Habits of Mind

This year in math we have been working on adopting and practicing the Mathematical Habits of Mind that I have been learning about via the Best Practices in Mathematics professional development course that is being implemented school wide. The habits that we have been working on so far are justification, respect and private think time.

In our class we justify by "backing up our thinking with the word BECAUSE." For example: "I know that it is four BECAUSE I took two unifix cubes and attached two more unifix cubes and now I have four." We also justify our answers by drawing pictures and using numbers and words to explain why our answers or ideas make sense.

We are respectful mathematicians when we disagree kindly with classmates. This means that instead of telling someone that their answer is wrong we try to convince them why their answer doesn't work or make sense by showing them how we figured it out.

We give each other private think time by thinking quietly about the math and trying (as hard as it might be) not to raise our hand until private think time has ended. We also honor other people's private think time by not calling out answers when someone else is trying to do their best thinking.

Using these habits of mind takes hard work and cooperation, but we are making great progress and it shows in the critical thinking that is taking place. With lots of practice these will become habits that we use naturally as mathematicians for our entire lives.