Mindset: Fixed or Growth - Part 2

I have been thinking a lot about this concept of mindset the last few weeks. I have shred it with some of my teachers and administrators and the more I think about it, the deeper an impact it has on my thinking. This post will focus on a few new ideas. 

1. Recognizing how many famous people in history were not just some genius with a talent that arrived one day; they each had to work hard to develop their talent. 
2. We will mention a few of Carol Dweck’s research studies that show how a growth mindset can a have huge positive impact.
3. One of the issues surrounding this entire conversation is how our feedback to people impacts their performance based on what type of mindset they have. This has huge implications for educators so that we can learn what type of praise and other feedback to give children. It can make the difference in their performance, but more importantly it can change their lives.

1. People in History

Dweck talks about Thomas Edison, Mozart and Charles Darwin.

Edison did not just invent the light bulb in a snap and on his own. It took 30 well trained scientific assistants, working around the clock and it took lots of separate experiments to make it work. Although he was a genius, he was not always one. His biographer, Paul Israel, describes Edison as a normal boy who experimented a lot, but it was his drive and determination that kept pushing his curiosity to continue experimenting  and looking for new challenges. Darwin’s famous work, “The Origin of Species,” took years of work with lots of teamwork, hundreds of conversations, several drafts and dedicating half of his life before it came to fruition. Mozart worked for more than ten years before he produced any work that became famous. 

2. Let’s explore some of the research

Dweck’s team measured students’ mindsets as they made their transition to middle school. Did they view their intelligence as a fixed trait or something that could grow? She followed this group of students for the next two years. The transition to middle school is hard for everyone; harder work, longer hours, tougher grading policies, etc. All of this occurs while students are coping with their new adolescent bodies and roles. In this study, only students with a fixed mindset saw their grades decline. In fact, the decline occurred right away and then continued to decline over the next two years. The students with the growth mindset saw their grades improve over the two years. Both groups began middle school with identical records, but in two years their mindsets took them in completely opposite directions.

What is more interesting is the responses the students gave in response to their transition. Those with a fixed mindset said things like, “I am the stupidest” or “I suck in math.” Many students covered these feelings by blaming others or their teachers. With the threat of failure looming, students with the growth mindset mobilized their resources for learning . They reported that although they too got overwhelmed, they dug in and did what it took to achieve. The impact that one’s mindset has on one’s self esteem is astonishing.

In another study and another transition, Dweck studies students as they began college. She measured their mindsets and followed them, watching their grades and asking about their study strategies. Once again, the students with the growth mindset had higher grades and even if they did poorly on an individual test, they bounced back on the next ones. When students with a fixed mindset did poorly, they often did not bounce back well.

Dweck also analyzed who these college students studied. The students with the growth mindset took charge of their learning and motivation. Unlike their fixed mindset counterparts who just tried to memorize the information, they looked for themes and underlying principals. They also reviewed their mistakes until they understood them completely. They were studying to learn, not just to ace the test. This is why they earned higher grades; not because they were smarter or had a stronger background in that subject matter.

3. The Danger of Praise

Most parents make the mistake of praising their child’s ability. Over 80% of parents think that is what you should do to foster self confidence. The problem is that people with a fixed mindset are already focused on: Is their ability high enough? Will it look good? Wouldn’t praising ability focus them on it even more? Wouldn’t that tell them that is what we value? Isn’t this promoting fixed mindset?

In a study of hundreds of students, mostly adolescents, they were given a set of ten fairly difficult problems from a nonverbal IQ test. They mostly did well on these and were given praise. They praised some of the students for their ability. They were told: “Wow, you got eight questions right. That’s a really good score. You must be smart at this.” The other group was given praise for their effort. “Wow, you got eight questions right. That’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard.” They were not made to feel they had some special gift, but rather, that they worked hard to succeed. Both groups were exactly the same to begin with, but after the praise, they began to differ. Those who got the ability praise, pushed them into fixed mindset and they showed signs of it. When given a choice, they rejected the more challenging tasks that they could learn from, they didn't want anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent, etc. In contrast, the students who got the effort praise wanted more challenging tasks. In fact, 90% of them wanted the more challenging tasks that they could learn from.

After this, they were all given a challenging task. The fixed mindset group didn’t do so well, while the growth mindset group did much better. More than that, the growth mindset group continued to have fun and even enjoyed the most challenging tasks most, while the fixed mindset group  said it wasn't fun anymore.

