TRANSCRIPT: 10 Habits Of Mind For College Success
Speaker: Laurie Hazard
10 Habits of Mind for College Success
[Presenter, Laurie Hazard, in red on the left side.] [A Brain with numbers 01-10 on the right.]
Hi, my name is Laurie Hazard; and my background is in personality psychology in student success. Today we're going to talk about the 10 habits of mind that lead to college achievement and lifelong success.
Habits of Mind
[A Brain with numbers 01-10 in the center. Each number corresponds to text on screen]
Text on screen: 01: Possess humility, 02: Ask for help, 03: Ability to take risks and change, 04: Cultivate critical thinking skills, 05: Form healthy relationships, 06: Develop heightened sense of self, 07: Manage time & behavior, 08: Respect Diversity, 09: Take responsibility, 10: Develop a growth mindset
What does habit of mind actually mean? If you talk to researchers, educators, teachers, professors, and even learners will report that there are certain habits or patterns of ideas that people use in order to become successful in an achievement environment like college. And these same habits will translate into success in life.
Your Focus
[Presenter in red on the right side.]
[Head with light bulb next to: “Think Carefully”]
Text on screen: Which habits are the most developed? Text on screen: Which habits are the least developed? [Head with magnifying glass]
Text on screen: Focus on the habits that need the most work
As we go through and talk about each of the 10 habits of mind, you'll want to think very carefully about them. You'll want to think about the habits of mind that are currently the most well developed in your life and the habits of mind that you feel need some work. And you'll want to focus your attention on the ones that you feel need the most work.
Humility
[Presenter in red on the left side.] [Steps in boxes with arrows:
Text on screen: Being humble --> Opposite of arrogance --> Knowing you don’t know it all --> Openness to learning new things, with arrow leading back to the top.
[A green math icon next to the equation 7n = 14] [Two blue boxes. One the left is text on screen]
Text on screen: Factual Knowledge, What, You Know, 7 x 2 = 14. [Arrow leading to the right box with text on screen]
Text on screen: Procedural knowledge, How, You may not know how to solve for n. [Arrow leading to left box.]
Possessing humility is the number one habit of mind. What's the difference between possessing humility and arrogance? Well, humility is a habit of mind that a humble person possesses. A humble person knows that they don't know it all, where an arrogant person can approach their college experience with an I-know-it-all attitude.
When you are in college, you will want to approach your college experience with the wisdom to know that you don't know everything and to be open to the new things you're going to be learning about when you're in college. Wisdom also has to do with the idea of factual knowledge versus procedural knowledge. Let's distinguish between the two.
Factual knowledge is knowing what, whereas procedural knowledge is knowing how. Let's take a simple algebra example. In order to solve an algebraic problem, 7N=14, you need to know what. The what in this case is your times tables, so that you need to know that 7 times 2 equals 14. Procedural knowledge is the how of going about solving the problem. Someone who possesses humility is open to new experiences. They have the wisdom of knowing what they don't know and what they need to learn. And they understand the difference between factual knowledge and procedural knowledge.
Ask for Help
[Presenter in red on the left side.]
[Multicolored hands to the right. Pink hand labeled with text on screen] Text on screen: “Professor or Tutoring Center”.
[Blue hand with Text on screen: “R.A. or Residence Life”.]
The idea of possessing humility leads us to the second habit of mind, which is the ability to ask for help. A humble person finds it easier to ask for help. When you're in college, you'll be faced with a variety of situations where you'll be put in the position of needing to ask for help. For example, if you're challenged in a course, you might have to ask for help from either your professor or your Tutoring Center.
In a social situation, where you might be having difficulty with your roommate for example, you might find yourself in the position of needing to ask your RA or Residence Life for help. So the number two habit of mind is the ability to ask for help.
Take Risks & Change
Subtitle: Think about taking risks & be open to change.
[Presenter in red on the left side.]
[Icon of world with airplane over it. Red line leading to French flag with Eiffel Tower on it and text on screen]
Text on screen: Open to change, Higher risk.
[Blue line leading to U.K. flag with Big Ben on it and] Text on screen: Not open to change, Lower risk.
In college, the ability to take risks and change is the number three habit of mind that will lead to your success. If I think of a personal anecdote, I can remember when I was in college I was faced with the opportunity to study abroad. What I did was I decided to study abroad in England because I was afraid of my French skills. So I wasn't willing to take the risk to study abroad in France. When I think back on this experience, I wish that I had had the ability to take risks and take the plunge and go ahead and study abroad in France.
