Learning & Leading With Habits of Mind

Students who are skillful in their ability to think about their own thinking

•Are aware of the kind of thinking they are engaged in.
•Can describe how they engaged in this type of thinking.
•Evaluate whether the way they engaged in the thinking approach
was effective.
•Plan how they will engage in the same type of thinking the next
time it is needed (Swartz, Costa, Beyer, Kallick, & Reagan, 2007).

Striving for Accuracy

Measure a thousand times and cut once.

—Turkish proverb

As students mature in this Habit of Mind, we observe them taking greater
care with their work. They check their projects, assignments, and tests
again and again, asking others (“critical friends”) for feedback and cor-
rection. They establish standards of excellence, and they attempt to
meet—and even exceed—those standards.
These students set higher and higher standards as they attempt to
excel beyond a previous record. They express dissatisfaction with incom-
plete or sloppy work, and they request opportunities to improve upon their
work. They also demonstrate a lack of complacency with the status quo.

Questioning and Posing Problems

Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better

questions, and as a result, they get better answers.

—Anthony Robbins

Over time, we want to observe a shift from the teacher asking questions
and posing problems toward the students asking questions and finding prob-
lems for themselves. Students become more alert in recognizing discrep-
ancies and phenomena in their environment and more inclined to inquire
into their causes. They demonstrate increased skillfulness in approaching
problems strategically, with greater interest and challenge. They enjoy and
seek opportunities for learning from solving problems (Barell, 2003).

182 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind