Nurturing Habits of Mind in Early Childhood

Success Stories from Classrooms Around the World

Arthur L. Costa, Bena Kallick

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781416627111
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

In the first years of life, as children observe, imitate, and interact with people and their environment, the brain is structuring a foundation for vocabulary, values, cognitive processes, and social skills. Educators, you can help influence that development by teaching the skills and dispositions of intelligent, creative, effective decision makers and problem solvers.

Within these pages, Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick share the authentic stories and experiences of teachers who have taught these Habits of Mind (HOM) to young children: - Persisting
- Managing impulsivity
- Listening with understanding and empathy
- Thinking flexibly
- Thinking about thinking
- Striving for accuracy
- Questioning and posing problems
- Applying past knowledge to new situations
- Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
- Gathering data through all senses
- Creating, imagining, and innovating
- Responding with wonderment and awe
- Taking responsible risks
- Finding humor
- Thinking interdependently
- Remaining open to continuous learning

The practical examples in this book show how anybody who works with young children can introduce the Habits of Mind in entertaining and concrete ways that are developmentally appropriate. By designing learning experiences that reflect the situations and challenges children face in their lives, educators can help our youngest citizens begin to develop the habits of mind that feed a lifetime of learning.

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Part I

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Discovering and Exploring the Habits of Mind

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What are the Habits of Mind and why are they important for young learners? These first few chapters will amaze you as you learn about what is happening in the developing minds and brains of preschool and early grades children—and why this is a critical time to introduce them to the habits.

As you become acquainted with the 16 Habits of Mind, we will give you insights and ideas about how to introduce them to your classroom, school, and community. It's an exciting, worthwhile adventure in helping young children learn about and interact with their world.

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Chapter 1

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Brain Development in Children 2 to 7

by Judy Willis

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All experiences and interactions shape the human brain. The process of learning—including both building the brain's knowledge base and understanding information and experiences—is evidenced in the continual remodeling of the brain throughout life.

Despite the latest functional imaging brain scans, scientists cannot predict exactly what a given strategy or intervention will mean for an individual student. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures changes in the metabolic activity and blood flow to areas of the brain that reflect the increased activity of cells in these regions. Because we know the functional anatomy related to regions and pathways through the brain, these images provide real-time pictures of how the brain responds in different conditions. Nevertheless, by understanding brain development during the critical years of early childhood and recognizing those interventions that best correlate with our growing insight, we can successfully enhance the positive influences of educators, parents, and other caregivers as they seek to promote children's highest potential brainpower and realization of desirable goals (Knowland & Thomas, 2014). Thus, the vocabulary, actions, reflection, and modeling of the Habits of Mind at this age have a lifelong effect.

What's Happening in the Brain in Early Childhood

A long-held misconception contended that brain growth stops at birth, after which brain cells die throughout one's lifetime. Before neuroimaging was available to help us look at the workings of the brain, most neuroscientists believed that only young brains were plastic, or changeable. They believed not only that all the brain's memory-holding cells (neurons) were present at birth but also that all or most of the connections between these neurons developed in the first year of childhood and then became permanent. We now know that lifelong growth of the supporting and connecting cells enriching the communication between neurons, allied with associated increases in cognition and social-emotional skill sets, actively continues far beyond that first year.

The brain's most rapid growth occurs during gestation, when the production rate of neurons in the fetus reaches up to 250,000 per minute (Cowan, 1979). However, an intense second period of accelerated growth occurs between ages 2 and 7, followed by another rapid maturation phase extending through adolescence into the teen years.

In the first year or two after birth, most of the brain's development and activity is programmed for automatic, involuntary, reflexive, and reactive behaviors and information acquisition to ensure survival and fulfill children's basic needs. What makes this time of their lives and brain development so exciting is the accelerated rate and enhanced responsiveness with which they construct new connections between neurons. It's important to keep in mind, though, that each child develops at a unique pace. This chapter focuses on the rapid growth phase between ages 2 and 7, as their brains dramatically establish the wiring conducive to information storage, understanding, and communication.

Although experience-responsive brain growth occurs throughout our lives, the brain structures respond particularly robustly to learning experiences, environment influences, and emotional interactions during these childhood years. With maturation, brain development shifts from its focus on survival, pleasure seeking, and pain avoidance to expanded networks guiding more goal-directed skills and management of our environment, behaviors, and emotions. The brain's structural changes with this maturation are reflected in children's accelerating understanding; skills; and cognitive, social, and emotional maturation. Understanding the cellular and structural changes going on in children's brains from ages 2 to 7 provides a foundation for promoting the construction of neural networks to help them reach their greatest potential.

Neuroplasticity generates these changes in neural networks in response to learning, enhanced by each new or repeated activation of the network. Brain development and intelligence are plastic. Internal and environmental stimuli constantly change the structure and neural networks triggered by response to physical, cognitive, or emotional experiences; ideas; memory activation; or sensory intake.