One final alarming point is that those children in the fixed mindset  were much more likely to lie about their achievement. In fact, over 40% of them did. The children in the study all began at the same point; the difference was ability praise vs. effort praise. Telling the kids that they were smart actually had all of these negative affects on them.

Dweck gives the following strategies to grow your mindset:

1. Think about your hero. Do you think of this person as someone with extraordinary abilities who achieved with little effort? Now go find the truth. Find out the tremendous effort  that went into their accomplishment - and admire them more.
2. Think of times other people outdid you and you just assumed they were smarter or more talented. Now consider that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder and worked through obstacles. You can do it too, if you want to.
3. Are there situations where you feel stupid? Next time you are in one of those situations, get yourself into a growth mindset, think about learning and improvement, not judgement. 
4. Do you label your kids? This one is the artist and that one is good in math. Next time, remember that despite the praise, you are not helping them. Find a growth mindset type of praise. 

Finally, here is a great TED talk that really enhances the concepts I discussed in this blog post.

Links to Interesting Articles:

1. 3 Things Students Want to Hear from their Teachers

2. 5 Stages of 2nd Language Acquisition
3. Ten Tips to Smooth Transition

4. Establishing Our Collaborative Work Norms

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. 4 Tips for Using YouTube Videos in Your Classroom

2. 5 Apps to Transform Teaching and Personalize Learning

3. Hour of Code Suggestions by Grade

Quote of the Day:

1. What Kind of Mindset do you have?

2. I haven't failed... 

3. I've missed more than....

 

Mindset: Fixed or Growth? - Part 1

Most people don’t like change. It makes them nervous and they do not like the feeling of uncertainty. This is true even when the anticipated change is positive. My school has gone through quite a bit of change this year with a new Head of School and some new administrators. The staff has responded positively and has embraced the changes we have made, enjoying a fresh outlook to the future. But in the last few months, we have naturally gotten used to things and now as we look forward to next year and some more administrative changes and some curricular changes, some of us are nervous once again. 

Much has been written about the Growth Mindset over the last few years, but I have only read tidbits and watched TED talks that discuss it. I thought that this would be a good topic to explore for a few weeks and as I began to read Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset,” I began to learn so much about myself. 

Some people believe that we are each born with a preset level of intelligence and that is what we have to work with. Dweck’s reseach proves that is not the case. With practice, training and method, we have the ability to increase our attention, memory, judgement and intelligence.

Even Alfred Binet, the creator of the IQ test did not intend the test to be an indicator of some absolute intelligence. It was designed to identify children that were not thriving in the French public school system so alternative educational environments could be created.

Dweck describes two kinds of people, those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset. Here is how she describes each:

1. A Fixed Mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you only have a certain amount of intelligence, a  certain personality and a certain moral character, then you better prove you have a healthy dose of them. These are people who are constantly trying to prove themselves in the classroom, in their careers, in their relationships. Every situation calls for confirmation of their intelligence, personality or character.  Will I succeed? Will I look dumb? Will I be accepted?

2. A person with a Growth Mindset believes his basic qualities are there to be cultivated through his efforts. His potential is unknown. Who knows what he can do with years of practice, passion and training? These people are looking to grow, they are not threatened by challenges or failure; they embrace them as opportunities for growth.

Some examples of people who clearly had a growth mindset include:  Darwin who was considered an ordinary child. Ben Hogan was an uncoordinated child and became one of the world’s greatest golfers. Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team and then he worked and worked and became the best player of all time. These people could never have become who they became if they had a fixed mindset.

How can you tell what mindset a person has? Dweck suggests looking at a person’s attitude when presented with a puzzle, do they constantly choose the challenging kind or do they stick with something safe, one they know they can complete?

At the University of Hong Kong, everything is in English. Classes, textbooks and exams. But some students are not fluent in English so it would make sense for them to take a basic English course when they get there. Some chose to take the course, others did not. But the interesting thing was they measured their mindset by asking them how much they agreed with statements like: “You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you can’t really do much to change it.” People who agree with this statement are of a fixed mindset. Those students did not elect to take the remedial English class. While those who disagreed with the statement and believe you can always change how intelligent you are, they believe success is about learning. They have a growth mindset. They were not threatened and chose to take the remedial English class.

