Growth Mindset and SBG Bulletin Board Downloads I already included the pictures of my two new bulletin boards this year in my massively long post of classroom pictures today, but I wanted to create a separate blog post that people could use to easily find the downloads to duplicate these bulletin boards in their own classrooms. I don't think I've ever been this happy with my bulletin boards before. They make me smile. They represent what I think is important. They are useful to students. They spark conversations. The bulletin board behind my desk is called "Change Your Words - Change Your Mindset!" . This is not an original idea. The words printed on gray cardstock represent a fixed mindset. The words printed on colored cardstock represent a growth mindset. I'm asking my students this year to listen for people speaking in the fixed mindset and to offer them a statement in the growth mindset instead. My other bulletin board stems from this theory of mindset. I changed the coloring to better represent my grading structure.
Students Aren't Getting Enough Sleep—School Starts Too Early As the lazy days of summer give way to the painful reality of pre-dawn alarms, many kids are beginning their descent into chronic school-year sleep deprivation. The median school start time in this country is 8 a.m. But this fall, some schools, including a handful of elementary schools in New York City, will ring their first bell up to 40 minutes earlier than they did last year in order to accommodate curricular demands. These early school start times result in sleepy kids and frustrated parents. “The empirical evidence [of] the negative repercussions of chronic sleep loss on health, safety and performance in adolescents … has been steadily mounting for over the past decade,” wrote Judith Owens, a pediatrician and the lead author of the report, in an email. According to the Academy, the solution is to delay school start times. According to the National Sleep Foundation, teenagers need at least nine and a half hours of sleep every night.
4 Ways to Encourage a Growth Mindset in the Classroom EdSurge Newsletters Receive weekly emails on edtech products, companies, and events that matter. Contrary to popular belief, high achievement isn’t merely a product of talent and ability. In fact, our internal beliefs about our own abilities, skills, and potential actually fuel behavioral patterns and predict success. “There is no relation between students' abilities or intelligence and the development of mastery-oriented qualities. This is something that really intrigued me from the beginning. A person with a fixed mindset believes that his or her intelligence is static, while a person with a growth mindset believes that his or her intelligence can be developed. A growth mindset has a sizable impact on business efficacy and is a determinant of successful athletes. The good news: a growth mindset can be taught. Integrating growth mindset-oriented learning processes into the classroom, then, can have a beneficial impact on learning. 1. 2. 3. 4.
How Google Impacts The Way Students Think How Google Impacts The Way Students Think by Terry Heick It’s always revealing to watch learners research. When trying to understand complex questions often as part of multi-step projects, they often simply “Google it.” Why do people migrate? Google it. Where does inspiration come from? How do different cultures view humanity differently? Literally Google it. And you see knowledge as searchable, even though that’s not how it works. 1. Google is powerful, the result of a complicated algorithm that attempts to index human thought that has been digitally manifest. The result? 2. When students are looking for an “answer,” good fortune sees them arrive at whatever they think they’re looking for, where they can (hopefully) evaluate the quality and relevance of the information, cite their source, and be on their merry way. But with the cold logistics of software, having come what they were looking for, learners are left with the back-button, a link on the page they’re on, or a fresh browser tab.
How to make growth-mindset theory work in the classroom “When I read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, I kept turning the page hoping that she might start to tell me how to ‘do it’ in the classroom,” says Katie Walton, a teacher from Cambridgeshire. “But it didn’t happen.” It’s a common experience. Dweck’s idea of a growth mindset – that intelligence is not fixed, but can be developed through hard work and support – is obviously of massive appeal to teachers. “Dweck offered some excellently argued theory, but how that translated to teaching was anyone’s guess,” Walton says. Writing in the 31 October issue of TES, she explains that with nothing to go on, she developed some strategies of her own. Define the values and reward examplesChildren should consider what values a school needs to have in order to inspire a growth mindset. Making an effort in learning is important.Making mistakes is helpful and not something to be ashamed of.Feedback, including criticism from others, is important.
