“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”

T.S. Eliott

Keeping a growth mindset with our students can be challenging. However, let’s take time to ponder this challenge through the opportunities below:

• teach students the difference between equity and equality
• develop strategies to challenge all students responsively and responsibly
• set and communicate high expectations of all students

Equity vs. Equality

When you talk to your students about equity vs. equality, do you think an image comes to their mind that looks something like this?

Probably, not.  Equity vs. equality is an abstract concept that students will need to be able to discern.  The simplicity of this image should make that meaning come to life for them.  When we are all equal we get the same. However, as evidenced by this image, one size fits all does not work.  Equity, on the other hand, is defined as being “the quality of being fair.” Open a dialogue of equity in your classrooms. You can use the chart below to jump start the dialogue.

Personalized Learning and Challenge

Sir Ken Robinson, an educational researcher, writer and speaker is well known for his TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” A 19 minute talk that has been linked here, and is 19 minutes well spent.

As we venture into personalized learning with our students, take time to think about how we can challenge our students to see what their learning styles are, what are their interests and what are their passions. Why not present them with learning opportunities such as 20% time, passion projects, genius hour or inquiry-based learning.

20% time. Provide students an opportunity to design their own learning with 20% time. Google implemented this as a company policy that allows  employees to spend 20% of their time on projects of high interest to them. They found this sparked innovation and creativity. And by the way, Gmail was an outcome of an employee’s innovation and creativity — something we all can’t live without!

Passion projects. Students create an essential question that drives their learning. They work through determining what they already know, what they are interested in learning about, and develop their plan of action based off this.  Teachers give the students the opportunity to direct their own research, design a learning process, reflect, and most importantly share their learning experiences.

Genius hour. Students are presented with an opportunity to design their learning, based on their passions and interests by allotting one hour per week to their individual pursuits. Teachers facilitate the learning and coach students throughout the learning process.

Inquiry-based learning. Students are driven to learn based on questions they have about a given topic. The teacher doesn’t share what students should know or will learn,though the teacher launches a lesson by putting students in the driver’s seat and encouraging them to learn based on their questions and the inquiry process. During inquiry based learning, the teacher responds to students by asking additional questions,which may spark curiosity and investigation.

If anyone has an interest in delving into any of the processes above, please fill out a coaching request, and we will be happy to work with you and your students.  Click here for link to coaching request form.

Setting High Expectations

Robert Rosenthal is a renowned researcher on the science of expectancy – how our expectations can influence outcomes. He developed what he believed was the the four factors that influence expectations. The chart below summarizes the four factors of what influences high expectations.

The formula – hard work + high expectations = the perfect conditions for facilitating a growth mindset in the classroom.  

Knowing the difference between equity vs. equality, challenging our students responsively and responsibly, and setting and communicating high expectations for all your students is a win win situation for all.

To you and your loved ones — have a happy and healthy holiday season.  Can’t wait to see what the new year brings with our students.

 These resources have been collected from  The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher’s Month by Month Handbook for Empowering Students to achieve by Annie Brock and Heather Hundle

Learner Profile Q&A

As part of the K-2 Learner Profile session at IgKnight, attendees listed questions and concerns they still had regarding the learner profile   We looked through the submissions to identify common themes and want to share with all of  you some answers.  If you have further questions, please feel free to contact one of your coaches.

How will the teaching of the Learner Profile stay consistent from teacher to teacher? Can teachers identify what slides should be required at certain grade levels?

Our students are all unique and the completion of the learner profile should be individualized or  personalized.   When working with students on learner profile, it is important to remember that we are providing them opportunities to know who they are, reflect on themselves as learners, and advocate for situational learning preferences that will result in optimal learning.  For elementary students, Kaneland 2020 has identified third grade and fifth grade as checkpoints in which students are encouraged to complete the entire profile, or a conversation of progress will take place at this point in their learning.  For students below third grade, students should have a variety of opportunities to explore and reflect on their preferences, but ideally would have the choice in identifying what they would like to submit to their profile. What is relevant to them? Keep in mind that the process is more critical than the product at this point.  

How do primary students actually know how they learn best?

