Habits of Mind Heros

One of my favourite breakouts at this years Ulearn conference was one taken by Karen Boyes.  She presented on how to embed the Habits of Mind into the life of a classroom and school.  I'm a HUGE fan of the Habits - they compliment the Key Competencies so well.

One of my goals this term is to consolidate and deepen my classes understanding of the Habits.  I've led some activities that taught them explicitly and we often refer to them during the day.  We have a 'Superkid' who gets to sit on the sofa chair and watches for a student to be the next Superkid - someone who displays one of the habits, for example.  These little moments help us focus on what I think is one of the most important parts of being successful.

This term we are creating our own 'Habits Heros.'  The class had to choose a Habit in pairs and design a super hero - using The Hero Factory.   They then had to create a comic life poster that explained what their hero wears and how that relates to their habit.  Here's an example from Gabby and Ella.

 

 The habit they chose was 'Remaining open to continuous learning' - interesting!   I learnt a lot about the students from their choice but the greatest part of this project (apart from looking so cool around our room) is the investigating that had to happen for the groups to create their hero.  Most students had to explore their habit some more to be able to apply their understanding in a hero context.  'Why does your hero's cape help them fly into humour?'  'What does their sword do to help others manage their impulsivity?'

Embedding the habits into our class room culture?  Priceless.