Giving Good Praise to Girls: What Messages Stick

How Important is Grit in Student Achievement? Culture Teaching Strategies When it comes to high achievement, grit may be as essential as intelligence. By Emily Hanford, American RadioWorks Before she was a psychology professor, Angela Duckworth taught math in middle school and high school. Now Duckworth is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and her research focuses on a personality trait she calls “grit.” Duckworth’s research suggests that when it comes to high achievement, grit may be as essential as intelligence. “Which experiences do we give kids to get them in the direction of more grit and not less?” Intelligence “is probably the best-measured trait that there is in all of human psychology,” says Duckworth. But intelligence leaves a lot unexplained. Duckworth’s work is part of a growing area of psychology research focused on what are loosely called “noncognitive skills.” Duckworth has developed a test called the “Grit Scale.” The charter schools have succeeded in providing strong academic preparation.

Crowdsourcing Information in the Classroom I was facilitating a workshop and one of the participants said Daniel Pink’s Drive was the most powerful and influential book she has read this year. I immediately ordered it on Amazon, and I’m thrilled I did! Pink explores human motivation and makes the argument that “for 21st century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery and purpose” (218). The economy is rapidly changing and jobs are more heuristic - demanding that employees learn, discover, understand, and solve problems on their own. This shift from algorithmic tasks, which follow a predetermined set of directions, to heuristic tasks requires students leave classrooms confident and able to think outside the box, tackle formidable challenges and be creative problem solvers. As I reflect the current state of education, I wonder if this generation, which is being labeled the “lost generation,” is developing the skills needed to excel in a country that no longer needs factory workers, but rather innovative thinkers.

Please Don't Touch Me! {Dealing with Anxiety in Kids} As the holidays approached and we were getting ready to visit family and friends, I was tempted to create a festive and sparkly sign to hang around my daughter's neck. As we visited a new-to-her preschool last week I wanted to do the same thing again. I wanted to create one that could be seen from the front and one that could be seen from the back. The sign I wanted to make would've said, "Please don't touch me," "I am really overwhelmed right now" or "I am really nice if you give me some time to warm up." Do you have a child who experiences a lot of emotions and anxiety like I do? Does spending time with family and friends and new people sometimes cause a lot of anxiety for you or your child? How do you prepare for so many unfamiliar situations, people, and routine changes? Here are a few things that I do to help alleviate my child's anxiety in new settings or in high stress one (lots of people)... 1. 2. 3. 4. I give hugs, hold her hand, and say supportive things. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

The Ultimate Education Reform: Messy Learning & Problem Solving Have you ever gone to the doctor with a rather vague problem? The kind of problem that has no obvious solution? “Doctor, my elbow hurts.” “Doctor, I have a runny nose.” “Doctor, look at this rash.” From that ambiguity, we expect our physicians to narrow down something that could have a thousand origins to the one specific cause, then make it all better with one specific treatment. We tell the mechanic: “My car is making a funny noise, can you fix it?” A quarterback asks: “What’s the best play to run, coach?” We might ask a decorator: “I need help redoing this room. We might ask friends: “What do you think is the best car for me to buy?” Some of our ambiguous problems are mundane: “What toothpaste should I use?” From our first activity in the morning until the last thing we do before we visit dreamland each night, we are constantly engaged in a series of problems to solve — some easy, some hard. So what’s this got to do with school? I love ill-structured problems. In pursuit of the messy answer

How a Bigger Purpose Can Motivate Students to Learn Jane Mount/MindShift A few years ago, psychologist David Yeager and his colleagues noticed something interesting while interviewing high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area about their hopes, dreams and life goals. It was no surprise that students often said that making money, attaining fame or pursuing a career that they enjoyed were important to them. But many of them also spoke of additionally wanting to make a positive impact on their community or society — such as by becoming a doctor to take care of people, or a pastor who “makes a difference.” What’s more, the teens with these “pro-social” types of goals tended to rate their schoolwork as more personally meaningful. Given this information, Yeager and his colleagues wanted to know: could such a bigger sense of purpose that looks beyond one’s own self-interests be a real and significant inspiration for learning? Can Drudgery Be Eliminated from Learning? It’s complicated, though. The Potential of a Purposeful Mindset Related

5 Ways Students Can Create Audio Slideshows Somewhere between a PowerPoint presentation and a full-fledged video is the audio slideshow. Creating audio slideshows can be a good way to add meaning to slides that otherwise might not mean much without a presenter. Here are some ways that students can create audio slideshows. Narrable is a neat service for creating short narrated slideshows. UtellStory is a service for creating and sharing audio slideshows. Present.me is a handy service for recording video and or audio to accompany your slides. Hello Slide is a tool that you can use to add voice narration to slides that you display online.Hello Slide is different from services like Slideshare's Zipcast (which requires a paid subscription) because instead of recording your voice you type what you want the narrator to say. In my mind one of the original audio slideshow tools is Animoto.

How a Shoe Can Teach Responsibility How a Shoe Can Teach Responsibility By Marjan Glavac closeAuthor: Marjan Glavac Name: Marjan GlavacSite: Marjan is currently a gr.6 home room teacher at Wilfrid Jury Public School in London, Ontario, Canada where he resides with his wife and two children. For more information about Marjan Glavac, his books, keynotes, training and seminars, visit him at his site at Authors Posts (51) thebusyeducator.com A number of years ago a first year teacher asked me for some help. He told me that his students took all his pencils. They took all his glue bottles. And his class set of scissors. He was angry, frustrated and hurt. “These students have no sense of responsibility,” he told me. I agreed with him. I told him they needed to be taught how to be responsible. “And how do I do that?” “Ask for a shoe,” I said. “How does a shoe teach students responsibility?” She gave an example of asking for a shoe when a student borrowed something.

8 Overlooked Useful YouTube Tools When most people think about YouTube they think sharing videos and or about all of the videos they can discover. Most people don't think about the useful editing tools that are built into YouTube. The YouTube video editor has some useful features for teachers and students. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Mindset | How can you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Step1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.” As you approach a challenge, that voice might say to you “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.” “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” “People will laugh at you for thinking you had talent.” “If you don’t try, you can protect yourself and keep your dignity.” As you hit a setback, the voice might say, “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.” As you face criticism, you might hear yourself say, “It’s not my fault. Step 2. How you interpret challenges, setbacks, and criticism is your choice. So as you face challenges, setbacks, and criticism, listen to the fixed mindset voice and... Step 3. As you approach a challenge: THE FIXED-MINDSET says “Are you sure you can do it? THE GROWTH-MINDSET answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to with time and effort.” FIXED MINDSET: “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” GROWTH MINDSET: “Most successful people had failures along the way.” Then...

Digital Storytelling with iPads Last week Apple released the second generation of iPads. I was very pleased to see that they included a camera in this generation (something they should have done initially, but didn't because then they couldn't market based on perceived obsolescence).To me the inclusion of a camera (two actually) makes the iPad a slightly better investment than it was before. The cameras make the iPad better suited to becoming viable tools for creating digital stories. Digital Storytelling with the iPad is a site created by six Apple Distinguished Educators. Applications for Education Although I still think schools should put money into 1:1 laptop programs before 1:1 iPad programs, I do think that the new generation of iPad has more potential than the first. Thanks to Steven Anderson for Tweeting the link to this resource.

A Wonderful Poster on Failure July13, 2014 I have always believed that teachers (and people in general) MUST have an open midset; one that tolerates and celebrates mistakes and errors; one that looks at failure as an opportunity for a better beginning. It is through falling down that we stand up robust and it is through misfortunes that we gather our strength to live the life we want and pursue our dreams. If we want to raise up socially and emotionally strong students who can face up and overcome the hardships of life, an important key in this is to teach (and model) them about failure. We need to show them that failure is a healthy sign and a good omen for a healthy life experience. They need to view failure as an attempt for deep reflection and meditation about what work or did not work. They also need to be reminded that failure has been a common denominator behind most of the historical achievements and invention in the history of humankind.

How to Create Flipped Classroom Assignments & Videos With Knowmia Knowmia is a website and an iPad app for creating, sharing, and viewing video lessons. Last month Knowmia introduced a new feature that they call an Assignment Wizard. The Knowmia Assignment Wizard allows teachers to design assignments that their students have to complete after watching a video. Students can check their own Knowmia accounts to see the assignments that their teachers have distributed. Knowmia's new support blog outlines each step of the process of creating and distributing assignments through the Assignment Wizard. Click here for an introduction to using the Knowmia Assignment Wizard and click here for advanced instructions on using the Assignment Wizard. Applications for Education If you're thinking about trying some "flipped" lessons this year, take a look at Knowmia's Assignment Wizard and the Knowmia iPad app.

The Lost Art of Eye Contact We’ve stopped seeing each other. You and me. All of us. Our eyes may indeed be windows to our soul, but with our necks craned downward and our eyes focused on tiny handheld screens, who can tell? When nearly every personal and business interaction uses a screen as an intermediary, it’s difficult to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with employees, customers and partners. Speak with Your Eyes We communicate so much with a simple look. Listen to Their Eyes Without looking directly into someone’s eyes, you’ll miss millions of visual clues as to what’s going on inside their head. Look for the “Tell” In poker, it’s called the “tell”: the habitual signal your opponent makes that betrays whether he or she is holding a full house or a hand full of nothing. Be Shifty-Eyed If you’re making a presentation to a group you need to look at everyone in the room. But Don’t Be Creepy Eye contact is something most people struggle with, yet it’s a critical component of communication.