Mind-Sets: Fixed & Growth

Core belief:  mind-sets have a powerful impact on student learning.

Dweck, C. S. (2010). Mind-sets and equitable education. Principal Leadership, 1, 26-29.


Fixed mind-set:  intelligence is static; may not have the ability to succeed; educators have no influence on student's intelligence; put people in categories & expect them to stay in negative stereotype; learning is the student's responsibility--may or may not have what it takes.

Growth mind-set:  intelligence can be developed; outperforms students with fixed mind-set; focused on learning, believed in effort, resilient in the setbacks; students highly motivated to learn; intellectual skills can be  molded and enhanced; teachers committed to finding a way for all students to learn; learning is a collaboration between student and teacher; students build abilities through effort; stereotyped group gains in learning; have permission to learn, make mistakes, and try again.
               
             Teachers---Students---Adults:  where are you on this continuum?

Creating Professional Learning Communities: The Work of Professional Development Schools (Doolittle, et al. 2008)

KEY IDEAS

Challenges for teachers:  responding to bureaucratic mandates; responsible for multiple sets of teaching and learning standards; clear delineation of constitution of best practices; lack of adequate common planning time;  tendency for isolating and comnpartmenalized structure; effective teaching strategies seldom shared, and finally teaching techniques needing modification (or elimination) are rarely identified.   

Learning community members grow toward: having a sense of common purpose; peers viewed as colleagues; self/group actualization sought; perception of outside groups similar to one's own; professional reflection; giving and seeking help; celebrating accomplishments.

Teachers act as educational leaders rather than classroom managers.  Focusing on mutually agreed upon educational initiatives and using a systemic change model, real work can be accomplished and sustained.

"Critical friends" colleagues who come along side, not as adversaries or critics rather beneficial observers who can offer benevolent advice on specific pedagological practices.

Being aware that unpleasant emotional loss of "foundational teaching practices," and uneasy zones of uncertainty must be worked through for forward movement in a systematic way.

Real change requires time for implementation and evaluation of new techniques and practices before positive effects on student achievement and the increase of faculty community.

YOUR COMMENTS OF REACTION: implementation/application/rejection?

Professional Learning What?

When faculty maintain a sharp-focus on student achievement and how to get students to cooperate for their learning, maintain a spirit of common ownership & responsibility for that achievement; their students will achieve success (Nathan, 2008).  Simply described a professional learning community is a "group of people sharing and critically interrogating their practice in an ongoing, reflective, collaborative, and learning-focused way, and then operating as a collective entity" (Peskin, Katz, & Lazare, 2009). 

Thankfully the days of newbies having to make it on their own, the isolation they felt no longer has to encompass them.  The operational professional learning community is for all students, as well as for new or well-seasoned faculty.  Students and faculty, and faculty with faculty all focused on the successful learning of all parties; a PLC is born!

That's What I'm Talking About!

Those flashes of sudden understanding makes all the 50-gallizion times you explained something, demonstrated it, illustrated it, had the students draw it:  worth the one light bulb flash from at least one student!  Information transfer--we have to do all we can to get it to them, so they can begin constructing their networks of knowledge.

A thought-provoking statement from "Tipping Point."

On page 8, M. Gladwell, makes a powerful statement.  One

that should sober us as we think of the impact we

have on our students:

"Little changes have big effects."

I think about my handling of students.  Does my method send an unintentional message to them?  Am I disciplining them in a respectful, but firm way?  What little thing could I change to make sure I communicate my well-meaning concern for them?  Mayber I could talk a little softer, make smaller gestures, or watch their demeanor as I lecture them on proper behavior.  A tiny shift in my behavior may turn a possible explosive event into a good learning situation.

Play Your Part Well

"To have ideas is to gather flowers.  To think [with them] is to weave them into garlands."  A. Swetchine

We have the powerful ability to lead our students onto the mountaintop of discovering that their thoughts and information can give them the ability to rise up to their fullest potential.  Conversely, we can throw them down into the valley of their status quo.  We believe education is valuable.  It is the key to success.  It is essential for bettering ourselves and enriching our lives.  We have the privilege of sharing such ideas with our students, or we can carelessly crush them with unkind words, harsh "realities," or mechanical presentation of our field.

Strive to be the weaver of garland, not the heartless producer of a vase of dead, wilted flowers.  We have this power, pray we use it well.

Four General Guidelines for Educational Challenges

You mean I Can Handle Things Better??

1. Look at challenges as opportunities from which to learn a new or tweaked skill.
2. Spend time analyzing the challenge before just throwing some solution at it.
3. Consult with others--you are not the first or the last to face this challenge.
4. Let the ones who are impacted by your solution have a voice in suggesting an course of action.

The Journey IS the goal

Be your true--and greatest--you.  Laugh and have fun.  Reach for the nmountaintop but ENJOY the climb.

                                                                      -Robin Sharma

Perspective and attitude make for a pleasant, relaxed countenance.  Letting the minor things get under your skin (waiting the extra 15 seconds for a car to pass instead of pulling out in front with clenched teeth) makes it hard to appreciate being alive.  Rejoice in your being here!  Love the lovely things, and let go and disregard the unlovely.  Truly, your attitude will make or break your outlook on life.  The journey can be difficult and harsh, or you can take what life melts out and see the best in it as it will strengthen you or tear you down--you decide, you have the power to enjoy the journey, or be beat up by the journey.

How's Your Heart?

"Possess a pure, kindly, and radiant heart"
~Hidden Words of Baha U Liah


True spirituality are those meditations which cause you to be all the good you can be. It is that which makes you shine in words and deeds. Your love of human kind is such that no one thinks naught but the most complementary of you....and those with a compliant, do not truly know you.