Another example could be a person who in the same day that you got a C+ on a paper and got a traffic ticket. Someone with a fixed mindset would say,  “I’d feel like a reject.” “I am a total failure.” They look at the glass half empty. When life has its challenges, they think, “My life is pitiful,” “I have no life,” “The world is out to get me.” These people do not necessarily have low self esteem for when they are successful, they do feel good. But in this scenario they didn’t even get an F,  and it was only a parking ticket, not a total car wreck, etc. Someone with a growth mindset might say, “ I need to try harder in class, be more careful when parking the car, etc.”

The main indicator is whether a person is threatened about failure and challenge or do they see them as opportunities for growth. There is a lot more to explore, but based on what we have said so far, which type of mindset do you have?

Links to Interesting Articles:
1. Reflections on Using Social Media with my Students
2. 10 Things Learned During the First Year at a Lower School Makerspace
3. How Students’ Digital Footprints Can Affect Them Long After They Leave Your School

4. How peer video coaching is completely changing how our teachers teach

Links to Interesting Web Tools:
1. The 8 Best Chrome Extensions As Chosen By Teachers

2. 18 Twitter Classroom Ideas for Learning With Social Media

Quote of the Day:

1. The kind words of a teacher...
2. A Leader is one who...
3. Creating opportunities for students must be more important...

The Power of Questioning - Part 4

In this final posting on questioning, I will explore Teacher Guided Discussion: Teachers as Coaches during five stages of discussion. I had planned on devoting more time to this topic of questioning, but sometimes the books you think will take you somewhere, take you somewhere else. I will look for a new topic next week.

In teacher-guided discussions, teachers strategically engage and instruct students in classroom conversation while deepening their understanding of content. Students become apprentices to their teachers as they develop and refine skills for productive disciplined discussion.

The teacher must focus on his intentionality and his explicitness. Intentionality relates to teacher decision making about which discussion skills will be the primary focus for student development during the discussion. Teachers must decide this before they come to class. Explicitness means teachers thinking out loud with students as they intentionally highlight certain skills, disposiotns and productive discussion moves. The teacher shares with the students which discussion skills they will be working on and why these skills are important to a good discussion. 

Walsh and Sattes develop five states to the discussion process: Preparing, Opening, Sustaining, Closing, and Reflecting. 

1. Preparing - preparing for a discussion involves five tasks

1. Frame the question - how doe this relate to students? Do the students have the depth of knowledge to discuss this topic?
2. Determine which skills and disposition to spotlight  - consider social skills, cognitive skills, use of previous knowledge skills.
3. Assign student prep work - ask them to read, write or generate questions to prepare for the discussion.
4. Select Participation Structures - develop a prompt, select a structure such as working in pairs, groups or working on some online platform.
5. Consider Organizational Issues - consider the size of the class and the classroom layout.

2. Opening - this is your kickoff, or your chance to make sure the players understand the rules of the game, or the norms and guidelines for interacting with each other.

1. Review norms and guidelines
2. Focus on targeted skills and dispositions
3. Present the question - present it, do not ask it. This shows the students that you really are interested in their response.
   

3. Sustaining - help everyone maintain focus on the question at hand.

1. Listen to understand - use good wait times to think, ask questions to better understand the speaker’s point of view, wait until others are done speaking before you speak, accurately paraphrase what other students have said, look at the students who are speaking and give nonverbal cues that you are paying attention.
2. Scaffold with questions statements or other appropriate moves - this includes extending individual student thinking and speaking, guiding students to self-assess and self-correct, encourage students to build on one another’s thinking, keep students on topic, jump start a stalled discussion (when necessary), nurture student curiosity and excitement, monitor to ensure equitable participation, and track patterns of participation. 
   

4. Closing - Most academic discussions are intended to provide students with opportunities to deepen or extend their understanding or perspective.

1. Be sure to assist students in consolidating their thinking
2. Help the students identify emerging or unanswered questions.

5. Reflecting - this can happen in the classroom in collaboration with other students or outside the classroom, reflecting alone and perhaps with colleagues.

1. Facilitate individual student reflection and self-assessment.
2. Lead the group in assessing collaborative processes.
3. Reflect on the quality of the focus question and the dynamics of the discussion. How did it work for the class? Did it generate the type of thinking you had anticipated? Were there any surprises, how effectively did the opening of the discussion prepare students to participate,, and consider how well you did with each of the previous steps of the process.

Links to Interesting Articles:
1. Behaviour Expectations and How to Teach Them

2. 5 Steps for Teaching the Tough Kids

3. Strategies for Reaching Quiet, Disengaged, Struggling, and Troublemaking Students

Links to Interesting Web Tools:
1. Create Grading Shortcuts in Google Docs
2. How Minecraft Can Enhance Student Learning

Quote of the Day:

1. Unexpected kindness....

2. I think education is power...

The Power of Questioning Part 3

Questioning Practice #3: Scaffold Student Responses to Deepen Thinking

Teachers need to plan how they will respond to anticipated student responses or comments. Teachers will respond with comments or questions, but this should be carefully planned to be able to scaffold student thinking. A teachers choice of response to a students answers can either promote thinking  or shut it down. This will all depend on a teachers purpose, timing and working. 

An interesting point to consider is that research shows that teachers tend to shut down student thinking when they provide positive feedback or praise. At first this seems counterintuitive, but the point is that when a teacher communicates agreement with one student’s thinking, both that student and his classmates conclude that there is no need for further thought because the teacher got the answer he was looking for.

Walsh and Sattes argue that the the and frequency of teacher scaffolding will vary based on the different forms of discussion:

a) Teacher-guided discussion - the teacher is prepared to provide large doses of scaffolding to help students develop the social and cognitive skills for a disciplined discussion. This type of discussion is best when students are first learning norms and processes of effective discussion. Teachers will come with a full arsenal of follow-up questions to direct student talk.

b) Structured small-group discussion - teachers will select specific protocols that support peer scaffolding of one another’s thinking and engagement. Examples of both of these will be discussed later.

Questioning Practice #4: Create a Culture for Thoughtful Discussion

Thoughtful discussion is a collaborative process that cannot take place in a competitive classroom where students are competing for the teachers attention and grades. Similarly, thoughtful discussion cannot take place in a teacher-centerer room with a right-answer culture. On the other hand, it does flourish in a classroom that celebrates curiosity, inquiry and discovery.

Walsh discusses three norms that are common in classrooms that promote thoughtful discussion: Purposes of questions, think times and participation.

1) Purposes of Questions

a) Use the focus question to stimulate and unlock your own thinking about the embedded issue or concept. This means that students must believe that the teacher is not looking for one specific correct answer. 

b) Use the focus question to assist in zeroing in on what you know and think about the issue or concept embedded in the question. An open ended question does not mean anything goes. The entire class has to take responsibility that all participants offer logic and evidence to support their positions.

c) Ask questions when you are curios, perplexed or confused or when you need clarification. 

2) Think Time

The honouring of silence is critical to a deep and productive discussion. This allows students to clarify their own thinking and to understand the thinking of others. Murray Budd Rowe (1986) identified two types of wait times: Wait Time 1 is the pause after the asking of a question, before anyone responds. Wait Time 2 is the pause after someone speaks, before another speaker reacts. According to Rowe, the recommended wait time is 3-5 seconds. Walsh recommends that as a minimum, but often a bit more is necessary to be effective. Students need to learn to value this silence.

Walsh uses the term think time in place of wait time as it connects more to the reflection that we are aiming for. Here are three norms that show students how to use this time:

a) Use think time to reflect. When someone poses a question or comment to you, use this time to reflect and think about your response.

b) Give others time to reflect. 

c) Treat silence like gold. This is such an important time, where we can process what others say, rethinking our positions, or consolidate our thinking.

3) Participation 

The goal is to get as many people as possible to be active participants in the discussion. Is everyone comfortable to speak? Do students encourage their peers to participate, especially the quiet ones?

a) Speak as you are motivate to speak, without raising your hand. This is a hard habit to break, but hand raising breaks the flow of the conversation.

b) Talk to one another, not the teacher. Most of us spend out years in class looking to the teacher for affirmation that our comments were good. The focus on good discussion is for students to build on one another’s ideas. Consider moving students desks into a formation that promotes this.

c) Share what you are thinking so others can learn from you. This thought is to be shared with the shy students so we give them the message that everyone’s thoughts and ideas help the entire class.

d) Monitor your talk so as not to monopolize the conversation.

e) Listen to others respectfully, asking questions to understand.

f) Encourage others to speak, particularly those who are not participating. 

