What is Hábilmente for?
The Hábilmente programme helps to develop students' numerical logical reasoning and verbal reasoning skills, thus contributing to the improvement of reading comprehension and mathematics. These are fundamental learning tools for the student's entire academic and professional career.
Cognitive skills that we measure in Habilmind
These skills are the ones we specifically measure in the Habilmind Fundamental Skills and General Skills tests.
At Hábilmente we divide them into the following categories:
- Information capture
- Information memory
- Evaluation of information
- Application of information
- Creativity
Information gathering
This first step refers to the way in which the first contact is made with the information to be processed; generally uptake depends on sensory input, and for this reason emphasis should be placed on educating the senses to take in information completely without distortion and without deviations.
These are the particular skills related to uptake:
- Sensory integration
- Classification and mental order
- Spatial orientation
- Spatial perspective
- Hypothesis development
- Capturing arithmetic operations
- Vocabulary
- Understanding sentences
- Understanding a verbal system
Pupils with deficits in information retrieval will have difficulties in following instructions and a negative impact on their self-esteem is identified.
Memory of information
The mental process by which stored information is encoded, stored and in the future recalled. The storage of information is practically unlimited but recall is less so. This intellectual process is influenced by attention and the ability to classify the information captured.
The following are specific skills related to memory:
- Incidental peripheral memory
- Visual memory and attention
- Visual Sequence
- Memory Auditory
- Memory and attention
- Auditory Sequence Memory
- Logical memory
Students with this underdeveloped ability will have difficulty in relating, retaining and recalling information, which will have a direct impact on their academic performance.
Evaluation of information
Faced with challenges, problems or questions, we must evaluate the information we have learned and accumulated throughout our life and learning, in order to select the knowledge that will help us to give the most appropriate response.
In this process, the processes of analysis, decision-making, handling ambiguity and critical judgement are involved in the formation of criteria.These are the skills of information evaluation:
- Sensory discrimination
- Visual analysis
- Criteria development
- Arithmetic critical judgement
Students with low evaluative skills will show poor skills in solving novel problems in real life, and will not be able to make decisions in a reflective and critical way. This intellectual process when properly developed is a factor in the prevention of delinquent behaviour.
Application of information
After the mind has selected the best response to a challenge, it must apply it to turn it into a solution.
The skills of information application are:
- Fine Motor Coordination
- Arithmetic problem solving
- Accurate speed reading
- Logical reasoning
In our results-oriented culture, this skill is essential for successful employability. This well-developed cognitive process enables proactive and effective problem solving in everyday life.
Creativity
The capacity of the mind to generate a new and original product.
This ability is one of the most demanded and necessary for the labour market in which our students will be incorporated, due to the need to generate alternative solutions to increasingly varied and complex challenges. In a world in which the professions of the future are yet to be defined.
Hábilmente consists of an initial measuring tool
Through the Habilmind skills tests.
And some exercise books for the classroom.
These workbooks contain a multitude of exercises for the cognitive development of the student. There is also a book for teachers. Aimed at students of:
- Preschool
Primary
Secondary
A weekly session
The Hábilmente programme requires one hour of teaching time per week. To this end, schools wishing to improve their students' learning should make space for it within their curriculum.
Cognitive enhancement will facilitate students' adoption of knowledge by reducing the effort involved.
Each session is made up of the implementation of several activities
These in turn are divided into workshops:
- Mathematics workshop
- Arithmetic workshop
- Basic reading workshop
- Reading comprehension workshop
- Writing workshop
Ask your consultant for sample books.
Taught by the tutor, preferably
Hábilmente it is NOT targeted at a particular subject, and does NOT need to be taught during math or language class.
Simply selects the teacher who is going to teach. This teacher can be the same tutor or main teacher of the group of students.
- Preschool
Why should you implement Hábilmente?
It will help your students to
Improve critical thinking
Learn to follow instructions
Increase their attention and concentration
Improve the level of mechanical reading and comprehension.
