Selden and Selden think that focusing specifically on small habits of mind has two
advantages. First, the uses, interactions, and origins of behavioral schemas are relatively easy to
examine. For example, behavioral schemas tend to reduce the burden on working memory. Also,
the process of enactment of a behavioral schema occurs outside of consciousness, but apparently
the triggering situation must be conscious. Thus, such schemas cannot be “chained together”
outside of consciousness with only the final action being conscious (Selden & Selden, 2008). For
example, one cannot produce the solution to a linear equation without being conscious of the
intervening steps. Second, this perspective is not only descriptive but also suggests concrete
teaching actions, such as encouraging the writing of the formal-rhetorical parts of a proof at the
beginning of the proving process (Selden & Selden, in press). In this way, it is fairly easy for a
teacher to devise ways of helping a student strengthen a beneficial, or weaken a detrimental,
behavioral schema