There are several terms and points of view in mathematics education that are somewhat
similar or support each other, and might be brought together under the single phrase
“mathematical habits of mind.” We discuss several of these views that we see as related.
Habits of mind were introduced by Cuoco, Goldenberg, and Mark (1996) as an organizing
principle for mathematics curricula in which high-school students and college students think
about mathematics the way mathematicians do. They asserted:
The goal is … to help high school students learn and adopt some of the ways that
mathematicians think about problems. … A curriculum organized around habits of mind
tries to close the gap between what the users and makers of mathematics do and what they
say. … It is a curriculum that encourages false starts, calculations, experiments, and special
cases