Why Each Year Seems to Disappear More Quickly Than the Last For most people, each passing month of their lives seems to feel shorter than the previous. Many of us can’t believe that stores are already starting to display Christmas products, and if you’re writing a check, you might still catch yourself writing 2013 when 2014 is nearly over. All clocks follow the same 12 hour / 60 minute symmetry, yet studies suggest that as we get older, we don’t experience time the same way. Many psychologists believe that as we age, our perception of time begins to accelerate versus time actually speeding up. The emotional intensity of our daily life is affected by the fact that many of us experience “Habituation Hypothesis”. Our instinct is to conserve energy when we can, so when life is predictable, our minds turn to autopilot and we tune out. There’s also what psychologists call “Forward Telescoping”, which considers how we perceive past events that have made a significant impact in our lives. How can we slow down time? Look for the beauty in things. Sources:
Why the Growth Mindset is the Only Way to Learn “You’re too old to learn a foreign language.” “I couldn’t work on computers. I’m just not good with them.” “I’m not smart enough to run my own business.” Do you know what these statements have in common? When you have a fixed mindset, you believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have: You’ll always have a set IQ. The problem is, this mindset will make you complacent, rob your self-esteem and bring meaningful education to a halt. In short, it’s an intellectual disease and patently untrue. The fixed mindset’s antithesis, the growth mindset, may be the cure. Dr. But before the good news, we have to address the bad. The Fixed Mindset in Action Do you find yourself trying to prove how smart you are? These are all symptoms of a fixed mindset. Within a fixed framework, progress is impossible. But where do these mindsets come from? According to Dweck, they’re formed very early in life – and it’s actually possible a mindset like this was useful. Find peers
Teachers Top 100 Books for Children The following list was compiled from an online survey in 2007. Parents and teachers will find it useful in selecting quality literature for children. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Mindset Works®: Student Motivation through a Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck, Ph.D. Emily translates the latest educational research on mindsets and motivation into growth mindset programs and practices. She delivers professional learning talks and workshops for parents, educators and leaders all over the country, including sessions in partnership with Scholastic. Her latest work includes California Math Council South, New York City Dept of Ed, New Tech Network, and school districts such as Washington DC, Compton Unified, and Delaware’s Vision Network. Emily has 16 years experience in K-12 schools as a teacher and instructional coach. Emily Diehl loves a challenge!
How To Master Your Time The secret to time management is simple: Jedi time tricks. Imagine you were a Jedi master called Bob (your parents, whilst skilled in the ways of the force weren’t the best at choosing names). The love of your life – Princess Lucia – is trapped in a burning building as you hurry to save her. You might think of Lucia as the embodiment of your dreams, your aspirations – she is your most important thing. Unfortunately, before you can reach her an army of stormtroopers open fire. We all know how a hero resolves this dilemma. And so it is with your life. The secret to mastering your time is to systematically focus on importance and suppress urgency. Look at what you spend your day doing. Say no. Schedule your priorities. One final lesson from the Jedi: they’re heroes. Heroes inspire us for many reasons: they make tough decisions, they keep going and they get done what matters.
Recent blog posts - Growth Mindset Blog & Newsletter This article is re-posted with permission from Getting Smart, where it appeared in their Smart Parents series. It was also cross-posted in the Huffington Post Smart Parents Series in partnership with the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. by Eduardo Briceño, CEO Mindset Works Many of us want our children to understand that we love them, and to believe that life can be fulfilling. Developing those beliefs will help them prosper. What is a growth mindset? Discovered by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck, Ph.D., a growth mindset is the belief that we can develop our abilities, including our intelligence, which is our ability to think.
Training the Brain to Listen: A Practical Strategy for Student Learning and Classroom Management Image credit: iStockphoto Editor's note: This post is co-authored by Marcus Conyers who, with Donna Wilson, is co-developer of the M.S. and Ed.S. Brain-Based Teaching degree programs at Nova Southeastern University. They have written several books, including Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching: Connecting Mind, Brain, and Education Research to Classroom Practice. During the school year, students are expected to listen to and absorb vast amounts of content. Explicit instruction on cognitive strategies that can help students learn how to learn may have a positive impact on both academic performance and classroom management by emphasizing that students are in charge of their own behavior and learning. Learning to listen well is a prime example of a skill that many assume shouldn't need to be taught. From a developmental perspective, this Common Core standard is interwoven with the acquisition of verbal and social skills that are critical for students' success across many contexts.