Habits of Mind
As you are practicing the Habits of Mind, you will want to get a sense of your level of achievement so you can think about what you need to do to continue to improve. The following tables indicate what we, the faculty at PSU, expect you to attain by the end of your first year at PSU (Base Camp).
For example, by the end of your first year, we expect that you will recognize that every communication message is created and receive within a cultural and historical context. This is the Base Camp level of achievement for “Awareness of Context” in the Purposeful Communication Habit of Mind. As you develop your communication skills, we expect that you will begin to draw on knowledge about cultural and historical context, both when you create messages and when you construct the meaning of messages that you receive from others. This is the Climbing level of achievement for “Awareness of Context” in Purposeful Communication. By the time you graduate from PSU, we expect that you will seek additional knowledge so that you can better understand cultural and historical contexts, both when you create messages and when you construct the meaning of messages that you receive from others. This is the Summit level of achievement in “Awareness of Context.” In other words, as you become a better communicator, you begin to understand that the context of a message matters and, eventually, you recognize that you may not completely understand the context of a message so you seek more information to improve your understanding of both the context and the message. This is a challenging task and no one ever masters it. We can all improve on our ability.
These Habits of Mind represent what we want you to practice and develop through taking classes in the General Education program at PSU. Understanding these can help you to be more purposeful in your work in your classes.
| Purposeful Communication | |||
| Signposts | Base Camp | Do You Have Evidence of This? | What’s Your Evidence? |
| Awareness of Context | Recognizes that every message is created and received within a cultural and historical context | ||
| Comprehension | Shows understanding of the basic meaning of the text by paraphrasing or summarizing the information the text communicates | ||
| Purposeful Expression | Paraphrases, summarizes, and/or quotes from information sources to create a message with a specific purpose | ||
| Effective Application of Strategies for Communication | Recognizes that others may bring different perspectives and experiences to the creation of messages and the construction of meaning from messages |
| Problem Solving | |||
| Signposts | Base Camp | Do You Have Evidence of This? | What’s Your Evidence? |
| Problem Framing | When presented with a problem, describes key components of the problem | ||
| Challenge Identification | Recognizes general challenges to solving the problem | ||
| Plan Development | Relies on one or two strategies to identify possible solution(s) to the problem | ||
| Decision-Making and Revision | Identifies a preferred approach to solving the problem and sticks with the plan | ||
| Evaluation of Progress | Evaluates progress in terms of whether desired outcomes have been achieved |
| Integrated Perspective | |||
| Signposts | Base Camp | Do You Have Evidence of This? | What’s Your Evidence? |
| Self-Awareness | Recognizes that one’s ideas, beliefs, and values are influenced by personal experience as well as multiple contextual factors | ||
| Perspective Seeking | When presented with various perspectives, recognizes their validity while maintaining a preference for one’s own perspective | ||
| Interconnectedness
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Identifies some connections between an individual’s personal decision-making and the larger natural and social world | ||
| Collaboration | Articulates one’s own perspective and listens to other perspectives when collaborating with others |
| Self-Regulated Learning | |||
| Signposts | Base Camp | Do You Have Evidence of This? | What’s Your Evidence? |
| Responsibility for Own Learning | Strives to meet learning goals and evaluation criteria embedded in assignments and courses | ||
| Engagement in the Learning Process | Recognizes that acquiring new knowledge and skills requires commitment to the learning process | ||
| Metacognitive Awareness | Identifies own strengths and weaknesses as a learner and selects general strategies to aid learning |