The main idea here is that questioning for discussion requires teachers to take on a different role for the traditional classroom. They should frame one question for discussion and then remove themselves a bit. They should not comment on each students idea’s until the classmates have a chance to do so. Similarly, they should encourage the students to critique each other before they do so.

Links to Interesting Articles:

1. 3 Videos on the Importance of Empathy

2. Empathy in the Classroom: Why Should I Care?

3. 4 Strategies for Teaching Students How to Revise

4. The Benefits of Adding Video to Teacher Evaluations

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. Fun Way to Build Math, Prime Number Intuition

2. Quizalize for building Interactive Review Games

3. 7 Tools for Building Multimedia Quizzes Compared in One Chart

Quote of the Day:

1. If we are truly effective teachers....

2. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

3.  “Happiness is where we find it, but very rarely where we seek it.”

The Power of Questioning - Part Two

I begin my next series of posts reviewing the book "Questioning for Classroom Discussion" by Walsh and Sattes. 

Teachers who learn to ask quality questions, and teach their students to do the same, can transform typical classroom interactions. Cognitive demand increases as students are expected to formulate their own questions, rather than wait for the teacher’s. As they speak and listen to peers they should be formulating questions too. The practice of quality questioning empowers students to engage in challenging forms of open conversation, promotes respect for different points of view and helps to develop new understandings. 

J.T. Dillion’s Questioning and Teaching: A Manual of Practice (1988) distinguishes between questions that promote recitation and those that foster discussion. He argues most teachers only do the former. Recitation is the focused on student mastery of core knowledge and fundamental skills, whereas discussion is the arena in which students think critically or creatively about that knowledge.  Both types of questions are equally important, but teachers must recognize the differences so they can use them both effectively. If a teacher is giving a formative assessment/ checking for understanding, then questions of recitation are the best choice. This will help the teacher and student understand what the students understand. Questions for discussion help to build or deepen understanding, often occurring after students have mastered core content.

Here are some of the differences in purpose of questions of recitation vs. discussion

Here are examples of questions used in recitation vs. discussion

One of our goals here is to see how quality questioning is a key aspect in lesson planning. This book focuses on ways teachers can use questions to engage students in a deeper and more meaningful way. 

The following four practices are associated with quality questioning: 

1. Framing focus questions that initiate and sustain student thinking and interactions.
2. Promoting the equitable participation of everyone in the discussion.
3. Scaffolding student responses to sustain and deepen thinking and understanding.
4. Create a culture that supports thoughtful and respectful discussion.

Questioning Practice # 1: Frame a Quality Focus Questions

Step One - Identify an issue - choose something that is relevant and provocative to engage students emotionally.

Step Two - Craft the question - use age appropriate academic vocabulary, use strong verbs that will get students thinking, use a simple and straightforward sentence structure, and deliver within a meaningful context. 

Step Three - Anticipate student responses - Ask yourself, “how high my students respond to this question?” Brainstorm all the possible responses you can anticipate. This accomplishes two things: it is a good check to see if the question can produce a range of perspectives. If it cannot, then it will not lead to a quality discussion. Secondly, it allows the teacher to plan effective moves, either to sustain the student thinking, or in the case of erroneous reasoning, to lead students to rethink their positions. Walsh argues that the main goal “is to develop students’ skills in challenging, extending and even correcting one another.”

Questioning Practice #2: Promote Equitable Participation

This is perhaps the most important and the most difficult aspect of quality discussions. Teachers need to strategize how do accomplish this. The challenge is how teachers can preventer the eager and enthusiastic student from monopolizing the stage without shutting them down and on the other side, how to encourage shy students without embarrassing them?  How do you do either of these without interfering with the discussion?

There are no simple answers to this, but Walsh recommends two strategies:

1. Establish norms and guidelines that foster equitable participation
2. Use structures that scaffold participation by all.

Teachers must communicate that each student should be prepared to communicate and that students “own” the norms that are created by the teacher. One great step in doing this is to have the students develop the guidelines.

Walsh promotes one norm that is counterintuitive to how most classrooms function - NO Hand raising. Requiring students to raise their hands before speaking leads to a large number of students opting out of the conversation. Teachers should decide who will respond to questions by using random methods for selecting respondents, while engaging everyone.

