Sunday, March 6, 2016

Chapter 9: Build Habits

The chapter, "Build Habits," was interesting in the fact that it talked about how habits are mostly formed because of the environment.  I never thought about how environment can either reinforce or deter a habit until reading this chapter.  It makes sense that they refer to habits as "behavioral autopilot" because you do them without even thinking. 
Their idea of a mental plan or "action trigger" was fascinating.  It helped me connect that if you decide to make a change it isn't the same as actually making a plan to do it with concrete steps.  The quote that struck a note with me was, "Action triggers simply have to be specific enough and visible enough to interrupt people's normal stream of consciousness."  In school, this makes a lot of sense to use with students. 
They suggested that using a checklist "educates people about what's best, showing them the ironclad right way to do something."  We already do it in some areas, but not necessarily in the area of changing "bad" habits.  In Writing, we use checklists for what should be included in a particular genre of writing.  Many teachers use checklists in solving math problems.  The assessments in the ELA Modules always have a "checklist" of what they call Criteria for Success for the students to check and see if they have included everything they should.  What if we created checklists that told students what they needed to do specifically to change the habits they already have that hinder their success and held them accountable for following through? 
The end of the chapter brings up that the hardest struggle will be maintaining motivation of the "Elephant."  Wouldn't it be great if we could design classrooms to be environments that would make it easy for students to change their bad habits?  The question is, how do we do it effectively so it makes a lasting impact with students?

7 comments:

  1. I liked the checklist idea as well. I feel this is something we do often, and my question is how do we get students to buy into completing the checklist? In general I wish we could find a book that has more examples that are specific to education. I can see how this book is valuable for those getting paid for doing something that they love, but what about a student who has to write a paper but prefers to do hands on activities?

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  2. I also like checklists as I use them regularly for time management and remembering everything that has to get done. This works for some kids, especially kids who are organized with support at home. By the time kids get to high school, we are struggling with bad habits, lack of support, lack of motivation/extreme apathy, low skills, and expectation of failure. If a student buys into some of these ideas, they often start to fall apart as the workload and various expectations from different teachers weighs in. I struggle getting apathetic students to buy into much a t this age as this will be the first time that there are actual consequences for not passing due to state regents requirements. This idea does work for students who find value in academic, though, and will often try any suggestion that leads to success.

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  3. I liked the idea of the "action trigger". It's much easier to make something happen when there is a planned time or action that leads to it (eventually) automatically. I could see this being really useful in a classroom for tasks that are not yet automatic habits for students. For my Kindergarteners, this could be something as basic as writing their name on their work with the trigger being as soon as they get/physically touch the paper. For older students, it could be something like knowing what math procedure to use with the trigger being the key words in the math word problem.

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  4. When reading this chapter, I thought about routines and habits within the classroom and how effective they are for helping students be successful. Something that I used to do, but haven't as much recently, is post my agenda for the day on the white board. As a result of reading this chapter, I have restarted this practice although it takes up a lot of my board space. Already, I am noticing a few students who seem to be really helped by having this 'habit' when they walk into the room. Even if the agenda changes, following the agenda for the day is a habit that students can adopt and become comfortable with.

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  5. So glad many of you also are all about the checklists! Not sure what I would do without them. I thought Mrs. Postilli's connection of checklists to the Common Core was very astute. And, as Justin said, habits and routines can be very effective tools for success. But, as Maria commented- often it is the struggling students with bad habits, that often could benefit from this, but sadly, they don't always "buy-in" to these techniques.

    The one thing in this chapter that surprised me was the segment about the Vietnamese veterans...I was shocked, and skeptical. Is it possible that these veterans returned to the US and overcame their drug addiction? That certainly would prove that an environment can hold a great deal of power over habits! And as Mrs. Postilli suggested, "Wouldn't it be great if we could design classrooms to be environments that would make it easy for students to change their bad habits?"

    I thought Dawn had an interesting comment about finding a book to study specific to education. I agree.

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  6. It sounds like many other people liked the checklist concept. I think it was the only thing I bought into in chapter 9. I have such a hard time believing that simply by saying, "I'm going to the gym after I stop at Wegmans," I'll make it to the gym every time. We have a tendency to make too many excuses for ourselves, and creating a specific time frame of doing something isn't the cure-all.

    Back to the checklists-I use them for everything. I have appreciated my checklist obsession as I plan for my wedding. I often use checklists with my kids when completing large writing assignments in my class or in their English class. I find checklists are an easy way for me to keep track of how productive my students are, but it also tends to give them a visual for work completion. While it may benefit a kid to create a checklist by himself/herself, I find I am more likely to just type up a list and pass it out. Checklists definitely work!

    ReplyDelete
  7. It sounds like many other people liked the checklist concept. I think it was the only thing I bought into in chapter 9. I have such a hard time believing that simply by saying, "I'm going to the gym after I stop at Wegmans," I'll make it to the gym every time. We have a tendency to make too many excuses for ourselves, and creating a specific time frame of doing something isn't the cure-all.

    Back to the checklists-I use them for everything. I have appreciated my checklist obsession as I plan for my wedding. I often use checklists with my kids when completing large writing assignments in my class or in their English class. I find checklists are an easy way for me to keep track of how productive my students are, but it also tends to give them a visual for work completion. While it may benefit a kid to create a checklist by himself/herself, I find I am more likely to just type up a list and pass it out. Checklists definitely work!

    ReplyDelete

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