Intellectual Habits of the Mind

► Persistence – Ability to stick to a task until it is completed. Accomplished by having a repertoire of alternative
strategies for problem solving.

Evidence: collecting evidence; drawing on previous experiences; applying past knowledge; asking for
clarification; consulting books/references.

► Listening with understanding and empathy – Ability to demonstrate understanding and empathy for
another person’s ideas.

Evidence: being able to paraphrase another person’s idea accurately, build upon it, clarify it, and/or give an
example of it.

Listen for: “Pete’s idea is…, but Sara thinks….” “You’re upset because…”

► Thinking flexibly – Ability to approach a problem from a new angle using a novel approach.

Evidence: considering, expressing, or paraphrasing other people’s ideas, points of view or rationales; finding
different ways of solving the same problem; generating many ideas; reluctance to see closure to group work.

Listen for: “However…” “If you look at it another way,” “John’s idea is….”

► Thinking about thinking – Ability to know what we know and what we don’t know; conscious of our own
strategies during the act of problem-solving.

Evidence: explaining how they figured it out; articulating their reasoning process.

Listen for: “I have a theory that…,” “I’m conducting an experiment…”

► Striving for accuracy – Taking care with their work; understanding the established standards for excellence
and attempting to meet and even exceed these standards.

Evidence: checking work; setting their own standards; requesting opportunities to improve.

► Questioning and posing problems – Learning to pose effective questions to get the information they need.
Effective problem solvers know how to ask questions to fill the gaps between what they know and what they
don’t know.

Evidence: explaining why they are asking a particular question; raising new questions/possibilities.

Listen for: “What evidence do you have?” “How reliable is your data?” “How does this relate to…”

► Applying past knowledge to new situations – Ability to abstract meaning from one experience and carry it
forth and apply it to a novel situation; transfer of knowledge.

Evidence: calling upon a store of knowledge/experience to solve a new problem/challenge.

Listen for: “This reminds me of…” “This is just like the time when we…”.

► Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision – Ability to communicate accurately in both written
and oral form; taking care to use precise language.

Evidence: supporting statements with explanations, comparisons, quantifications, evidence; use of correct
names, labels, and analogies.

Listen for: lack of vague words/statements such as “stuff,” “nice,” “They told me!” “Everybody has one!”
► Gathering data through all our senses – Ability to engage all the senses, as all sensory pathways lead to
the brain, will manifest itself as enriched written and oral language. Students need opportunities to visualize,
build models, feel textures, act or move, listen. All these will increase the range of sensory metaphors
(waterfall of problems).

Evidence: engaging and exploring using a multitude of senses; active learning

► Creating, imaging, innovating – Ability to generate novel, clever, ingenious products, solutions and
techniques.

Evidence: examining alternate possibilities; taking risks, pushing boundaries; intrinsically motivated; open to
criticism.

► Responding with wonderment and awe – Feeling compelled, enthusiastic, and passionate about learning,
inquiring and mastering.

Evidence: curiosity; drive,; derives pleasure from thinking; displays compassionate behavior towards other
life forms; respects the roles and values of other human beings; perceives the delicate worth, uniqueness,
and relationships of everything and everyone they encounter.

Listen for: “Don’t tell me. I can figure it out for myself!” “Wow!” “Awesome!”

► Taking responsible risks – Ability to move beyond established limits in a reasonable/thoughtful way;
drawing on past knowledge; thoughtful about consequences; has a sense of what is appropriate.

Evidence: willingness to try out new strategies, techniques and ideas; explore, experiment

Listen for: “Let’s try it!” “What’s the worst thing that can happen? We’ll only be wrong!”

► Finding Humor – Liberates creativity; provokes higher level thinking skills such as anticipating, finding
novel relationships, visual imaging, making analogies.

Evidence: not taking oneself too seriously; increasing productivity; relieving tension

► Thinking interdependently – Ability to set aside one’s own ego needs to serve others; enhances the
group’s resourcefulness; derives satisfaction from others’ success.

Evidence: language reflecting a desire to understand others’ thinking; building on other people’s ideas.

Listen for: “What do you think?” “We haven’t heard from Rick yet” “Thanks for showing me how to….”

► Remaining open to continuous learning – Sees the worth in growing, learning, modifying and improving
themselves; views problems, situations, tensions, conflicts and circumstances as valuable opportunities to
learn.

Evidence: willingness to use feedback; seek new resources to modify knowledge; able to admit to not
knowing; willing to use the resources of others.

Listen for: “That’s an interesting idea. How could we find out more about it?”

Adapted from Discovering & Exploring Habits of Mind and Assessing & Reporting on Habits of Mind,
both by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000.