It is important to teach both the content of the curriculum and to provide students with multiple opportunities to develop a repertoire of effective habits that they can call upon at any time in their lives when learning something new or when dealing a new life experience that they need to cope with.
These learning habits are explicitly taught in every classroom.
The learning habits fall under five dispositions:
- Self Regulation
- Responsibility
- Reciprocity
- Resourcefulness
- Reflectiveness
We can think of the dispositions as being like groups of ‘learning muscles', which can be exercised to develop students' strength and stamina.
Why Skills Are Not Enough
The 20 learning habits of HOW2Learn are called 'habits' because we want students and teachers to understand them so well that they become something that, in time, is an unconscious or natural part of their learning. We want students to be able to draw on these habits when we teachers are no longer around, when they become adults or when they experience a difficult time in their lives.
Now meet the HOW2Learn Superheroes, which have been created to strengthen understanding of the attributes that highly effective learners display when facing the challenges of learning:
Rezilia
Rezilia is the superhero of the self-regulation group of habits, which manage the emotional aspects of learning. She can handle herself when things get tough. She can ride the waves of life and bounce back when things don't go as planned. She is tough and resilient. She will persist to get the job done. She can filter the distractions around her and she keeps her eyes ever-watchful for details she can use.
The self-regulation habits are:
1. Managing Distractions
2. Absorption
3. Mindfulness
4. Resilience
Ethicon
Ethicon is the superhero of the responsibility group of learning habits, which promote our ability to act ethically in our world. Ethicon is a deep critical thinker who takes time to get all the facts. He is open-minded and is willing to explore new options.
The Responsibility habits are:
1. Critical Thinking
2. Open mindedness
3. Accountability
Team Recipro
As the superheroes of Reciprocity, Team Recipro are made up of a a group of superheroes who work together:
Collabro is the guiding force of the team. He uses his strong arms to keep the group connected and on track. He recognises the power of harnessing individual abilities to work together.
Empatika is in touch with how other people feel, think and speak. She can see things through their eyes. She uses this understanding to determine her actions and bring wider perspectives to the team.
Balencio balances the learning of the team. He knows that sometimes they need time to think and learn alone. He knows when it is time to learn together as a team.
Replika can use his power of imitation to learn new things quickly. He actively seizes opportunities to learn with and from others.
The Reciprocity habits are:
1. Imitation
2. Effective Listening
3. Social Intelligence
4. Empathy
Innovatrix
Innovatrix is the superhero of the Resourcefulness habits. She uses her head and her heart to make reasonable and insightful choices. She capitalises on resources available to be clever and imaginative. She asks tricky questions about how to get things done and constantly makes links with what she already knows, to guide her.
The Resourcefulness habits are:
1. Questioning
2. Making Links
3. Reasoning
4. Imagining
5. Capitalising
Strategex
Strategex is the superhero of Reflectiveness. He uses clever strategies to remember important things about what he is learning. He can look at things from different angles and can draw out the main ideas from what he has learnt. He will use this to make decisions about what to think and do next.
The Reflectiveness habits are:
1. Planning and Revising
2. Remembering
3. Meta-learning
4. Distilling
These 20 learning habits have been explicitly taught to students since Term 4, 2015. Thank you to our wonderful staff who develop these 'learning muscles' in their students to ensure that they are learning for life!
