International Conference on the Habits of Mind - Towards a Thinking and Learning Community

International Conference on the Habits of Mind - Towards a Thinking and Learning Community

Building a Thinking and Learning Community: One School’s Story

Richard Owens, Woodleigh School, Australia

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of building a learning community based around the Habits of Mind at Minimbah, the Junior Campus of Woodleigh School. It explores the research basis that informed the development of the implementation plan, along with challenges and tensions involved in leading such change in a successful school with a reputation for focusing on the whole child. Importantly, the paper draws directly upon the insights provided by teachers, students and school leaders in relation to their own learning about the Habits of Mind.The paper concludes with some reflections on the future for Habits of Mind at Woodleigh.

Thursday Morning Assembly

Walk around the school on any Thursday morning and all you would see is an unmanned front office, avacant staffroom, empty classrooms and a silent playground. For a time, you would be forgiven for considering the school deserted - until you heard the unmistakable sounds of many children’s voices, all talking, laughing and singing. Following the sounds would lead you down to the school hall - standing room only at the back - with parents, teachers and students jammed in to join together for another weekly assembly. This weekly ritual is not the staid formal function that you would expect to see at an independent school; but rather a joyous, and often even raucous, celebration of everyday student life and learning at Minimbah, the Junior Campus of Woodleigh School.

Teachers rarely take centre stage on Thursday mornings. Instead, students present collections of skits, songs, speeches and plays that tell of their lives and learning over the previous few weeks at school. Each year level in the school from the Early Childhood Centre’s four year olds to the senior Year Six students take their turn, with parent attendance most always resulting in a full house. The student presentations each week are diverse, often quirky, and sometimes filled with a mischievous sense of humour.

If you were to watch the different classes present their items over the course of a term, you wouldbe struck, at first, by the wildly varied focus of each assembly. After a while, however, certain themes would become familiar and shared understandings would begin to emerge from amongst the myriad of different student voices and performances on display. You would see begin to see children that are not only sharing what they have learnt about the different topics under their investigation, but also the ways in which they were thinking while they were learning. You would see students reflecting upon the effectiveness of the different learning strategies they selected for approaching tasks. You would see students celebrating the ways in which they have got better at using the different dispositions they employ for learning and also projecting forward as to how their new understandings of themselves as learners might help them in the future. By attending the weekly assemblies, you would be gathering together an insight into the dynamics and ongoing development of a Thinking and Learning Community at Woodleigh School’s Minimbah Campus.

Woodleigh School

Woodleigh School is a small, semi- rural, independent school located on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia. The school is spread across two campuses, comprising of a Junior Campus (Minimbah, K – Year 6) and a Senior Campus (Woodleigh, Years 7 – 12). While maintaining a fine academic reputation, the school is also firmly committed to the development of the whole child. Emphasis is placed on the development of students who are independent, open-minded, resilient and socially responsible. Woodleigh has a strong reputation for taking on students who have difficulty in fitting into more traditional school settings, along with wider acknowledgement for the development of some innovative and unique academic programs. While the school’s philosophy is built around the three R’s – respect for self, respect for others and respect for the environment – the student-centred focus of the school is perhaps best summed up in the advice given by one of the school’s most influential principals, Michael Norman (1982) – ‘We ought never to do for young people what they, with a struggle, could be expected to be doing for themselves.’

The State Context

The implementation of the Habits of Mind at Woodleigh is set against the wider background of a climate of change for schools across the State of Victoria. The education sector in the state undertook considerable reform in responseto the introduction of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) in 2005. The VELS Framework is composed of three, equally important Strands for student learning. The Physical, Personal and Social Learning Strand focuses on developing knowledge, skills and behaviour in the areas such as Health, Physical Education, Civics, Personal Learning and Interpersonal Development. The Discipline-based Learning Strand focuses on the development of knowledge, skills and behaviour in traditional academic areas such as Mathematics, English and History. The Interdisciplinary Learning Strand focuses on the development of knowledge, skills and behaviour that can be transferred across a range of learning areas, such as Thinking and Information Technology. With the teaching of thinking processes and learning dispositions an explicit part of the state curriculum framework, there continues to be a noticeable movement in schools across Victoria towards the work of educators like Costa and Kallick(2000), Marzano (Marzano and Pickering 1997)and Ritchhart (2002)who have focused on the development of thinking skills and effective student dispositions.

