Putting myself in the learners shoes

It turns out learning is hard. Especially if it is in an area that is not particularly 'your thing'.

I have a passion and interest in literacy and I mostly enjoy being challenged and put in the pit in this area.

Sport is not my area. And I have traumatic childhood memories of skiing. Nevertheless, I decided that it was something I should have another go at. 

Conditions were ideal - the sun was shining, there had been a little extra top up snow overnight, I had all the gear I needed and some supportive friends. 

I got out on the learners slope and was zipping up and down there in no time. It was time for the next step. The chairlift. This was my big barrier. But with some perseverance and grit I managed that - and experienced the joy that comes after conquering the pit. And to top it all off, I had been convinced that the bigger chairlift was just as easy as the smaller one.

And that's about where the good part of the day ends.

The mountain was too big. My legs were too tired. My determination diminished. I was trying to run before I could walk.

And will I go skiing again? Not this year.

I took away from this experience a few things as a learner.
1) Conditions have to be ideal in order for positive learning experience outside of someones comfort zone.
2) A gentle push is OK. But always take the smallest step to build the learner up.
3) When a learner says enough is enough - STOP now. It is likely they will come back to it and pick up from where they left off.

Why I will try to never use the word potential again.

When you Google the words "potential growth mindset" together, up comes a list of links to all sorts of videos and books encouraging you to reach your potential using a Growth Mindset. The guru herself, Carol Dweck, titled her book Mindset: How You Can Fill Your Potential.

Mary Cay Ricci's book, Mindset in the Classroom sends a different message about the word potential. I don't know how many times I have used the word when writing school reports or during conversations with parents or students themselves, but from now on I will try never to use the word again.

After reading the sub-chapter on the Role of Potential, it seems that the word itself suggests a endpoint. Once you have reached the endpoint, there is no further. Ricci uses the example of Michael Phelps. Once he'd achieved his tenth Olympic Gold Medal in 2008, many thought he had reached his potential. Of course, he went on to shatter that in 2012 with another 8 Gold Medals.

As Educators, I think we sometimes hinder further learning when we see 'potential' has been reached. A child may have succeeded at a learning intention, so we tick that box and move onto the next, rather than allowing them to further grow in that area. 

The system itself often creates a barrier to learning and pushing potential. I believe I experienced that myself, back in the day, as a first year NCEA student. I was a reasonably able student with potential to gain Excellences, however, I didn't feel the need to push myself any harder because I gained no extra credit for it. (I can see now how it would have paid off - but that didn't mean anything to me as a teenager.)

I see part of my job as teaching students to be successful and perform to their best by having a Growth Mindset. I will be telling them to think beyond their potential - you never know unless you try!

Growth Mindset

Where does Growth Mindset fit with your 'Comfort Zone?'

Let's say there are three levels of comfort - Totally OK with this, I'm willing to try, and No Way I don't like it.

I believe I have a Growth Mindset and every day I'm working towards developing myself..... in my work. There's the catch. I'm driven by my work and I have a desire to succeed.

As I read more about Growth Mindset, I am begin to associate it a lot with desire. I believe I could train for and run a marathon - but along with believing I could, I would have to have the desire to do so.

Stamina and perseverance is equally as important - I could run a marathon, learn a language, become a great artist, be a designer and a builder (?!?!) but to learn it all would leave me exhausted (and probably broke!).

I think that everybody shows a Growth Mindset and a Fixed Mindset. It's the other qualities in the end, that determine how much effort you are going to put forward to achieving something.

Having a Growth Mindset will come naturally to some situations. Perhaps it's a new mother just trying to be a better mum, maybe it's a child learning to talk, or a homeless person looking for warmer and safer spots to sleep. Are they aware of their growth mindset? Probably not. 

I think it's what we do outside our comfort zone that is really going to grow our minds - but we must have a TRUE desire to do.

At the bottom

I have three blog posts in draft form currently. They're all from the last couple of weeks of last term. At that point, I was tired. I'd worked hard. I kept thinking, 'I'll have more time and energy in the holidays.' The holidays came - I spent a good 10 days switched off from school, I re-energised and then I never quite got round to the blogging - pushing it down my priority list. 