It's fun
Perform intellectual challenges
Understand, relate and interact
Improve motivation
Improve intellectual self-esteem
Generate the most suitable climate for learning
It is practical and simple
It promotes cooperative learning
Pedagogical foundation
Joy Paul Guildford
Joy Paul Guildford was an American psychologist, known for his studies on intelligence with his model of the structure of intelligence.
Isauro Blanco
National Award for Educational Research and Innovation (2007). Spanish Ministry of Education. Founder of the learning technology company Habilmind. Regular collaborator with UNESCO and OECD. Researcher with more than 40 years of experience in the classroom and in the application of ICT in Education. Advisor to management teams, teachers and counsellors in schools all over the world. International lecturer.
Guía para el docente
Inducción
Es el momento en que el maestro capta la atención de los alumnos al comenzar la actividad.
❯ Instrucciones. Los niños deben leer las instrucciones y explicarlas, para que el profesor verifique que las comprendieron.
❯ Ejemplos. De ser posible, el primer ejercicio se resolverá grupalmente; de esta forma el docente observará el grado de comprensión de los estudiantes, de manera que, si no se entendió, pueda realizar el segundo con ellos, y así sucesivamente hasta que la actividad sea comprendida con claridad por la mayoría.
Clase
Es el momento en que se realiza cada actividad.
❯ Monitoreo. Los alumnos resuelven la actividad de manera individual mientras el profesor los monitorea, con esto se asegura que todos la realicen de la mejor forma posible.
❯ Mediación del aprendizaje o manejo de procesos. Cuando el maestro requiera dar una explicación, deberá hacerlo incitando el razonamiento en los menores, es decir, sin dar las respuestas. Puede lograrlo dando pistas o haciendo preguntas para que los estudiantes encuentren la solución por sí mismos.
Sugerencias para la mediación del aprendizaje o manejo de procesos:
- Manejar los errores como oportunidad de aprendizaje. No dar respuestas. Se debe permitir que el alumno experimente y ejercite, es decir, lleve a cabo su proceso intelectual.
- Ser positivo al momento de guiar un proceso utilizando frases como: ¡Bien! ¡Qué interesante! ¿Por qué lo crees así?, etcétera.
- Eliminar las frases negativas, tales como: No lo hagas así, Así no, Está mal, Te equivocaste, etcétera.
- Fomentar el autocontrol sugiriendo que observen el proceso que realizaron los demás.
- Buscar que los escolares se vuelvan guías de los procesos intelectuales, de manera que den pistas a sus compañeros o que compartan ideas entre ellos.
- Utilizar las palabras reto o acertijo en lugar de problemas.
- Es importante promover momentos de concentración, aunque exista ruido durante la resolución de ejercicios.
Cierre
Cierre: Es el momento en que se evalúa la realización de la actividad y su utilidad en la escuela y en la vida cotidiana.
❯ Autoevaluación. Fomenta la conciencia autocrítica de los alumnos, pues les permite admitir sus errores y las razones por las que los cometieron. Se recomienda que no tachen sus errores, sino que los rodeen o subrayen con un color que no sea rojo y los corrijan.
❯ ¿Cómo lo hice? Las páginas de Hábil-Mente no se califican como las asignaturas. Los niños identificarán y corregirán sus errores, registrarán el tiempo que tardaron en realizar cada actividad y asignarán en la rúbrica “¿Cómo lo hice?” de acuerdo con su percepción, una valoración sobre su desempeño. La revisión se puede realizar de manera grupal, por comparación, en grupos de tres, etcétera, considerando el tipo de ejercicio y a criterio del profesor.
❯ Transferencia o puenteo de la habilidad. También llamada metacognición o aprendizaje significativo, es cuando los escolares descubren por sí mismos para qué sirve la habilidad que acaban de trabajar. Se recomienda que el profesor o profesora haga preguntas que los lleven a pensar para qué les servirá cada actividad. El maestro debe promover respuestas creativas y razonadas, de forma que conecten el aprendizaje de la habilidad con su vida cotidiana.