This is a very good question.  It is most likely that students will change their minds based on a variety of situational factors.  What helps them develop in the long run, is bringing this reflection to the forefront.  They may change their minds often and begin to recognize patterns of what they prefer based on the task, group size, or content.  Keep in mind that the focus of their preferences should be geared towards how they learn best, not what is popular or most appealing on a surface level.  Continued conversations, opportunities for reflection, and the ability to advocate for themselves is our focus.  What they end up putting in as an entry for their current profile will change throughout their learning journey.  The documentation will help them to look back and see how they have evolved and hopefully give them more of a perspective on who they are as a learner.

Does all of this have to be done by February?

While primary teachers have been collecting artifacts for their students during the process of self reflection, it is up to you to decide what snapshots will be submitted.  You may decide to keep a folder to pass along with your students or set aside for next year’s classroom teachers.  However, consider giving your students a chance to look over these items in their reflection portfolio to make a condensed electronic submission for the learner profile.  This can be a video clip, a scanned document, or something else digital that your student has created.

While data on our SIP goal will be collected for the February timeline, please be aware that learner profile documents do not have to be complete by that deadline.  For our SIP goal, students are being asked questions that will demonstrate if they are reflecting on who they are as a learner and applying that throughout their day.  These discussions will be effective whether or not the documentation is complete, noting that the reflection process is ongoing.

 

K-2 Learner Profile Submission

For K-2 teachers, you will receive specific directions regarding how to create and where to store an electronic document of your students’ profiles.  Dr. Mumm is working with the technology department to make sure we have a system that is easily accessed by students in future years. Please stay tuned for this information.

 

Bringing the Learner Profile Language into your Socratic Seminar

Have you thought about how goal setting could have an impact on your students for socratic seminar?  Consider how you could start with a class goal to improve your sessions. Here are a few goals generated by fifth grade students after their first seminar experience.

• Invite others to speak
• Stay on topic
• Justify your thinking

After students have worked together collaboratively, consider having students set personal goals that are tailored to their learning style.  Have them reflect beyond what they like about socratic seminar, but to consider how they can push themselves to get more out of the experience.

Here is a resource that will give some examples and may help you get started.  Don’t hesitate to ask if you want to work collaboratively with a coach!

Looking for some examples of how to get started?   Here are some lesson question starters and lesson ideas.

 

Growth Mindest, It’s All About the Relationships…

In the field of education, we realize that relationships are especially essential to generate success. Relationships can make all the difference in a building’s culture. Teacher’s in a fixed mindset will always say that they don’t have anything to learn from their students, parents and colleagues. On the other hand, teachers with a growth mindset know other people are their greatest allies in being successful at both work and life. The growth mindset teacher values other people because other people can teach us a lot!

 

In the November chapter of The Growth Mindset Coach, by Brock and Hundley, we would like to share some of the highlights as they pertain to having a growth mindset in regards to building relationships with students, parents, and even colleagues.

 

Building Relationships with Students

                _________________________

 

A 2013 TED Talk “Every Kid Needs a Champion” featured a veteran teacher, Rita Pierson, having an exchange with another teacher. It went like this:

 

“A colleague said to me one time, ‘They don’t pay me to like kids. They pay me to teach a lesson. The kids should learn it. I should teach it, they should learn it. Case closed.’ My response, ‘You know, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’”

___________________________________

 

Research backs Pierson’s claim- students DO NOT LEARN from unlikeable teachers! Teachers everywhere all know that students don’t learn as much from teachers they don’t like. Look at your own education. Did you enjoy going to class with a teacher that you did not like? What about that teacher that really ‘got you’? I bet we all had that teacher and performed well in their classroom. Building strong relationships with your students is important to letting them know that they are valued in the classroom.

Five Cornerstones of a teacher’s approach to effective relationship building with students:

*Students know that the teacher has faith in their ability to achieve.

*Students respect and like their teacher as a person.

*Students seek and embrace the teacher’s feedback.

*Students know that grades are less important than growth.

*Students feel safe with their teacher.

 

Relationship Building Strategies: it is a known fact that people associate positive feelings with those that they have things in common. When teachers share a common interest with a student that bond is made and teachers need to use this to develop the relationships that most students want.

Activities and strategies teachers can use to build stronger connections with students:

–Find common ground (simply finding commonalities)

–Lunch buddies (schedule lunch dates with small groups of students)

-Two minute check-ins (make an effort to to approach a student and talk for a couple of minutes about a non-school related issue)

-Just say yes (make it a point to say ‘yes’ to student requests as often as you can)

-Meet them at the door (try to greet each of your students as they enter the classroom)

-Get-to-know-you activities (engage students in activities to understand each student)

-Hand signals and code words (use hand signals instead of yelling at students)

-Golden rule teaching (Treat students the same way that you want to be treated)

– Forget the shop talk (Find out their extra-curriculars)

 

Building Positive Relationships with Parents

Parent involvement in a student’s education has positive effects. As teachers, we know that parents matter. A teacher with a growth mindset makes efforts to get all parents interested in their student’s educational journey.

How do we communicate with parents? Effective communication with parents doesn’t have to have a protracted, face-to-face conference in order to make a difference. Emails, newsletters, phone calls, classroom blogs, social media, etc. all all ways to communicate (it just depends on what works best for you). Best practice tells us that when we are in constant communication with our parents that there are no ‘red flags’ that turn parents away. Communicating with parents should not always be for negative instances, but sharing the POSITIVES is welcomed even more!

 

Building Relationships with Colleagues

Building relationships with colleagues  benefits entire school culture. More importantly, you can’t share the growth mindset of colleagues without first developing a solid foundational relationship.

 

Ways to relationships and learn from colleagues:

Mentoring Cooperative Teaching

PLC Groups Book Clubs

Committees Build interpersonal relationships

PBL Planning Interest Inventories

 

The Growth Mindset Coach by Brock and Hundley is a great resource to apply growth mindset in your classroom.  We would like to share with you some highlights from the September and October chapters of this book.   In addition to these resources, the book has some lesson plans that you can implement.  If you are interested in learning more, please contact one of your instructional coaches or fill out a coaching form to work together.

 

“My Brain is Like a Muscle that Grows!”

Neuroplasticity – Brain’s plasticity is the brain’s ability to change itself throughout our lives.

Our brains have the capability to rewire themselves to adapt to a situation.

Think of our brain like a muscle – lifting weights and exercising makes our muscles stronger – when we exercise our brain by learning new things it becomes denser and heavier.

 

Brain -Centric Teaching

Metacognition is thinking about how we think.  Thinking awareness is a cornerstone of a growth-oriented classroom and should be part of well-rounded instruction on how the brain learns.  Metacognition is planning and reflecting about your learning on a new plane of consciousness that many students aren’t given the opportunity to access during the school day.  Using metacognitive strategies of reflection and self-regulation requires students to step back and evaluate where they are and how they got there and where they need to be and how they can get there; it’s also one of the most important life skills that our students are not being taught.

 

Strategies to guide students to deeper thinking:

• Determine Schema:  Assess student knowledge using pre/self-assessments.  Determine what students know and what connections they’ve made and still need to make.  Pre-learning activates thinking on prior knowledge and learning experiences.
• Thinking Stems:

 

• Think Sheets:  Similar to thinking stems, but printed for students to fill out.  This gives them a valuable opportunity to use metacognition.
• Journaling: Having students free-write on their thinking processes may help them to uncover information on their approach to learning that they had not previously considered.
• Model Metacognition:  Teacher verbally talks through the metacognitive process to model it.
• Risk-free Environment
• Encourage Notations:  By jotting notes as they read, students will engage with the text and their thoughts more deeply.