When you're in college, you'll be faced with lots of different experiences where you'll have to take risks; and taking risks will lead to a richer experience. So think about taking risks when you're in college and be open to change.
Activity
Subtitle: Safety & Security Vs. Risk-Taking
[Presenter in red on the left side.] [Blue table with]
Text on screen: Security and Safety and Take Risks. Jonah Complex. [Head with gears with line leading to U.K. flag with Big Ben on it and]
Text on screen: Safety & Security
[Line leading to French flag with Eiffel Tower on it] Text on screen: Willing to take a risk.
Let's think about the idea of taking risks. I shared a personal example from my life when I wasn't willing to take a risk. I decided to study abroad in England instead of France because I was afraid of speaking French and taking classes in French. There are times in our lives where we tend to yield towards safety and security, and there are times in our lives where we're willing to take risks. In psychology, that's called the Jonah complex.
I want you to take a minute right now to think of a time in your life where you yielded to safety and security and what was the outcome of that decision, and a time in your life where you were willing to take a risk and what was the outcome of that decision. Look at both situations and what were the outcomes? Which outcomes were you most satisfied with?
Critical Thinking Skills
[Presenter in red on the right side.]
[Head with multicolored brain on the left with 5 speech bubbles.] Text on screen: Major, Choices, Classes, Skills, Career.
The fourth habit of mind that leads to college achievement is critical thinking skills. When you're in college, you'll be challenged to cultivate your critical thinking skills. Perhaps the best example of that is thinking about what are you going to major in and how will that lead to your career and vocational choices.
When you're thinking about what you're majoring in, you're going to have to think about choosing courses. You'll choose courses likely with an advisor. So you'll want to think about three different things: your class choices and how they relate to your major; how they match with your skills, abilities, and interests; and how those skills, abilities, and interests will relate to an eventual career or vocational decision.
Critical thinking skills are needed to synthesize the three areas of your life: skills and abilities, class and major choices, and your career and vocational decisions.
Healthy Relationships
[Presenter in red on the right side.
[On the left is an icon of three people raising their hands with a checkmark by it and an icon with a person bowing to another person shouting with a red x over it.
Subtitle: Procrastinators recruit others to procrastinate with them. [A pyramid of people.]
[An icon of three people raising their hands and below is:]
Text on screen: Form relationships with people who care about your academic achievement, goals & future endeavors.
The fifth habit of mind focuses on your ability to form healthy relationships and practice healthy habits. Let's take relationships first. When you're in college, you will want to surround yourself by people who are willing to support your academic endeavors as opposed to people who want to sabotage your academic endeavors and your academic goals.
For example, I often say to students, "Procrastinators recruit other people to procrastinate with them." Why is that? Well, you might think about the old adage, "Misery loves company." If somebody is recruiting you to blow things off and procrastinate with them, they want misery loves company; we're all going to go down in the ship together.
So it's really important when you're in college to think about the relationships that you form. And you'll want to form friendships and relationships with people who are willing to support you and who care about you and your academic achievement, your academic goals, and your future endeavors.
Healthy Habits
Subtitle: 8-8-8 Formula [Presenter in red on the left side.]
[Three clocks representing three times:]
Text on screen: Sleep, Academic Work, and Leisure/Work.
[Next to the sleep clock, there is a down arrow, an up arrow, and a picture of an ill person.]
Now let's consider practicing healthy habits. One way to frame your thinking around this is something called the 888 formula. The 888 formula is based on the idea that there are 24 hours in a day. So let's take the first eight hours. The human adult, on average, needs about eight hours of sleep per night. That is a health night's sleep.
The other eight hours - think about your academic work. Typically, you're in classes for two to three hours a day; and that will leave you five hours to do outside work, your homework, meeting with your professors, those kinds of things.
The third eight hours you could use for a variety of things. You could use it for leisure time; you could use it for work; you could use it for student activities. That's the 888 formula.
So if we consider sleeping, for example, if you decide that you're going to decrease your number of hours of sleep from eight to five, what happens is that lowers your immune system; and there are higher possibilities that you'll get sick. So one important healthy habit is getting a good rest and having a balance between your leisure and activities, your schoolwork, and your sleep. That's one way of thinking about practicing healthy habits.
Heightened Self-Consciousness Subtitle: Be Self-Reflective & Realistic
[Presenter in red on the left side.] [Blue bars with arrows pointing down]
Text on screen: “I studied a lot.”, “Well, I studies about three hours.”, “Well, three hours minus…”, What does a lot mean to you?
