Posted: September 7th, 2022

Habits of Mind

Habits of Mind
The term “Habit of Mind” can be referred to as a disposition that enables one to confront problems with intelligent behavior. Employing Habits of Mind requires various past experiences, predispositions, cues, attitudes, and skills. Habits of mind can be characterized as integrative perspective, self-regulated learning, purposeful communication, and problem-solving.
Habits of Mind and Intelligent Theories
According to Dewey, “Habits of mind” is focused on the student’s performance under challenging situations, which require perseverance, insightfulness, strategic reasoning, craftsmanship, and creativity to resolve a problem. A list of sixteen attributes has been associated with effective thinking and intelligence in people. The author has defined the mind in terms of disposition; the deal now determines the mind’s thoughts. The sixteen habits of mind include persistence, managing impulsivity, thinking flexibly, thinking about our thinking, striving for accuracy and transition, questioning and posing problems, applying past knowledge to new areas, thinking and communicating succinctly and with precision, creating, imagining, and innovating, responding with wonderment and awe, taking responsible risks, finding humor and learning continuously.
Dewey explains learning methods and depicts types of experiences through which students can develop understanding and knowledge. From Dewey’s work, the experience influenced by interaction and continuity is required for students to acquire knowledge. Habits are developed through experiences, and “every experience is a moving force” (Dewey, 1938). However, most experiences are not educative, and Dewey claims that education aims based on experiences with educational value. The eighth habit, “Applying previous understanding to new situations,” entails using previous knowledge to adapt to new problems. I concur that this is an essential habit to possess to help solve problems with ease. Individuals with an attitude of growth exploit this habit to understand better.
Contraindications And Fragility in Dewey’s Work
In Dewey’s work, the development of understanding brings forth a concept of “situation”. Dewey has separated the elements of experience, suggesting they are related to the given subject. However, a situation is not a single event because we do not judge events or objects in isolation but only in a contextual format. In this context, the term “experience” describes a kind of transaction between the surrounding and the subjects. It assumes the omission of a past situation requiring an intentional adaptation process of their action means. However, experimental inquiry shows directed activity, which varies with conditions in which objects are observed.
Dewey uses the term existential, applying it to conditions, situations, activities, matters, knowledge, etc., in the ordinary sense of “relating to the existence, as a lived reality”. Besides, in his research, the subjects of experience from past events are not doubtful. In this framework, existential materials stand for qualitative elements of experience. These relations underpin human rationality by anticipating the effects of action.
Conclusion
In conclusion, knowledge development is associated with the change in the existential material involving habitual attributes. The reflective phase of inquiry leads to organic modification of behavior to things in their connection to others. Dewey’s original interpretation of habits of mind and knowledge represents an essential postulate in his findings.

Reference
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

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