Term two started and it was more intense than I expected. Then it seemed the blogging didn't matter anymore. Until this week. This week I hit the bottom of the pit. (I hope it's the bottom anyway!) Reality has hit, with the honeymoon period over, I got a cold (more than just a sniffle), and I temporarily lost my growth mindset. This is me kicking my positivity back into action.

It's important to emphasise that I've just had a bad week. I still love what I do and believe in the same things. But these are some things I'm going to work on to improve my teaching and well-being:

1) Take some time - it's very easy when in a shared environment to feel like you always have to be intensively teaching, especially if there's someone in a 'roamer' role. 
2) Be patient - I have surprised myself how much I have enjoyed working with the younger years, but I do still get frustrated at repeating myself a lot. I need to chill and remember how young they are.
3) Don't put aside reflection and change - There has been so much to adapt to this year that I think at some points (now being one of them) that it has been easier to just ignore what's not urgent and then carry on pretending everything is fine.

There is some great PD that has happened and is happening this term - so back to blogging it is! And maybe.... I might just go back and finish those posts in draft form.

Praising for Progress

There is so much literature on giving praise to children. I do not wish to regurgitate that but after watching this video I do want to consider some of my practices that do not reflect my beliefs.



I believe in focussing on progress with children. I think this is easiest to do (and I probably do it best) with writing, because you can use the last piece of writing to form the focus for the next. I also think it's reasonably easy to do with reading and maths - within small groups you're always making mini group and individual goals in order to progress. It seems that when students can compare pieces of work, like start of the unit/term/year and end, progress is more obvious and can be commented on easily.

Then I started thinking about the surface/knowledge features. Things like spelling and basic facts. Now spelling, I can tick off and say that my practice was to pretest - therefore, I was collecting progress scores rather than just a number. Basic Facts on the other hand, I have traditionally run a tables ladder then a challenge board. Once students have passed all their tables, then they move onto the challenge board and try to work their way up. James Nottingham would classify this as a practice that classifies low, mid and high ability, and yes, that is true. However, I have also seen it's merits where 'low' students can recognise their starting point (the bottom) and their progress and were determined to get to a certain place by a given time. Visually my tables ladder was probably not a good idea. I did do lots of talking around my expectations, "All I want to see is you improving, it doesn't matter how many levels, as long as you improve each week." (I should note that support and provisions were put in place for students not achieving or with processing difficulties). With both sides of the argument about even, would I still continue this practice? I think it would depend entirely on the group - it has worked in the past, but actually it may not one day!

This video also raised another important aspect, that I had never really considered, in our Professional Learning Meeting - what is the ratio of praise we give? Sometimes, as teachers, we do need build confidence in children and the type of praise we give for that is often going to be entirely different praise of progress. Is saying, "what a great job you've done!" such a bad thing some of the time?

Kitting out the Classroom (Habitat)

One of the most exciting things for a teacher is setting up the classroom. We go into a state of craziness over transforming what is often a very dull space into a spectacular, inviting, creative learning space. I'm personally not much into Pinterest, but I do identify a little with this fabulous parody. 

I should point out here that my personal philosophy is that a classroom has to work for the teacher - but it's primary function is to support the learners. It has to be a safe place, and a place where students feel they belong. I believe that a teacher can decorate a room, perhaps in a theme (I had a 'Flying High'/Aeroplane theme last year) but learning materials must wait and go up when they have a context to the children. Start teaching vocab/sightwords then put them on the wall, teach your writing process then put the prompts on the wall, etc. 

But what happens when there's four teachers, with four differing philosophy's sharing the same four walls? How is the space and resources managed?

It's certainly a discussion that has to be had within and team - and perhaps to school level. It needs to be considered - what do management, visitors and parents want to see on the walls? Just finished products? Should parents see the planning and crafting process as well? Should there be no children's work and just reference points to learning tasks? Do children even pay attention to reference points? Can a classroom have too much 'visual clutter'?