Neuroplasticity is one of the most exciting areas of research in the neuroscience of learning and the brain. Research reveals evidence that all brains have the potential to become better and all students smarter, especially with guidance and encouragement. The changes that take place over time represent the lifelong growth and augmentation of the connecting cells that support and allow communication between neurons. Thus, input, experience, and practice result in enhanced efficiency of information processing by boosting neuron-to-neuron communication, with increased growth of dendrites, axonal myelin, and synapses. Dendrites and axons are the wiring that connects neurons to each other. The point of contact between the information-carrying outgoing axon and the dendrite that will carry information to the next neuron is called the synapse. Myelin is the axon power-boosting coating that is like a layer of insulation when the circuit is repeatedly used, making information travel faster and memory storage stronger.

Use It or Lose It

Part of what occurs during brain maturation is the use-it-or-lose-it phenomenon of pruning. As the most frequently used networks mature and develop more connections, myelin, and synapses, the least frequently used networks are pruned away. This process increases the brain's efficiency and strengthens those networks used most often. It also increases the brain's efficiency to allow more of its limited supply of oxygen and glucose to be available for the most active pathways.

Pruning intensifies during the third or fourth year of life, when it includes neurons not used as part of connecting circuits and small connections of neurons, axons, and dendrites receiving little activation. This process is visualized on imaging as thinning of the cortical gray matter strip, which forms the outermost part of the brain.

Because pruning depends on which information is used, the environment plays an increasingly important role in determining which connections are maintained or lost in children's brains. A give-and-take streamlining process takes place, as eliminating excess material allows more efficient processing. As the number of small, unused neuronal circuits decreases, the number of neural connections expands in response to use, and the brain develops into a much faster and more sophisticated organ. Because of this plasticity, teachers, parents, and caregivers become the brain changers who can promote learning by providing experiences that activate children's neural networks, allowing their brains to construct meaningful memories and knowledge.

Practice Makes Permanent

Memory can be thought of as the construction, expansion, and strengthening of neural networks in response to activation. Let's now consider what factors influence the construction of durable memory networks. Each time a network holding a memory is activated—perhaps the meaning of a word or a skill such as kicking a ball—the neuroplastic response is stimulated, strengthening the networks of connections among the neurons, each holding pieces of the memory. It is the mental manipulation of learning (practice, rehearsal, using information in new ways) that makes these networks grow stronger, faster, and more durable (Chang, 2015; Neumann, Lotze, & Eickhoff, 2016).

During their early years, children learn very quickly through experience. A child's natural curiosity drives investigation, careful observation (visual and auditory), and motivated memory construction. Reading favorite books to children is one example of how strong memories are built. These memories are embodied by children's accurate and enthusiastic verbal predictions of "what comes next." Information driven by curiosity, personal relevance, and association with pleasure or satisfaction is more likely to be remembered when it is carefully observed and revisited, particularly when it is experienced through multiple senses (Thomas, 2016).

New memories of information, tasks, and skills must be activated or practiced, or they will be pruned. Even if instruction—say, for decoding words during the last month of school—is successful, the same literacy skill may not carry over to the following school year. It takes practice, repetitive use of the pathway, and review to retain stored learning in neural networks. If students do no further work with the words for the intervening months, pruning will likely eliminate many of the constructed networks.

Regions of Brain Maturation During Childhood

The growth and pruning process that takes place in response to activation or use of the circuits continues through our lifetime. On a larger developmental scale, whole regions of the brain follow a predictable, age-related, regional progression of growth and pruning described as maturation. The physical changes in a region undergoing its rapid maturation phase essentially consist of accelerated neuroplasticity. There is more vigorous pruning of the networks previously constructed but unused, and a more exuberant myelination of the networks that are activated and used most frequently.

The cerebral cortex is where the maturation process, with its phases of cognitive and emotional development, is most evident. The cerebral cortex comprises the outer layers of the brain. The outermost layer, gray matter, and below that a thicker layer, white matter, constitute the majority of the cerebral cortex. Gray matter consists of neurons, end branches of axons, dendrites, and synapses. White matter is so named because it contains bundles of myelinated axons. The white color of the myelin gives the region its lighter color.

The changes related to childhood brain maturation involve phases of increases in gray matter, followed by decreases overlying an ongoing accumulation of white matter (Shaw et al., 2006). Gray matter first goes through its most accelerated phase of maturation in the posterior and lower regions of the brain (directing the basic functions, such as digestion, and driving the rapid, reactive responses to perceived threat or unexpected change). Next to undergo rapid maturation, peaking between ages 3 and 5, are the sensory and motor control centers of the brain. This sequence seems logical, considering that younger children experience their world through their senses and continually build their motor skills to more successfully satisfy their needs and later their curiosity.

These peaks are followed by a more gradual reduction in gray matter over a period of years. Many of the connections and small networks constructed during the young child's early experiences are inconsistently reactivated (recalled, experienced, used) and thus pruned. The more accelerated phase of growth between ages 5 and 7 takes place in the higher cognitive and social-emotional processing regions of the prefrontal and temporal lobe cortices. Subsequently the frontal lobes display more active pruning and myelin formation as neural networks of executive function develop. This is the last and longest rapid maturation phase, extending through the teens into the early 20s (Gogtay et al., 2004).

