After watching Professor Carol Dweck's lecture at Young Minds 2013 about teaching growth mindset (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXhbtCcmsyQ), develop a game plan that will introduce this concept to your students and how you will measure student progress and acknowledge students that exhibit growth mindset habits. Be sure to mention what grade level you're teaching and, if relevant to your plan, what subject.
This plan doesn't have to be comprehensive, but it should be well-developed enough to serve as a foundation for a plan that will be utilized in future practice. Your plan should definitely include how you will address growth mindset training in the very first week of class. Have fun. Be creative. I look forward to your ideas!
This is actually a concept that I addressed in my Classroom Management Strategy in Human Relations and Conflict Resolutions. I plan on teaching in a middle school LA/Reading classroom. In addition to using anchor charts around my room emphasizing the importance of hard work and revision, I plan to incorporate the concept of consistent revision into my classroom. All students will be expected to submit "rough drafts" of papers, in addition to second drafts and maybe third before their final paper is done. Through writing, I will differentiate between students, by challenging them to improve and expand upon their thinking and grammar through successive drafts.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, a major part of my classroom strategy will include technology and connections to the local and global community. Through literature, we will explore how societies and individuals accomplish their goals through hard work and dedication. We will set a goal, focus on the individual tasks necessary to complete the goal, and assign every student responsibility to completing that goal. By merging literature with experience, we will both incorporate character development into the curriculum and follow a growth mindset - for both ourselves and the societies around us.
An afterthought: John Green and Bill Gates actually have very good, informative videos about the idea of societies being able to grow with the growth mindset. These are examples of the kinds of materials I would like to show my class to motivate them to service projects and personal growth.
Deletevlogbrothers: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Agriculture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUgedVu0NA
vlogbrothers: Listen: Thoughts from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrqJZcn0iU
TED: Navi Radjou: Creative Problem Solving in the Face of Extreme Limits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHRZ6OrSvvI
Sidenote: Sorry if this posts twice. I'm getting used to a new laptop and the touchpad keeps pressing buttons when I'm typing. It said it was publishing the comment but then it didn't actually show up on the comments list so I figured I would post it again just in case it didn't work so sorry if this pops up twice.
ReplyDeleteI like what Melanie said about encouraging constant revision, especially in an English class. I want to teach high school but, from my experience in my high school, too many teachers are all too happy to have the students hand in something at the beginning, like an outline, and then not hand in anything else until the final draft. I think revision is incredibly important with just about everything a student can do in class because you can encourage the process of improvement, which will hopefully make the students want to improve on themselves. I think I would probably set some type of rule up where the students have the ability to come back and revise anything they've already handed in for more credit, as long as they did it in the first place (so a student who didn't do the worksheet when it was due can't come back and try to get credit for something they didn't do), even if it's something as simple as wanting to give more detail on a worksheet they handed in.I think, as a teacher, I would probably have my students fill out some sort of questionnaire or something similar in the beginning of the year to help me figure out right away which students are which mindset, that way I could know which students would be more likely to revise and which ones might need extra boosts to really reach their potential. And throughout the year I would be sure to find examples of successful people, like Einstein or Shakespeare, to really drive the point home that success and talent isn't something you have to be born with and try to incorporate the idea that you have to put the effort in and challenge yourself to be better a theme to focus on for the year with the literature we read.
"... try to incorporate the idea that you have to put the effort in and challenge yourself to be better a theme to focus on for the year with the literature we read."
DeleteLove it! Any books or short stories you'd recommend as part of that theme?
A more successful approach - regarding your reference to successful people - might be to glorify the unsung heroes: people who have made great strides in their careers without much recognition. Until recently, Alan Turing might be an example; and, although it is historically inaccurate, the movie about him "The Imitation Game" does a good job of showing how success comes from a series of mistakes. Alan Turing wasn't recognized for his accomplishments in WWII until 2013, because he was gay. Many other innovators still haven't been recognized for their success, because they are women, minorities, disabled, etc. The point is not to draw attention to how, eventually, they were recognized. At least in my classroom, I don't want my students to aim for recognition (indeed, isn't that the point Dweck is making?). I want them to aim for self-improvement, to set personal goals for their own measure of success, and to not worry about what the people around them think. Recognition is an uncontrollable byproduct of success, and many innovators will tell you that success in life does not require recognition.
ReplyDeleteContinuing the conversation on revision: many experienced teachers consider the idea of allowing students to submit revisions after a grade has been given is unfair to the "better" students. This enforces the "fixed" mindset and discourages students from working to improve themselves. Also, as Dr. Meskin observed last semester in EDUC6819, the fixed approach teaches for content, while the growth approach teaches for mastery.