Subtitle: Be realistic about what it takes to be successful in college
The sixth habit of mind is to develop a heightened consciousness or self-consciousness. What does that really mean? What I'm asking you to do here is to be self-reflective and realistic. Let's use a study example.
Oftentimes students will come to me and complain that they didn't do as well on their first college test or exam. And they'll say to me, "I don't understand why I didn't do well; I studied a lot." I want to drill in a little bit to that answer. I'll often ask them, "What does 'a lot' mean to you?"
And they'll say, "Well, I studied for about three hours." But then they'll often explain to me the different kinds of things that interfered with their studying. In order to be successful in college, you really want to be realistic and self-reflective. Is a lot really the required amount of studying that you needed to do to be successful? And be realistic about what it takes to be successful in college.
Interconnected Habits
Three connected circles.
Text on screen: Critical thinking, Healthy Relationships, Self-consciousness. Reflect on what type of friend you are
Text on screen: Healthy vs. Unhealthy
[In the center is a head with lightbulb surrounded with question marks.]
Subtitle: What are the top five qualities of a healthy friendship
[A head with lightbulb surrounded with question marks above a piece of paper] Text on screen: Friendship qualities and 1-5.
If you think deeply, you can understand how the last three habits were interconnected. Let's think about this: critical thinking, healthy relationships, and a heightened self-consciousness.
If you think about healthy relationships and you critically think about them, you'll need to discern what constitutes a healthy relationship and what constitutes an unhealthy relationship. But in order to do that, you'll have to be self-reflective and have a heightened consciousness about the type of friend you are.
So what I'd like you to do right now is critically think about the people who you surround yourself with. Do the people that you spend most of your time with and give your friendship and support to, the people that you tell about your hopes, dreams, and ambitions, are they the best people to be spending time with? Are you supportive of your friends? In other words, are your relationships healthy? In order to determine this, you'll need to develop the heightened consciousness. But you'll also need to gain self-awareness and insight into the type of friend you are.
What I'd like you to do right now is think about the qualities of a healthy friendship. And I want you to list the top five qualities that you believe constitute a healthy friendship.
Compare Your List
Subtitle: How does your list compare to the qualities listed on the screen?
Text on screen:
• My friend is always honest with me.
• I feel safe being open and honest with my friend.
• My friend is supportive of my choices even when they disagree with me.
• My friend understands when I need to study or spend time with family or other friends.
• When I have a problem my friend offers constructive help.
• My friend celebrates my accomplishments with me.
• My friend is always respectful.
Now take a look at your top five qualities of a healthy friendship and take a look at the list on the screen. How does your list compare to the qualities of a healthy relationship as they're listed on the screen?
Time Management
[Presenter in red on the right side.]
Text on screen: Self-regulatory behaviors include:
[Clock with Time management, arrow and target]
Text on screen: Goal-setting [Calendar icon]
Text on screen: Ability to combat procrastination. Subtitle: Time on Task.
[Head with shades on the left with 5 circles above: head with gears, alarm clock, share/tweet/ like buttons, tv, record with music notes.]
Text on screen: 3 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours.
Perhaps one of the most important habits of mind that you'll need to think about when you're in college is your ability to manage your time and behavior. Managing your time and behavior falls under the category of something called "self-regulatory behaviors." Self-regulatory behaviors are things like time management, goal setting, and your ability to combat procrastination.
You'll also want to think about something called "time on task." Let's say that you're planning on doing a paper for a particular class, and it's due on Friday. And you decide that you're going to start the paper on Thursday night, assuming that your time on task is only three hours. When you begin to write the paper, you quickly realize that your procrastination led you to put the paper off until the night before. And as you're writing the paper, you find out that it's going to take more than three hours to complete the project. You're into the paper for six hours, then seven hours, then eight hours.
If that happens, you will need to hone your ability to predict time on task. And you'll really want to reflect on your time management behaviors and your procrastinatory behaviors.
Respect Diversity
Subtitle: Living & Learning in college
[Presenter in red on the left side.]
[Person in glasses to the right with six circles around: gears, whistle, thumbs down, asterisk/ exclamation/question mark, megaphone, and Diwali?]
[Head and gears icon] Text on screen: Reflect [Globe icon]
Text on screen: Respect [Two heads icon]
Text on screen: Think.
The eighth habit of mind is respecting diversity. When you come to college, you're going to be living and learning with people who are probably very different from you. I'm going to share an example of an anecdote that I experienced on a college campus that I worked on.
