These are the standards we use to organize our curriculum, guide our teaching and project design, and assess our students through portfolio exhibition and roundtable presentations. Students must demonstrate all aspects of the Domains and General Habits of Learning in portfolios in order to progress and graduate. "Distinguished" portfolios must reflect all aspects of the Advanced Habits of Learning as well.

1.  Communicating, Crafting, and Reflecting

General Habits of Learning

• Self:  Identify own strengths and weaknesses in using writing, speaking, numbers, the arts, media, and second language to formulate, clarify, and reflect on ideas.
• Others:  Appreciate and examine models, and use teacher and peer feedback to revise and polish work.
• Discipline:  Use extended writing and speaking to show understanding of important concepts and processes in academic disciplines.
• Applied Learning:  Exhibit, publish, perform, or speak to an authentic audience in the school building using both English and a second language.

Advanced Habits of Learning

• Scholarship:  Show that they understand how successful artists, writers, mathematicians, scientists, or other creative thinkers set standards for themselves and accomplish their goals.
• Leadership:  Exhibit, publish, perform, or speak to an authentic audience outside of the school building using both English and a second language.

2. Recognizing Patterns and Making Connections

General Habits of Learning

• Self:  Identify, assess, and articulate own strategies for recognizing patterns and connections.
• Others:  Analyze and experiment with different strategies for understanding patterns and connections.
• Discipline:  Analyze patterns and make connections using the content and processes of math, science, history, psychology, literature, language, and the arts.
• Applied Learning:  Connect learning from disciplined inquiries and exhibitions to each other and to personal life.

Advanced Habits of Learning

• Scholarship:  Show an understanding of how patterns and connections are used in math, science, history, psychology, literature, language, and the arts.
• Leadership:  Connect personal, local, and global issues through interdisciplinary research.

3. Critical Thinking and Ethical Decision-Making

General Habits of Learning

• Self:  Articulate and evaluate own problem solving processes and values.
• Others: Analyze and use different strategies for solving problems and making moral choices.
• Discipline: Analyze and solve problems by using the concepts and processes from these three disciplinary groupings: Math, Science, and Technology, the Humanities, and Service and Health.
• Applied Learning:  Identify problems faced by people outside of school and implement solutions using the concepts and processes that have been learned.

Advanced Habits of Learning

• Scholarship: Apply strategies, tools and models from ethics, logic, mathematics and other disciplines to develop, support, and defend positions.
• Leadership:  Do independent research and find solutions to important social problems for people beyond the school building.

4. Taking Responsibility for Myself and My Community

General Habits of Learning

• Self:  Identify and assess own habits of health, respect, and commitment needed to be successful school and community members.
• Others:  Analyze and consider other perspectives on what deep respect and decency are.
• Discipline:  Use disciplined inquiries to evaluate personal and organizational characteristics, skills and strategies that lead to success in school and life.
• Applied Learning:  Give service to the school and outside community.

Advanced Habits of Learning

• Scholarship: Explore and identify the expectations and support systems necessary to succeed in college, career, and in other roles one may have after high school.
• Leadership:  Do independent research and take action to demonstrate an understanding of interconnected local and global issues.

5. Working Together and Resolving Conflicts

General Habits of Learning

• Self: Identify own behaviors in group problem-solving situations.
• Others: Participate in various group problem-solving experiences and identify what makes groups successful, including groups in the classroom, in contemporary society, and in history.
• Discipline: Design exhibitions that show an understanding of the theories of conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, consensus, and group dynamicsónow and at different points in history.
• Applied Learning: Apply group problem-solving theories and skills learned in inquiries and exhibitions to actual situations that are faced by people outside of school.

Advanced Habits of Learning

• Scholarship: Demonstrate the use of key concepts and processes within the disciplines of social psychology, sociology, or cultural studies.
• Leadership: Facilitate effective interpersonal and inter-group relationships with groups beyond the school.

Domains and Habits of Learning Sources

We have used many sources to develop this list over the years, beginning with our own research: Phil Farnham�s "What Do Students Need to Learn" (1989). From the beginning, an important model for this work has been that of the Alverno College faculty: "Abilities and Developmental Levels," (1988, 1994), Alverno College Institute, Milwaukee, WI.

Other sources include: