Habits of Mind<\/a> (HoM) had been introduced several years ago (although they weren\u2019t used systematically throughout the district) without much result. The difficulty is that there are sixteen of the habits \u2013 all important, of course, but difficult to operationalize and certainly too numerous to integrate into the core culture. In addition, HoM don\u2019t touch on social and emotional learning as explicitly as we are finding we need if we are going to reach and engage every student. So how might we integrate S&EL and HoM?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
D51 is starting with a model used by the Anchorage School District with bands for K-2, 3-5, middle school, and high school to guide conversation. Social & Emotional Learning standards are organized into four quadrants: Self-Awareness (I Am), Self-Management (I Can), Social Awareness (I Care), and Social Management (I Will). Examples of indicators of S&EL standards are included in each quadrant.<\/p>\n
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The next step is to crosswalk these standards to the Habits of Mind. For example, under the category Self-Awareness, early elementary has S&EL standards such as I am aware of what I am feeling<\/em> with an indicators such as Can describe their emotions and the situations that cause them<\/em>. When you get to high school, that very same standard is related to metacognition, one of the Habits of Mind with indicators such as Can describe how changing their interpretation of an event can alter how they feel about it<\/em>.<\/p>\nAt this point, D51 is not going to create rubrics for the S&EL standards. \u201cSchools tend to be quick to grab onto tools and put them into use immediately,\u201d explained Midles. \u201cHowever, if you want to help students develop a growth mindset, build their social-emotional learning, and develop the Habits of Mind needed to succeed, it will be important to make sure your teachers know how to coach, assess, and provide productive feedback. This is likely to be a new set of instructional strategies for some teachers, and districts need to design supports for teachers before <\/em>students begin to be assessed.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cMost of all,\u201d she continued, \u201cit is very important to avoid anything that looks or feels like grades when helping students build this set of learning-to-learn skills. We can reinforce the fixed mindset if we assess students on S&EL and HoM too soon. We can create a stigma without meaning to because we are providing feedback that can be interpreted as personality rather than skill. Children are trying to figure out who they are as a person and can be quick to interpret feedback as something permanent. Social-emotional learning is about them building the skills they need to become lifelong learners. This is about building the skills they need to tap into their intrinsic motivation for learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Integrating the Growth Mindset and S&EL into District Operations<\/h3>\n
D51 is as interested in helping students and adults in the district develop a growth mindset as it is in creating a growth mindset culture. They are thinking about specific practices individuals need to become adept at, the way to design and tools to be growth-generating, and the way meetings and professional development are designed to observe and capture learning. In other words, D51 is working to make the growth mindset pervasive in everything it does. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n