MINDSET
- I'm interested to read this book. I think Alphonsus is reading it...I'd love to know what you guys think. One of the presenters today, Judy Rhoads, talked about this book at the beginning of her presentation in order to help us realize that we need to change our students' mindsets from "fixed" to "growth".
The fixed mindset is one that I think most of our students fall into now. Sometimes they value looking smart above all else, and they don't handle setbacks well. They may even fear not "being good" at something. They focus on getting all of the answers correct.
Whereas, a growth mindset is one where there is a desire to do challenging work because it is in the challenge that learning actually happens. Effort and hard work comes first and performance, naturally and as a result, comes second.
Teachers can affect both kinds of mindsets.
We encourage a fixed mindset by saying things like, "You are so smart," "I am sure that you can do this," "You got them all!" etc. This kind of language focuses on the successes as opposed to the process.
We encourage a growth mindset by: using risk pads* and saying things like, "What great mistakes did you make? Wow, that is a great mistake! Now, let's see what we can learn from that." "You're finished? Let's see what great mistakes you've made that we can learn from." This kind of language celebrates persistence and hard work instead of the success.
*A risk pad is a strategy one teacher used to encourage students to take risks and learn from their mistakes. He stapled some pieces of paper together and when something difficult came up (in kindergarten I'm thinking we can use this when writing words, as an example) he'd say, "Okay everyone, let's take out our risk pads and write the word 'school'. This is how you write the word 'school'. Did anyone make any great mistakes? " I love it and definitely want to use it.
-Most Difficult First Strategy-
This was another strategy Judy presented to help with differentiating in the classroom. The teacher teaches the whole class, and when it becomes time for guided practice, she assigns 5 of the most difficult items first. If students are able to master this, then they receive credit for the assignment and move on to what she calls (and I hope to adopt) "detective work." Detective work is the differentiated work students do that deepens their understanding and provides them with rigor.
-Critical/Creative Thinking-
One of the sessions I went to focused on teaching critical thinking skills and how we need to do more of it. I totally agree. In the afternoon, Judy talked about one of her friends who wrote this program pictured below, Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS). I loved Judy, what can I say?! Has anyone else seen her before?
This is critical thinking curriculum that can be used alongside your Language Arts series like Harcourt or Scott Foresman. Each of the thinking skills are introduced through a character...the kids will love that!
Detective Work
This is a good example of the types of detective work I mentioned. These math analogies will be great to continue the growth mindset of our students! And, it will be even better if the students will work to create their own analogies someday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I bought think it through tiles for the classroom:
Think it Through Tiles
There are books that accompany the tiles, and I bought two sets of Math books, because I thought they would be great for centers or detective work when students are finished with their previous assignment.
I want ZINGO for the classroom. Some parents have mentioned this before, but I had never seen it:
ZINGO
It can work on picture / word recognition, but you could use it for sound segmentation as well.
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Sorry for the long post! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Also, I met a CPS teacher named Destiny who will be joining our blog and sending along some great resources! Victory! Thank you Destiny!
Yes, we were asked to read Mindset at AACA. I'm about half way through right now. It's pretty good and I've enjoyed learning about the fixed and growth mindsets. The author gets a little repetitive by repeating her point in several ways, but it hits home, as I can see the different mindsets in my students and even with myself. I recommend reading it or at least browsing through it. Very interesting concept.
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