Habit of Mind - Thinking Flexibly
Overview
The following is a lesson on the Arthur Costa's Habits of Mind, which I typically use in my one-year below transfer composition course, but this is also applicable in college prep courses.
This lesson is one of a series that introduces a habit of mind (Thinking Flexibly, in this case) in order to help build students' awareness of their own habits and how to modify them through observation (examining the cartoon and description of the habit), application (applying this habit in their own lives via reflection), and creation (creating a comic) that pushes students to use humor, another habit of mind, in order to further reflect on this habit.
All in all, these multiple lessons culminate into a larger assignment, The Habits of Mind Portfolio, where students analyze and reflect on how the habits they've learned throughout the semester is seen in their classroom interactions, study habits, home life, and the processes of creating their compositional works done throughout the semester.
English 85 (One year below transfer), College Prep
As an anticipatory set, I have students view the cartoon before telling them the habit in order to assess how well they already understand this concept.
Also, I typically engage in class discussion as we do the first two aspects of the chart.
https://www.oercommons.org/editor/documents/12182
Part 1:
Watch the following cartoon:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0kSYH-L-YQ
On the left hand side of the chart, write an 8-10-sentence response to the following questions:
After watching the cartoon, what are your impressions about the behavior and personality types of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny?
Next, we will read the description of the habit of mind below this chart and you will answer the following questions:
How does this description match the characters in the cartoon? Considering the habit, which character do you most identify with and why? What should Daffy have done differently in order to practice the habit?
Let’s discuss your answers.
On the right hand side of the chart, write 5 key ideas from the description of the habit that most resonate with you. Provide a reason in one sentence for each of your chosen ideas.
On the bottom section of the chart, write an 8-10 sentence response to the assigned prompt.
| Response to Cartoon | Description of Habit |
1. Key idea: a. Reason: 2. Key idea: a. Reason: 3. Key idea: a. Reason: 4. Key idea: a. Reason: 5. Key idea: a. Reason: |
Prompt:
Prompt response: Comic link: |
Habit of Mind
Thinking Flexibly
Of all forms of mental activity, the most difficult to induce even in the minds of the young, who may be presumed not to have lost their flexibility, is the art of handling the same bundle of data as before, but placing them in a new system of relations with one another by giving them a different framework, all of which virtually means putting on a different kind of thinking-cap for the moment. It is easy to teach anybody a new fact. … but it needs light from heaven above to enable a teacher to break the old framework in which the student is accustomed to seeing.
—Arthur Koestler
An amazing discovery about the human brain is its plasticity—its ability to "rewire," change, and even repair itself to become smarter. Flexible people have the most control. They have the capacity to change their minds as they receive additional data. They engage in multiple and simultaneous outcomes and activities, and they draw upon a repertoire of problem-solving strategies. They also practice style flexibility, knowing when thinking broadly and globally is appropriate and when a situation requires detailed precision. They create and seek novel approaches, and they have a well-developed sense of humor. They envision a range of consequences.
Flexible people can address a problem from a new angle using a novel approach, which de Bono (1991) refers to as "lateral thinking." They consider alternative points of view or deal with several sources of information simultaneously. Their minds are open to change based on additional information, new data, or even reasoning that contradicts their beliefs. Flexible people know that they have and can develop options and alternatives. They understand means-ends relationships. They can work within rules, criteria, and regulations, and they can predict the consequences of flouting them. They understand immediate reactions, but they also are able to perceive the bigger purposes that such constraints serve. Thus, flexibility of mind is essential for working with social diversity, enabling an individual to recognize the wholeness and distinctness of other people's ways of experiencing and making meaning.
Flexible thinkers are able to shift through multiple perceptual positions at will. One perceptual orientation is what Jean Piaget called egocentrism, or perceiving from our own point of view. By contrast, allocentrism is the position in which we perceive through another person's orientation. We operate from this second position when we empathize with another's feelings, predict how others are thinking, and anticipate potential misunderstandings.
Another perceptual position is macrocentric. It is similar to looking down from a balcony to observe ourselves and our interactions with others. This bird's-eye view is useful for discerning themes and patterns from assortments of information. It is intuitive, holistic, and conceptual. Because we often need to solve problems with incomplete information, we need the capacity to perceive general patterns and jump across gaps of incomplete knowledge.
Yet another perceptual orientation is microcentric, examining the individual and sometimes minute parts that make up the whole. This worm's eye view involves logical, analytical computation, searching for causality in methodical steps. It requires attention to detail, precision, and orderly progressions.
Flexible thinkers display confidence in their intuition. They tolerate confusion and ambiguity up to a point, and they are willing to let go of a problem, trusting their subconscious to continue creative and productive work on it. Flexibility is the cradle of humor, creativity, and repertoire. Although many perceptual positions are possible—past, present, future, egocentric, allocentric, macrocentric, microcentric, visual, auditory, kinesthetic—the flexible mind knows when to shift between and among these positions.
Some students have difficulty considering alternative points of view or dealing with more than one classification system simultaneously. Their way to solve a problem seems to be the only way. They perceive situations from an egocentric point of view: "My way or the highway!" Their minds are made up: "Don't confuse me with facts. That's it!"
Part 2:
Use the table feature, clip art, and dialogue boxes to create your own comic about thinking flexibly versus being stubborn. Your comic needs to meet the following requirements.
Open a new google slides document and insert a table in the first slide.
Adjust the thickness of the table’s border weight so that they are at least 2 points thick and a darker color than the standard grey.
Make sure your table contains at least 4 panels.
You may use more panels and more than one slide if you choose to.
Use clip art cartoons for the characters, setting, props, etc. and have a minimum of 2 characters
Go to https://pixabay.com/images/search/student/ or another website for fee clip art
Alternatively, you may use Powerpoint to copy and paste clip art into your panels
Change the background color of each panel in your table.
Through the dialogue and illustrations show a clear understanding of the “thinking flexible” definition in contrast to being stubborn/close-minded.
Have an original story involving the characters
Have an original punch line at the end of the comic.
You may want to include some kind of reference to puns, cultural observation, or some other form of humor.
Use callouts for the characters’ speech, which can be found in the “insert” then “shapes” option
Copy and paste the “share link” in the “reflections question and comic” portion of the table.
Here are two examples of comics that comment on the habit of thinking flexibly: