i s t e n c l o s e l y t o s t u d e n t s ’ c o m m e n t s a n d c o l l e c t a n e c -
dotes as a record of students’ deepening and broadening of their under-
standing of the Habits of Mind, leading to eventual internalization of the
habits. Our goal is to see students use the habits as an internal compass
to guide decisions, thoughts, and actions.
Chapter 11 provides a wide range of assessment strategies and tech-
niques. We suggest that students help to develop these assessment tools
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