I think it could also be important to reference people who have gained recognition, however, as even Dweck uses Einstein as an example of people who struggled for years and years before making his famous contributions to the world. While it would definitely be important to make notice of the people who haven't gained much recognition, I feel like if the students don't recognize anyone you point out, it might not drive the point home for them. Maybe a better way to reference people they would know is to reference the people who are famous, but whose struggle isn't well known. The only example I have off the top of my head right now is Billy Blanks Jr, the fitness guy. I saw him on Shark Tank some time ago, promoting his line of fitness videos and classes. He's incredibly successful now, but he had a heart breaking story that I won't go into. And while he might not be the best example (and I'll bet our future students might not know who he or his father is, because his father was the exceptionally famous one), Billy Blanks Jr is someone they might recognize, but not know the hardships he faced to get where he is now. But I think, if you're going to go the route of pointing out people who have had success after struggling to encourage students, there should be an equal balance of referencing people they would know, if only to provide a base (because, quite honestly, I know I wasn't extremely impressed when my teachers would rattle off nothing but names I didn't recognize) and then bringing up people who aren't famous. On a similar note, I've always believed that self-improvement is just another way of making yourself proud of you, basically. If I succeed in doing well on this paper, then I make myself proud of that accomplishment. So maybe another way of phrasing the recognition topic to your students would be to tell them to work towards impressing themselves, instead of other people, a sort of self-recognition.
ReplyDeleteI've actually had several teachers and professors here at FDU who have set the rule of allowing students to revise and resubmit something they've already turned in for a grade. Usually they set a time limit of "You can revise and resubmit within the next month for a better grade" or something similar so setting a time limit is probably better than what I was suggesting before, but the classes I've been in that have done this have done it relatively well. The teachers/professors ran off the belief that there is always room for improvement, even if you're just improving something as simple as grammar or wording, and I think, if you do it well, it could reinforce what Dweck was saying about the growth mindset working off mistakes and learning from them. If they're able to go back and revise a mistake they made, they might learn how to avoid that mistake altogether next time. I think it also encourages the mindset of "If you fail, try again" because there are times where a student might not do the best work because of situations at home or they're having a bad day or a bad week, or maybe they just feel uncomfortable with certain assignments (like how not everyone is good at test taking). If they struggle, they get a chance to revise and make it better, and I think that helps them learn that failure isn't always the end. Of course, I think that works best for assignments like papers so maybe this would work better for non-worksheet type assignments. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it, and there might be a better way to do it, but I think it could work if executed properly.
I really like the idea of encouraging revisions and allowing for resubmission of papers to teach growth mindset in writing. Once thing to consider is all the grading/ reading you'll have to do under such circumstances. I would recommend peer editing for the early stages of writing (particularly for those extremely early drafts) and also think about having students who are constantly revising and resubmitting to type up a separate reflection piece about their revisions; ask them to reflect on the revision process, in which areas improvement has been made, what changes were made and why, etc. It shouldn't be more than page. That might be a good way to a) get them to keep writing! b) really consider the value of revising c) show how effort goes a long way and that there's always room for improvement and d) make grading easier on you, the teacher.
ReplyDeleteAshley, a questionnaire at the beginning of the year is always a great idea. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but when you're administering such a diagnostic questionnaire, you should definitely make it crystal clear why you're doing and how it will help them. Its very important to trust your students, plus I find that when they know why you're doing what you're doing they'll be more honest in their responses. Just wanted to throw that out there. :-)
On the subject of mentioning people who've had to struggle to get to where they are, I don't really think it matters whether they're "famous" or not. I think that as long as their story is one of effort leading to improvement (and, perhaps by extension, success), then anyone is fair game. Of course, the wonderful thing about English is that your examples of such people can be fictional as well!
Great ideas overall and good discussion, all!
It is important to make sure that your students know that there is always room for growth. To do this in the field that I would like to teach in (elementary language arts), I would make sure that the students worked together to make sure that each of their peers are prospering. For example, the peer editing strategy. I think this strategy allows students to see that the level of work that can be achieved varies, and that if their peer's work has a better flow how to achieve it. Simply telling a student how to achieve something does not necessarily mean that they will get it automatically. Sometimes students need examples of good work. However, there should be a strong reference that the class is not a competition for who can get the better grade. Rewarding should be given for improvement. The students should always have the idea that there is always room for improvement within their work.
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