Habits of Mind and Foundational Concepts: HCs, Complexity, and #selflearning
Over the past four years of my education at Minerva Schools at KGI, I have been surrounded by “Habits of Mind and Foundational Concepts,” or HCs. The first year of the four-year Minerva undergrad is devoted exclusively to learning and applying HCs, and the next three years involve the application of HCs to students’ regular coursework (in my case, business, economics, government, global development, data science).
First year felt like an incredibly fulfilling year of learning. (Well, minus some classes and HCs and other issues but we won’t go into that now. *cough*). At that time, there were over 120 HCs, and every week in class, whether Formal Analyses, Empirical Analyses, Complex Systems, or Multimodal Communications, was something new. Each HC (either a “habit of mind” or “foundational concept”) was identified by Minerva’s academic curriculum and pedagogy team to be essential in the 21st century for either thinking critically, thinking creatively, communicating effectively, or interacting effectively. I felt like I had so many new tools with which to understand and frame the world, and so many new concepts I could apply to go deeper — especially in my empirical or formal analyses classes.
In particular, I deeply appreciated and resonated with how the HCs were not organized into a division of knowledge according to disciplines in academia, but rather, types of tools and frameworks to understand and interact with the world. Division of knowledge feels artificial and counter-productive to me. Problem solving and value creation require understanding issues from all angles, and once the goal was understood, integrating the most effective solutions for it, regardless of what may have traditionally been done.
The HC framework was one of the primary reasons I transferred from my previous university to Minerva. And I think that, with the skills I gained, HCs alone might justify the transfer. I felt my whole system of thinking fundamentally shift, and over the year, my boyfriend said he saw it too. (He can now successfully cite HCs as well ;)
HCs are powerful.
Yet — once the Foundation Program was over, the focus from frameworks shifted to content, as, content knowledge is, of course, also essential for creating deep and meaningful contributions. The past few years have felt less meaningful in terms of my focus on Habits and Concepts, as I think about course content knowledge, and write assignments to effectively meet the courses other Learning Outcomes (LOs). The pedagogical power of HCs still persists — they were, after all, designed by one of the world’s most respected researchers and experts in the #scienceoflearning, Stephen Kosslyn. They are easily tag-able and connectable frameworks in one’s mind to hang other concepts off of, and I have continued to use them in my understanding of the world, and in conversation. (Ahem, note the #hashtags littered throughout this document — all original HCs from first year, which I clearly still make many connections to in my thinking). However, taking the time to intentionally applying them in classwork? Nope.
Theoretically, we as students are supposed to continue to be assessed on our HC applications in class and in each assignment in order to turn the HCs into habits that we use for the rest of our lives, as opposed to things we learned in first year and forget about. However, as with many things at Minerva, idealized conception is different from implemented reality, and HCs do not feel like a meaningful part of classes or assignments. Grading varies dramatically by professor, many don’t seem to understand them well enough to effectively assess them, and many also just don’t care to — they are here to teach their one, specialized part-time online course and do their research one the side; they didn’t risk or invest their entire education in this concept like we did. I have spent 40 hours on a final project for a class where I demonstrated my best understandings and applications for some HCs so far, tagged them all with thoughtful explanations, and proudly turned it in, only to have my professor… not leave a single comment, nor grade them. So, my HC record and associated scores often do not reflect my real understanding. Thus, my #motivation to keep trying to apply HCs with depth in my assignments dramatically decreases, because the #carrotandstick reward system that Minerva has set up, is not being implemented. Of course, I could still be intrinsically motivated, but it’s hard in the face of other priorities (#tradeoffs), and when the common culture is not supporting it (#conformity).
At this point, I think a lot of students don’t care about HCs anymore, or maybe never cared. We’re thinking about grades, jobs, grad school, life post-Minerva, dealing with the our many other day to day realities. People have differing goals. Maybe my whole construction that we were all here to build a pedagogically better education and institution to nurture critical thinking and global problem solving through the pursuit for truth, nuance, and evidence-based solutions… was truly a construction. In the end, everyone is at Minerva for their own diverse reasons, but staff and students. I think it’s telling that when I posted about creating a weekly HC mailing, 80% of the students who signed up were first or second years. (I don’t necessarily blame students. We have a lot to deal with as we realize that we are solely responsible for securing out lives post-Minerva, and have to prioritize. But my idealism is a little disappointed.
Have the HCs failed? No. I don’t think so, but the reasons or causation for them still being useful, might be different than was initially intended. I think that although Minerva fails on its promise in ways that disappoint students, it ultimately delivers what it say. We do learn the critical life skills, get the global experience, and have the ability to work on applied projects, etc etc, that Minerva offers — it’s just ironic how many times it seems we have to use them to fight challenges created by our own school. Oh yes, we learn. But it’s a trial by fire…
Sometimes I think Minerva students succeed in spite of Minerva, not because of it. Minerva starts to build an amazing framework for us to learn from and within, but then there are too many things going on, not enough coordination, multiple causes interacting in complex ways which result in intended secondary and tertiary effects…and we as students are left to navigate financial instability, grading inconsistency, visa and work challenges, a diverse community short on time and understanding, an almost complete lack of stability in our lives…maybe we succeed because of the skills we learn at Minerva, and then use to overcome the barriers that arise from all the complexity that is our institution and experience.
Moving forward — HCs. The implementation is failing me in terms of delivering on consistently applying skills in my academic work.
Does academic work = education, though?
And when was the last time I gave the power over my education and my growth, away to someone else?
#selflearning is an HC too, and maybe the most powerful one there is.
I’ve thought for a long time that I would like to an HC of the Day or Week to implement and connect to other concepts and events in academics and life, in order to keep practicing them. I have kept a running doc for the last four years called “Academic Connections and #complexity” where I recorded connections between HCs, LOs, readings, conversations, and my high school and previous university classes. So, I have decided to continue this, but formalize it into a weekly blog post and email newsletter for those interested in a peek into HC applications in everyday life.
Yes, it’s another commitment on top of many other things in student and survival life. Maybe it’s not the most “value-adding” thing I could do for my professional career. It’s not going to be an academic portfolio either; I don’t plan on editing it to perfection, or spending more than an hour a week on the write-up.
I just plan to practice something that is meaningful to me, to engaged in spaced practice, and to learn. Hopefully others find value in these habits and concepts as well.