There were a group of Indian students on campus who wanted to share their culture with other students by celebrating the Indian holiday Diwali. The Indian holiday Diwali is represented by a symbol that looks very similar to a swastika. The Indian students hung up posters to invite other students to their Diwali celebration. What happened was the Jewish students saw the posters and tore them down, not understanding that the Diwali symbol and the swastika symbol were similar. The Jewish students assumed that it was an anti-Semitic symbol.
What we learned from that experience was that miscommunication can cause people not to understand diversity. So when you're living and learning in college, you will want to step back and reflect. And before you act impulsively, think about how people are different than you; and respect the diversity of different cultures and the origins that different people come from.
Take responsibility
[Presenter in red on the left side.]
Text on screen: Example 1: Academic. Person in red shirt with unequal sign and B on a paper. Person in graduation cap and equals sign and B on a paper.
Subtitle: In your relationships & with your academics
Text on screen: Example 2: Actions & Behaviors. Speech bubbles pointing to 3 spheres: I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again, How can I make it right? -Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture
The ninth habit of mind is to learn to take responsibility. I'm going to give you two examples. One example is an academic example. Oftentimes I will hear students muse, "That professor - she gave me a B." And I'll often challenge them when I hear that kind of musing. I'll say, "Did you earn the B, or did the professor give you a B?" So I really want students to take responsibility for their grades because at the end of the day, it's ultimately their responsibility.
Another way of thinking about taking responsibility is a terrific example from Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. He talks about that there are three parts to an apology, and it's really a way to take responsibility for your actions and behaviors.
He said the first part of an apology is to tell the person that you're sorry. The second part is to say, "I'll never do it again." And the third part is, "How can I make it right?" So take responsibility in your relationships, and take responsibility with your academics.
Growth Mindset
Subtitle: Open Minded + Growth Mindset = Success [Brain icon]
Text on screen: Fixed mindset. Not open to change. “There’s nothing I can do about this…no matter what I do, I’m not going to be able to become better at math.
[Brain icon]
Text on screen: Growth mindset. Open to new experiences. “I know through hard work & effort I can change; I can grow…I think I’ll ask for help.”
[Calculator, pencil, and angle in the middle.]
The last habit of mind is to develop a growth mindset. Carol Dweck, a psychologist, talks about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. A growth mindset means many of the things that we've talked about, many of the habits -- that we're open to new experiences, where a fixed mindset is that we really don't want to change. Let's think about an academic example.
Let's say that you're having difficulty in math, and you operate under a fixed mindset. Somebody who is having difficulty in math and operates under a fixed mindset would say, "There's nothing that I can do about this. I was born having a bad math gene. So no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to become better at math."
Somebody with a growth mindset would reflect and say, "I know through hard work and effort that I can change; I can growth; I can develop good math skills. I think I'll ask for help." So you see how some of these habits of mind are interrelated.
So the key to being successful in college - and these skills will also help you be successful in your life and in your future career - is to always be open minded and, number 10, have a growth mindset.
Activity
Subtitle: Reflect on all 10 habits
[Presenter in red on the right side.]
[A Brain with numbers 01-10 and question marks on the right.]
Text on screen: “Which is the most well developed?” above, and “Which is the least developed?”
Now that you have a deeper understanding of the 10 habits of mind that will lead to success in college, I want you to think about the habit of mind for you that is most well-developed at this point. And I also want you to think about the habit of mind that likely needs a little bit more attention, and you'll have to work on that habit of mind a little bit more closely.
College & Beyond
Subtitle: Support your success in career & life
[Presenter in red on the left side.]
[Head on right with clock, play button, microscope, pencil, light bulb, clipboard, globe, and gears surrounding it.]
Text on screen: Choose five habits and imagine a situation in your future where these habits will support your success.
Not only will these 10 habits of mind help you be successful in college, if you think about it, you probably noticed that some of these habits of mind will support later on in your career and in life. What I’d like you to do right now is look back at the 10 habits of mind, choose five of them and imagine a situation in your future where these habits of mind will support your success.
Conclusion
A Brain with numbers 01-10 to the left of the title. [Presenter in red on the left side.]
Text on screen: Possess humility, Ask for help, Ability to take risks and change, Cultivate critical thinking skills, Form healthy relationships, Develop heightened sense of self, Manage time & behavior, Respect Diversity, Take responsibility, Develop a growth mindset.
As I leave you with the 10 habits of mind up on the screen right now, reflect on the one that's most well-developed in your life at the present moment and the one that perhaps needs the most work. As you're reflecting on the 10 habits of mind, think about future experiences and where these habits of mind can be applied to create success beyond college and in your life experiences.