 

Brain- Boosting Activities

• Human knot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCPau5YL0g

• Air writing: Ask students a series of questions – content relevant or fun – they answer by “writing” in the air with their pointer finger
• Junk drawer: Keep a bag full of odd and ends, ie- pool noodle, spatula, sports foam finger, pipe cleaner, etc.  Ask students to reach into bag, pull out item, come up with inventive way to use that item that was not intended by maker.
• Yoga break
• YouTube brain breaks

 

Growth Mindset Resources

Books-

• Beautiful Oops – Barney Saltzberg
• The Dot – Peter H. Reynolds
• Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle – Chris Saschka
• The Most Magnificent Thing- Ashley Spires
• Rosie Revere, Engineer – Andrea Beaty
• Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It – JoAnn Deak

Movies-

• Big Hero 6 – Disney
• Inside Out – Disney
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – Sony
• Rudy – Tristar
• Zootopia – Disney

 

Video Clips-

• Austin’s Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBkJ70_djh4
• Caine’s Arcade – film by Nirvan Mullick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U

• “The Power of Belief” – TED talk by Eduardo Briceno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc

• “The Power of Believing that You Can Improve” – TED talk by Carol Dweck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X0mgOOSpLU

• “You Can Learn Anything” – Khan Academy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC82Il2cjqA

 

Songs-

• “The Climb” – Miley Cyrus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ2m9uyF2bg&list=RDpJ2m9uyF2bg

• “Don’t Give Up” – Bruno Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWp6kkz-pnQ

• “Power of Yet” – Janelle Monae

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLeUvZvuvAs&t=89s

• “What I Am” – will.i.am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs&t=25s

• “Firework” – Katy Perry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BtI43kqkOI

Thank you to everyone who participated in our writing PD.  Great conversations were had, and we hope that it was beneficial for all.  The Teachers Reading and Writing Project have a plethora of digital resources and are very active on each one.  We have listed some great resources for writing for your use and information..

• Columbia University’s Teachers College Reading and Writing Project page

           http://readingandwritingproject.org/

 

• Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Facebook group is very active and wonderful conversations occurring. Calkins herself will chime in too on some of the conversations. Below is the sign up link for the group:

           https://www.facebook.com/groups/TCRWP.WUOS/

 

• Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Twitter chats occur every Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m. eastern time.

           https://twitter.com/TCRWP.  The schedule for the Twitter chats is linked below.

           https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B404rJALRaGwYmo2b2xZNFg2QU0/view

 

• On Vimeo, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project have a plethora of videos to watch the workshop in action.

           https://vimeo.com/tcrwp

 

• Pinterest:

          https://www.pinterest.com/TCRWP/pins/

 

• The Two Writing Teachers blog- great information which comes out bi weekly by  teachers and coaches in the trenches of Calkins writing.  Sign up to receive the biweekly posts – by clicking on follow+ on

           https://twowritingteachers.org

 

• Mentor Text – We developed a list of great mentor text.  Some of our LRC’s have these books in circulation.  Listed out are the genre, grade level, and skills that are addressed.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XhHfLrGsXo37o0FPtSISejj712U_IcOLMmdOmKzV8Vg/edit

• Professional Books –

 

Big Book of Details by Roz Linder    Writing Strategies by Jennifer Serravallo

 

If you  are in need of coaching of writing, please fill out a Coaching Request Form and we would be more than happy to work with you.

 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17u_V10RWyHPnCXUAVgMj313ooT2yJi8LGKF-_PZJz4o/edit

After spending time with you exploring the basics of a reading-based socratic seminar, we would like to share some resources that you can use to extend your knowledge and consider further application in your classroom.

At the elementary level, you may want to consider scaffolding a student led discussion by focusing on one skill at a time.  Jennifer Seravello has some excellent lessons in her book The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. The following lessons may be helpful in scaffolding how to have a meaningful conversation:

12.3 Invite Quieter Voices (p. 330)

12.4 Say Back What You Heard (p. 331)

12.5 Taking Turns Without Raising Hands (p.332)

12.11 Keep the Line Alive (p. 338)

Are you a visual learner?  Here are some videos of Socratic Seminar in Action:

An educational video with explanations and students in action

Third Grade Inclusion Class Example

Do you like to read blogs of other educators?

Using Socratic Seminar in the Art Room

Socratic Seminar in Kindergarten

How to Liven Up Socratic Seminar

Our Handouts

The cover page was derived from this informative site:

Benefits of Socratic Seminar at the Elementary Level

Directions to get you started.

Question Stems:

Accountable Talk

Sorted Stems by Focus of Conversation

 

If you would like to work together, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Coaching Request Form