A Spirit of Change

The Habits of Mind were not adopted at Woodleigh as an isolated attempt to target social skills or improve student resilience within the school, but rather as part of a broader vision for the reform of teaching and learning. The Habits of Mind were seen as offering a common language for the further development of a school-wide community already devoted to the promotion of effective thinking, openness, independence, life-long learning and social responsibility. The motto of Woodleigh is ‘A School of Independent Thought’ and it is a slogan that reflects the school’s deep commitment to the individual needs of each student. With the adoption of the Habits of Mind, the school was looking at entering into a reform process that honoured its traditions and philosophies, while staking out fresh areas for inquiry and investigation that could carry it forward into a new era.

The evolution of the Habits of Mind at the school began in late 2006, with new appointments being made for the leadership of professional learning and curriculum development at both of the school’s campuses. A key goal for the school was the development of a ‘Thinking Curriculum’. While a range of well-established, innovative programs that promoted thinking were already in existence at the school, what was lacking was the cohesion of a clearly articulated vision and shared approaches that could help to unify the efforts of the school’s teachers and more precisely target improvement in student learning. The Habits of Mind were seen as offering a common language that could help bridge these gaps and provide a universal foundation for the further development of the curriculum.

The decision was made to launch the staged implementation of the Habits of Mind within the school at the Junior Campus. The idea was to create a kind of ‘pilot program’ that could test and develop some structures and processes for working with the Habits of Mind that could later inform the strategies used for wider implementation across the whole school. The Junior Campus seemed like the right choice for a number of other reasons, including the small staff size (11 full time teachers, plus a number of part-time and sessional staff), the traditional focus of primary teachers on all aspects of their students’ development and the fact that I held responsibility for teaching and learning at the campus and had a background in leading work with the Habits of Mind in a previous school.

The Thinking Curriculum model

The Habits of Mind are seen as an integral component of the school’s broader conception of the ‘Thinking Curriculum’. The model in use at the school draws upon the work of a number of influential educators in the field of thinking, including Costa and Kallick(2000),Ritchhart(2002), Perkins(1992; Perkins and Salomon 2001)and Marzano(Marzano and Pickering 1997). It is comprised of the following key parts-

Subject Content:A focus on what is defined by the Standards in the VELS Framework as being essential knowledge and skills within traditional curriculum areas, such as English, Science and Mathematics

Thinking Skills:A focus on explicit and integrated teaching of Thinking Skills, such as Comparison or Decision Making, with the intention of allowing students to develop transferable skills and also be directly involved in the construction of their own understandings

Performance Tasks: A focus on the application of students’ skills and knowledge to the completion of rich and challenging tasks that involve problem solving or engagement with real life situations and issues. Performance tasks are seen to help to drive the curriculum forward, promote higher levels of engagement and reveal insight into the depth of student understanding of a given topic

Disposition:A focus on the development of students’ ability to become self-monitoring, self-managing and self-directed in their learning through the development of effective dispositions (Habits of Mind)

International Conference on the Habits of Mind - Towards a Thinking and Learning Community

THE THINKING CURRICULUMMODEL(Costa 2001, Marzano 1997, Perkins 2001, Harpaz 2007)

International Conference on the Habits of Mind - Towards a Thinking and Learning Community

The Research Background

The implementation of the Habits of Mind at the Junior Campus was informed by my own ongoing research into the development of professional learning communities. As part of my post-graduate study, I had examined the ways in which the development of a professional learning community had supported teacher leadership and learning in the implementation of the Habits of Mind in my previous school. The research findings from this first case study helped to shape the approaches and strategies adopted when introducing the Habits of Mind at Minimbah. For these reasons, it is worthwhile spending some time exploring this research background and its implications for ongoing practice and research at Woodleigh.

School Context

The research project was based at a large, multi-campus school in Melbourne, Victoria of around 2,500 students. For administrative and teaching purposes, the respective campuses were divided into separate Junior, Middle and Senior Schools. The geographical distance between each campus presented ongoing challenges to the effective management of both professional learning and curriculum development at the whole school level, with factors such as travel time and staff logistics requiring constant, careful consideration. In addition, further challenges were presented through the division of staff work into sub-schools. Although such an organizational strategy did also allow for a certain level of teacher collaboration and exchange, some difficulties associated with this division included the balkanization of the staff into special interest or year level areas and a lack of opportunity for ongoing exchange between the different sub-schools.

