Intellectual Character

This past summer I just completed a master's course that investigated how teachers can change or examine their own teaching culture and methods to see if intellectual character is part of their classroom.  Some of the dispositions of thinking from author Ron Ritchhart would be:

• To be open-minded - "being flexible, willing to consider and try out new ideas, generating alternative options and explanations, and looking beyond the given and expected"
• To be curious - "explore our world, to ask questions about it, and to wonder at it"
• To be metacognitive - "thinking about one's thinking"
• To be seeking truth and understanding - "weighing the evidence, considering its validity, looking for links between bits of evidence to build up a theory and then testing the theory by looking at counterevidence and alternative explanations"
• To be strategic - "planful, anticipatory, methodical, and careful in our thinking"
• To be skeptical - "probing below the surface of things, looking for proof and evidence, and not accepting things at face value"

I definitely want to develop a learning community that includes learning experiences that help my students develop these dispositions of thinking.  I will be posting this upcoming school year ideas such as teaching strategies, methods, and activities that I plan to use or used to implement these ways to think.  (If you are interested in reading more about intellectual character, read Intellectual Character by Ron Ritchhart.