As we age, the size of the cerebral cortex grows, augmented by learning and experience. The expansion of myelin and the ever-increasing extension of dendrites and synapses connecting neurons into circuits of related information amplify rapid and efficient communication between neurons in the maturing cortex. The thicker layering of myelin speeds the transmission of the electrical messages, enabling them to jump over sections of the axon (a process called saltatory conduction) rather than having to travel more slowly through its entire length (Shaw et al., 2006).

Activating Brain Networks During Their Accelerated Maturation

Considering that maturation in the brain increases its efficiency, it follows that the brain is more responsive to molding of its neural networks during children's rapid maturation periods of heightened neuroplastic response. Recognizing which regions are undergoing rapid maturation at a particular time should not limit learning experiences to these phases of brain development alone. The brain continues to be responsive throughout life. Nevertheless, such recognition can help promote awareness of types of experiences and environments that might be most fruitful at any given stage.

For example, between ages 3 and 5, during peaks of rapid maturation of the sensory and motor control centers of the brain, children are particularly engaged by sensory and motor experiences. Consider the eagerness preschoolers have for exploring objects through multiple senses, exemplified by their tendency to jump into every puddle they pass. These are also "sweet spots" in time for experiencing the Habits of Mind. Later, as children's brains begin the more vigorous phase of growth in the prefrontal and temporal lobe cortices, the potential arises to promote neuroplastic growth in the regions associated with higher cognitive and social-emotional processing.

Development of the Neural Networks of Executive Functions

As noted earlier, the neural networks that direct executive functions develop in the prefrontal cortex and begin their extended maturation starting around age 5. These networks are what give children increasing voluntary control over their attention focus, inhibitory control, delay of gratification, emotional self-awareness and self-management, interpersonal relationships and empathy, goal-directed behavior, planning and prioritizing, critical thinking, judgment, reasoning, and flexibility of thinking and adaptability. All these executive functions contribute to a child's potential to achieve a fulfilling and joyful life.

Although this section focuses on the prefrontal cortex developing executive functions, other foundational experiences and exposures are strongly linked to success in school and life. For example, there is a strong association between parents' language use and interaction patterns and children's language development (Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002).

Research supports the idea that the strength of children's executive functions serves as one of the best predictors of school readiness, including social-emotional and academic competence and the development of literacy and numeracy (Allan, Hume, Allan, Farrington, & Lonigan, 2014; Kim, Nordling, Yoon, Boldt, & Kochanska, 2013). Using brain imaging and monitoring of the electrical signals produced by activated brain networks, we can see evidence of increased response in children's developing neural networks of executive functions when they are activated and used. For example, activation of the prefrontal cortex is seen in young children when they use the executive function networks for behavioral inhibition, such as suppressing an automatic response during delay of immediate gratification (Stevens & Bavelier, 2012).

Given the central role of executive functions in school readiness, and the correlation of early school success with later success in school and life, it is relevant to consider which executive functions are most strongly correlated with that readiness and how interventions could enhance the neuroplastic strengthening of these networks during early childhood. A study of 100 children ages 2 to 5 evaluated their performance on a variety of tasks that rely on executive functions in relation to academic and social sc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Discovering and Exploring the Habits of Mind
• Chapter 1. Brain Development in Children 2 to 7 by Judy Willis
• Chapter 2. Introducing the Habits of Mind in the Early Childhood Classroom by Donna Tobey
• Chapter 3. Implementing the Habits of Mind in an International School in Mexico by Diana Garza
• Chapter 4. Small Is Beautiful: A Place to Grow the Habits of Mind by Louise Pon-Barry and Sarah Baker
• Part II. Activating and Engaging the Habits of Mind
• Chapter 5. Thinking Play: Honoring the Child by Michelle Scheu
• Chapter 6. Strategies for Teaching the Habits of Mind to Preschoolers and Primary Students by Michelle Bunder
• Chapter 7. Weaving the Habits of Mind into a School Culture and a National Curriculum by Cushla Scott
• Chapter 8. Habits of Mind with English Language Learners by Aixa Perez-Prado
• Chapter 9. The Power of Animations as a Teaching Tool by Terry Thoren
• Chapter 10. The Habits of Mind and Video Animations: Lessons Used and Learned by Erskine Dottin, Barbara L. Johnson, and Mickey Weiner, editors
• Chapter 11. The Librarian's Role in Building the Habits of Mind by JoLynn Scott
• Part III. Integrating and Sustaining the Habits of Mind
• Chapter 12. Integrating the Habits of Mind into a Bicultural Setting by Tracey Nelson
• Chapter 13. Creating a Mindful Schoolwide Culture to Maximize Learning by Bonnie Tabor
• Chapter 14. Gathering Evidence of Growth from Parents and Teachers by Art Costa and Bena Kallick
• Chapter 15. Leading Schools with the Habits of Mind in Mind by Art Costa and Bena Kallick
• About the Editors, Authors, and Contributors
• Related ASCD Resources
• Copyright