Description

The research project was focused upon a curriculum development initiative that I ran over the course of a year at the school. The program was designed to support the implementation of Costa and Kallick’s Habits of Mind and to help teachers’ explore the links between this work and the Victorian Essential Learning Standards. The workshops were initially targeted towards Middle School teachers (Years 5 – 8), however, attendance was open to all teachers on a sessional, interest-related basis. Via the school’s intranet, upcoming workshops were advertised, with the focuses for each session detailed and teachers able to come along to whatever workshops specifically caught their attention. The workshops drew interest from teachers at each of thecampuses and from all teaching levels within the school, with participation eventually widening to include the attendance of educators from a number of other schools, both locally and internationally. The number of teachers attending each of the workshops fluctuated between fifty and one hundred over the course of the year, with variations subject to factors such as staff availability and the level of interest shown in a given workshop.

Method

The research study focused on exploring how the development of a professional learning community could support teacher learning and leadership in the implementation of the Habits of Mind within the school. The idea was to explore in detail the structures, processes and interactions that supported teacher learning in relation to the Habits, along with the ways in which the learning community itself could effectively be led and developed. A centrepiece of the research was a series of interviews that were conducted over the course of the initiative with a collection of participating teachers.As I held responsibility for leading professional learning at one of the school’s campuses and was also interested in improving my own practice, my own journal writing and observations also constituted an important source of data for the study.

Findings and Conclusions

The research study found that the following areas constituted important focuses within the learning community for supporting teacherlearning and leadership with the implementation of the Habits of Mind -

Developing shared vision, mission and values
Shifting mental models: adopting the Habits of Mind
Evolving team learning: processes and practices
Distributing leadership for action and change: supportive and shared
Investigating and applying systems thinking
Improving professional practice: developing and diversifying teaching pedagogy

Developing shared vision, mission and values

The shared understanding of and commitment to the Habits of Mind emerged principally through the sustained, collaborative inquiry of staff involved in the community. My own role as the formal leader of the community was important in terms of establishing a shared focus through introducing the Habits of Mind to the school and in providing the time and space required for teachers to regularly meet and work together. Sustained,collaborative inquiry into both student and teacher work with the Habits of Mind allowed the staff to explore each others understandings and values, leading towards the emergence of common beliefs and a shared commitment to working with the Habits of Mind in the school.

Shifting mental models: adopting the Habits of Mind

Teachers participating in the community consistently spoke about the importance during the implementation of having the time to explore what the Habits of Mind meant in their own lives. The ability of the teacher to establish a personal connection with the Habits of Mind was found to be a determining factor in their eventual professional uptake of the Habits in the classroom. Ongoing professional dialogue was found to play an important role in allowing teachers to surface, articulate and test their professional beliefs, with personal reflection upon such discussions often leading to different ways of seeing classroom practice in relation to the Habits of Mind.

Evolving team learning: processes and practices

The central focus of the learning community upon teacher participation in an ongoing, collaborative, action learning cycle was found to play a crucial role in developing small teams and in supporting their learning. From a leadership perspective, the ‘action’ element of the work ensured to a degree that the participating teachers remained focused on issues related to the impact of the Habits of Mind on everyday student learning and their own regular classroom practice. Teachers reflected that over time they found themselves spontaneously engaging in aever widening variety of collaborative enterprises focused on the Habits of Mindthat greatly increased the scope and focus of the original community.

Distributing leadership for action and change: supportive and shared

The distribution of leadership was proven to be crucial as regards sustaining the development of the community and in terms of the diversification of the focuses for its ongoing work. The provision of opportunities for teachers to take on leadership roles during large, formal workshops helped build individual confidence and supported a transition in the way teachers saw themselves. Teacher leadership also saw the foundation of small interest groups based around faculty or year level groupings that broadened the scope of the community’swork and allowed for the development of more specialised applications of the Habits of Mind. At a more basic level, due to the rapid growth of the community, the willingness of teachers to take on the pedagogical leadership of the community allowed me to focus on rapidly increasing administrative demands.