The Effectiveness of Using Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind in Developing Achievement and Some Visual Thinking Skills of First Year Preparatory School Pupils

Abstract

This research aims at investigating the effectiveness of using Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind in developing achievement and some visual thinking skills of first-year preparatory school pupils. To achieve that, the researcher designed the following: a list of Habits of Mind in the light of Costa and Kallick and converting it into educational goals which can be achieved after teaching geometry for the first year prep school pupils; Teacher's guide and pupils worksheets for teaching "geometry and measurement" unit of the first year prep school pupils according to Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind; an achievement test of "geometry and measurement" unit for the second term of the first year prep school pupils and finally, visual thinking skills test. The current research used quasi-experimental research through applying it to a group of female pupils of the first year prep school. The sample consisted of (100) female pupils of Beni Ahmed prep school (1) in Minia Governorate, Egypt. It was divided into two groups: the experimental and control group. The control group consisted of (50) pupils taught with the traditional method, while the experimental group consisted of (50) pupils taught using Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind. The results have shown that pupils' grades of the experimental group are higher than other group grades on achievement and some visual thinking skills. The researcher introduced some recommendations such as the necessity to set up professional development programs for training mathematics teachers in order to develop pupils' Habits of Mind, the necessity also to train student teachers of mathematics in the faculty of education to develop Habits of Mind. Moreover, Geometric content in the preparatory stage should be enriched with different educational activities that contribute to developing learners' visual thinking.