Here are some good structures for scaffolding equitable participation:

1. Student trackers - assign a few students to keep track of who has and has not spoken.
2. Fishbowl - Use a fishbowl protocol where 5-7 seven students sit in an inner circle, while other students sit in a concentric outer circle. Each student in the fishbowl is expected to contribute to the discussion. The students in the outer circle must listen and take notes. They can also be asked to track which students have contributed. It is also good practice to let them have a chance to share one thought after the fishbowl participants have concluded their discussion.
3. Short-answer round-robin - Ask each student to respond to a question in one or two words. Each student offers a response and has the option of agreeing with a classmate.
4. Limitations on participation - provide students with a limited number of tokens to “spend” during a discussion. Walsh doesn’t love this as it interferes with the natural flow of the discussion, but he recommends using this in the beginning phase as you develop the class norms.

It is important for teachers to explain to the students their rationale for the structure they put into place. Engage students in reflecting on their own and their peers’ participation. Ask students why it is valuable to hear from their classmates. Expect everyone to take responsibility for supporting one another’s engagement.

In the next post, we will continue with best practice three and four, Scaffolding student responses to sustain and deepen thinking and understanding, and Create a culture that supports thoughtful and respectful discussion.

Links to Interesting Articles:

1. How Students’ Digital Footprints Can Affect Them Long After They Leave Your School

2. How peer video coaching is completely changing how our teachers teach

3. 9 Basic Digital Skills Every Teacher Should Have

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. Creating a gradebook in Excel
2. Creating a Digital Portfolio

Quote of the Day:

1. “He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.” 
― Elie Wiesel, Night

2. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Albert Einstein

3. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Elon Musk

The Power of Questioning - Part 1

In the next few blog posts, I plan on exploring "Questioning" in the classroom. I am in the midst of reading two books on the topic and hope to finish them next week when school is on break so I can share my thoughts with you. The books I am reading are "The Power of Questioning: Opening Up the World of Student Inquiry" by Starr Sacketsein and "Questioning for Classroom Discussion by Walsh and Sattes. For the purpose of starting this discussion, I reflect on a blog post written by Katrina Schwartz, entitled "How to bring more beautiful questions back to school."

The video below highlights some of the reasons our society tends to discourage questions and encourages answers.

We live in the Google era where everyone can look up answers in seconds. But Google is looking to employ people who ask critical, deep and insightful questions. That should tell you that we need to teach our students to question, question and question more. The good news is that children start off in a state of curiosity and if we just keep encouraging that curiosity, we the rest will be easy. The damage is usually done when people discourage questions.

Why don't kids want to question? Here are few reasons:
1. Questioning may not appear as cool. Kids may view those who ask the teacher lots of questions as suck-ups.
2. Kids who question a lot might feel it makes them appear dumb or less intelligent.

Parents can do a lot to encourage their children to question, but that is a topic for another time. One quick suggestion is when your child comes home from school, instead of asking "What did you learn in school today?" ask "What good question did you or one of your classmates ask in school today?"

To focus on teachers, I have one overarching principle that one of my mentors and teachers taught me. You don't have to answer every question. It is ok for teachers to say to a student, "that is a great question; I don't have an answer, but I will look for one."

Here are five ways Schwartz recommends to encourage questioning:

1. Make it Safe - Kids won't raise their hand in class if they think others will think they are stupid. Fear can kill their curiosity.

2. Make it cool - good questions lead to cool stuff and can make the world a better place. Convince your students of this!

3. Make it Fun - Turn questions into a game to make it more fun and interactive for your students.

4. Make it Rewarding - if a child asks a great question, tell him so. Go home and look for new answers that show the student you are taking his questions seriously.

5. Make it Stick - questions have to be a regular part of your classroom.

Links to Interesting Articles:

1. 3 Things Students Want to Hear from their Teachers

2. 3 Videos on the Importance of Empathy  

3. Empathy in the Classroom: Why Should I Care?

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. Search by Reading Level with Choosito

2. Pinterest a Treasure Trove For Educators

Quote of the Day:

Teaching Students with Anxiety

I recently attended a workshop on “Anxiety Disorders in the Classroom,” and wanted to share some of the ideas and applications that were discussed. The workshop was given by Bev Miller M. Ed. and had lots of great information and practical strategies for teachers to care for students with anxiety.