Then there is the matter of resources. Do you put everything out at once so children have access to whatever interests them? Or if your focus is on measurement, do you just put out the measurement things? Should books be kept in one place, or all over the habitat? Should language resources be kept in a language 'centre' or should the children access that everywhere? What if it's a language book - is that a book or is it language!?!?!? 

For all of these questions I can make a decision for myself. But it comes back to the team - it's one of those little things that's going to take some time, but I think it's time worth spending getting on the same page. 

The key in the end.... WHY?

Growth Mindset

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Growth Mindset is a term I came across late last year when I saw the above animation. At that time, I identified with a Growth Mindset, but was a little naive as to how crucial it really was. 

As part of our pre-induction this year, we were asked to read a chapter of Carol Dweck's work (highly recommended), and it really became clear to me that identifying with a Growth Mindset was not enough. I had to be explicitly aware of it.

To have a Growth Mindset is to have a belief that you can do something and put the effort in to achieve it. I really like in this animation that James Nottingham's 'pit theory' is referred to (perhaps unintentionally). I particularly like that the two characters at the end are making their way through a series of pits, of varying sizes - because this is what learning is like. Sometimes you do go backwards but how you learn from that becomes a crucial part of your development. 

With Growth Mindset being a big part of the beliefs at school, I have been thinking about the best way to communicate this to the children - particularly the Y1s and 2s. I think children naturally have a Growth Mindset, but it is up to the adults (teachers and parents) around that child to nurture their growth. In my last classroom I had a small poster on the wall: FAIL - First Attempt In Learning. I was amazed by the number of parents who started a conversation with me about that. So often we forget that failure is a part of learning and developing resilience. As adults we have to be very mindful of how we talk about failure to children. 

Although I've been active on Twitter for some time, I have predominately been a 'lurker' and 'retweeter'. On Thursday I plucked up the courage to participate in the #edchatnz thread on Growth Mindset. In one hour I had some of the most thought-provoking PD and challenged myself against some of the questions being asked. I have a new addiction to Twitter as a result, and will be participating in future #edchats because I can learn about anything!

The Dream Job

You know that feeling when you know something is totally right for you, but you still have a tiny bit of anxiousness towards it? I had that about this job - no matter how much I knew that I wanted to be working collaborativly, wanted to be working in a new school, wanted to be working with and for the people who interviewed me - there is still that wondering of 'have I missed the catch?' 

The second day (Thursday) started with some vision casting - where was this journey heading. By morning tea time it was a relief to let out that big sigh and say, "Yes! - I am working with the right people - they think like I do."

We covered a little bit of Growth Mindset...

a bit about curiousity and thinking...

and some things about trust.

It was so refreshing to talk, so early on, about trust being one of the biggest factors within a team environment. Stephen M R Covey has a book titled 'The Speed of Trust - the one thing that changes everything,' I love the second part of this book title, as having experienced a change in trust with a colleague before, I realise the significance of that statement. Ultimately now, I have grown from that situation and I know that for me building trust looks like: leading by example (showing others what trust looks like), communicating and taking ownership when it doesn't happen, building a relationship first, looking forward to improving the relationship, not back. I am so looking forward to working with this team - I truly believe that after this conversation together we are already have a high-trust dynamic. 

We also had a wee look at the essence of the NZ curriculum. I think the NZ curriculum is a fantastic document and really fits with developing a whole child. My personal belief is that primary education in particular is about exposure to exposure to everything and growth of the child. This video from Julie Atkin sums it up nicely as the 'development of self.'

Dr. Julia Atkin: Expressing the essence of the NZ Curriculum from EDtalks on Vimeo.

We were asked to consider these two questions and would love to hear your responses as well: What is learning? What is my job? 

We found the second one much easier to answer succinctly - to make learning happen. 

Friday was another great day with the team and guest Rob Clarke who gave us a whirlwind tour of everything Google. It was fantastic to learn about the vast scope of what Google can do. Apart from lots of shortcuts and handy hints to organise emails, one of biggest take-a-ways was the power of a Google+ profile and inspiration to develop this new blog. 

By the time Saturday rolled around it was definitely time for a brain break and the opportunity to make the most of this environment with a bike ride, walk, lunch out and a swim (indoor at the events centre - not quite brave enough for that lake!!).