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=** Chapter 6 **= =Ways of Thinking and Practicing in Biology and History=

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Habits of Mind are dispositions that are skillfully and mindfully employed by characteristically intelligent, successful people when they are confronted with problems, the solution to which are not immediately apparent.===== The Habits of Mind as identified by Costa and Kallick are:
 * Persisting
 * Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision
 * Managing Impulsivity
 * Gathering Data Through all Senses
 * Listening with Understanding and Empathy
 * Creating, imagining and Innovation
 * Thinking Flexibly
 * Responding with Wonderment and Awe
 * Thinking about Thinking ( Metacognition )
 * Taking Responsible Risks
 * Striving for Accuracy
 * Finding Humor
 * Questioning and Posing Problems
 * Thinking Interdependently
 * Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations
 * Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

The authors in this chapter aim to discuss how they traversed the potential drawback of dimishing returns in analytical sharpness: the further the students progress in their undergraduate studies, the LESS the complexity and challenge of what they are learning is likely to be precisely and searchingly delineated. Their study attempted to depict what students learned, as they grew in their grasp of a body of subject-matter, in a form that could transcend teh boundaries of a given discipline or subject area while at the same time capturing some distinctive features of that discipline.
 * Habits of Mind are valid and worthy measuring sticks yet Middendorf and Pace suggest that there exists an inherent mismatch between the kinds of thinking which are actually called for in a specific course and disciplinary setting**.... (Middendorf *& Pace, 2004, p.1)

Hypothesis : students learned ways of thinking and practicing characteristics of, and particular to , each of those subject areas. (Biology & History) Not confined to knowledge and understanding - to include subject-specific skills, values and conventions of scholarly communication, meta-understanding of how new knowledge within a field is generated.

A grounde research approach studied multiple 1st year courses and final year courses within two disciplines: Biological Science and History.

Ways of Thinking and Learning

Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:
 * **Linguistic intelligence** ("word smart")
 * **Logical-mathematical intelligence** ("number/reasoning smart")
 * **Spatial intelligence** ("picture smart")
 * **Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence** ("body smart")
 * **Musical intelligence** ("music smart")
 * **Interpersonal intelligence** ("people smart")
 * **Intrapersonal intelligence** ("self smart")
 * **Naturalist intelligence** ("nature smart")


 * Conclusions**

Fundamental feature of what these students seemed to learn from their undergraduate studies could be summarized as characteristic ways of thinking and practicing in the subject. BioSciences It should be noted that ways of WTP in a subject should not History be viewed as disaggregated parts but rather as integral wholes. Caveats noted are the standard "Individual learner performance will vary".
 * Interactions with Primary Literature in the discipline and with experimental data
 * Learning to Communicate what had been Learned
 * Diversity of Historical Knowledge
 * Modeling and Scaffolding of Historical Reasoning

Implications
 * Post secondary Institutions should focus on fostering the notion of "Academic Discourse" i.e. the emphasize learning not simply as acquisition but also participation in a specific discourse community of the kind represented by a discipline. (Sfard, 1998) The teacher as the speaker of the discourse and member of the knowledge community. (Northedge, 2003)

Feynman YouTube - Ways of Thinking Like a Scientist Feynman discovers through mental counting that different mental 'systems' to count.