When non-educators think about what goes into an excellent school, they often miss a key ingredient: the mental health staff and mental health programming. We are responsible to provide a mentally healthy safe school and classroom environment. Teachers and administrators need to learn how to do this just as much as they have to learn about student engagement, classroom management and assessment. If anxiety is not handled correctly, three likely outcomes will be fight, flight or freeze. Some people will react by acting rude or defiant (fight) while others will be very avoidant (flight). Other students will freeze in their trackes, hoping not to be noticed until the perceived danger passes. We need to help students manage their anxiety so they can function as learners in our classroom.

This workshop discussed three types of anxiety: General, Social and Separation.

1.   General anxiety - General Anxiety challenges are characterized by excessive worry. Students who have this type of anxiety tend to show the following symptoms in the classroom: Distracted, easily overwhelmed, muscle tension, fatigued, difficult to reassure, headaches, stomach aches, weaker than expected academic performance, social challenges such as volatile relationships, only having a few friends or perhaps being a total loner.
               a. Children with general anxiety challenges often complain of self-doubt and worry about
                   their future, social acceptability and ability to perform at an acceptable level.
2.  Social  Anxiety - social anxiety challenges are defined by excessive and unreasonable levels of fear regarding social embarrassment or negative evaluation in social situations, which interfere with everyday function. Kids who have social anxiety, tend to show the following symptoms: fear of being humiliated, afraid of judgement or rejection, fear of being called on to answer a question in front of a group, fear of less structured times like recess, assemblies or group activities, and fear of being the centre of attention. Keep a look out for students who ask the teacher to help clean up the room while the other students go out to recess or those that often asked to go to the bathroom at those unstructured times.

           a. Children with social anxiety do not tend to respond well to simple reassurances or                                distraction.        
           b. It is the teacher’s obligation to help students prepare for these kinds of situations. We can                    prime them and ease their anxiety to a point that they can function in these situations.
           c. In these situations we should look out for students who are speaking very softly or avoiding                eye contact with you. They are also more prone to blushing or having  a shaky voice.  These                 kids might try to escape into their technology at these times when their social anxiety is                       high.

3. Separation Anxiety - Separation Anxiety challenges are characterized by excessive, unreasonable and persistent stress associated with actual or anticipated separation from their primary attachment figure that is not developmentally appropriate. This type of anxiety is more typical in younger students. These children make it almost impossible to leave the trusted adult. If this is displayed in children who are 4 or 5 years old or a bit older but new to the school, this would be normal. The following actions would make it appear beyond normal and more concerning: The child being inconsolable, they might become aggressive as attachment figure leaves, or they might engage in self-injurious behaviour as the attachment figure leaves. In older students with separation anxiety, the above behaviours might come out if you take away their cell phone or other important possessions.

          a. Knowing when these types of behaviours are signs of serious anxiety is a little difficult for                   the non-mental health professional. The general indicators to look for would include the                        frequency, duration, impact and intensity levels.

Thought Distortions

Children dealing with anxiety issues are often prone to thought distortions. Here are some examples:

1. Catastrophic thinking -they always think that the worst case scenario is the most likely scenario. 

2. Ignoring the Positive - they feel that anything right they do or anything positive that happens is only a fluke.

3. Negative Self Talk - they constantly speak negatively about themselves.

4. Perfectionism - they tend to never see anything as good enough

5. Mind-Reading - they tend to tell people that they know what they are thinking about them and it isn’t good.

Strategies for Teachers

Teachers are able to adjust activities such that students with anxiety challenges experience  less worry and anxiety. 

a. When assigning group work, teachers can:

b. Create the groups and deliberately place the anxious student with more patient/kind peers.

c. Create groups with random selection, but deliberate placement of the anxious child.

d. When asking students to go to the board to demonstrate work, have students come in pairs so the anxious child has a supported teammate.

e. When asking students to answer questions, give them the option to “phone a friend.”

There are tons of practical tips that teachers can do to manage their students anxiety. That goes beyond of the scope of this posting, but see below for some good websites to find these strategies.

Websites

1. http://anxietycanada.ca/
2. http://www.anxietycoach.com/
3. http://www.anxietybc.ca/
4. http://worrywisekids.org/

Links to Interesting Articles:

1. How to Design a 21st Century Assessment
2. Exit Tickets: Checking for Understanding
3. Tech Friendly Formative Assessment Tools

4. 10 Principles for Using Formative Assessment Wisely

Links to Interesting Web Tools:

1. 12 Awesome Edtech Tools

2. Get the Most Out of Your Teacher iPad

Quote of the Day:

1. Education is ....
2. Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

John F. Kennedy