Group items tagged

fixed mindset

the growth mindset,

a malleable approach to the world

believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have:

“You’re too old to learn a foreign language.”

fixed mindset, you believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have

In conversation, “skill” and “talent” are often used interchangeably – but there’s an essential difference: Talents are innate. Skills are earned.

he growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed: It thrives on challenge and sees failure as an opportunity for growth. It creates a passion for learning instead of a hunger for approval.

The growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed: It thrives on challenge and sees failure as an opportunity for growth. It creates a passion for learning instead of a hunger for approval.

“The growth mindset does allow people to love what they’re doing – and continue to love it in the face of difficulties. … The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome.” Remember those students in Hong Kong. Be humble, act as if you’re remedial, and you’ll learn all the more!

In conversation, “skill” and “talent” are often used interchangeably – but there’s an essential difference: Talents are innate. Skills are earned.

As much as possible, take object orientation out of the equation. Focus on the task at hand. Don’t compare yourself to others or worry if you’re making the knowledge stick. Just learn- stolidly, patiently, and without tripping over your own expectations.

Focusing on innate qualities and praising purely for current ability inhibits learning, while praising the process of learning and growth instead of immediate talent promotes it.

Look for connections across seemingly unrelated areas. For example, Peterson has systematically applied principles he’s used to learn about wine to the domain of leadership development

Make time for reflection. A growing body of research shows that systematically reflecting on work experiences boosts learning significantly. To ensure continuous progress, get into the habit of asking yourself questions like “What have I learned from this experience?” and “What turned out differently than I expected?”

Our cognitive control is really quite limited: We have a restricted ability to distribute, divide, and sustain attention; actively hold detailed information in mind; and concurrently manage or even rapidly switch between competing goals."

while older adults can fully retain their ability to focus their attention, their capacity to block out irrelevant distractions diminishes with age.

That’s one reason why older adults may have more trouble concentrating on a conversation in a crowded restaurant than younger people.

What goal had I established for Kate’s learning that day? How had I created an environment that supported her ability to achieve that goal? And perhaps most important — assuming that the class had a learning goal that mattered for her — did she know about it?

The more powerful the goals we establish for ourselves, and the more we feel ownership over those goals, the more we are able to pursue them in the face of both internal and external distractions.

Most of us can shut out distractions when we are pursuing something that really matters to us.

Who creates them? How much do they matter? And how well do students understand them?

We think like a designer, not like a teacher, when we say: the teacher is just one element in the design. The choice of task, pedagogy, groupings, flow of work, resources, furniture, light, noise level, role of people and text – all of these design elements are arguably as important as the teacher.

What are those conditions, in a nutshell? I would highlight the following: Thought-provoking intellectual challenges (inquiries, questions, problems) The challenge has been designed to optimize self-sustaining and productive work by learners, related to a clear and intellectually worthy goal The learners have become reasonably competent in classroom routines that foster productive goal-focused work The challenge cannot be accomplished by a worksheet, checklist or recipe. It requires strategic use of knowledge and skill, creative problem-solving, and critical thinking; and the eliciting of multiple perspectives on how to address the challenge and gauge progress. There is an unambiguous product or performance goal (even if there is ambiguity about how to achieve the goal), supported by clear criteria and standards, thus permitting ongoing student self-assessment and self-adjustment. There is enough feedback within the challenge (and resources) that the work can be maximally self-sustaining and productive. The teacher is therefore freed up to coach for a significant amount of time, permitting personalized feedback and guidance (as well as just-in-time mini-lessons). This coaching role also permits the teacher to determine what is and isn’t working in the challenge, and thus enables the teacher to quickly change gears if the desired learning is not occurring or the process is not working.

In other words, it is a poor design for learning that puts all the burden of teaching and processing on the teacher. Then, the teacher can neither coach nor understand what is going on in the minds of learners. Worse, endless teaching, no matter how expert, soon becomes passive and without much meaning to learners who must wait days, sometimes weeks, to get meaningful chances to interact with the content, to try out their ideas on others, and to get the feedback they need.

Group-worthy tasks – Focus on central concepts or big ideas that require active meaning-making The challenge itself has ambiguity or limited scaffold and prompting so that student meaning-making and different inferences about the task and how to address it will emerge. Are best accomplished by ensuring that multiple perspectives are found tried out in addressing the task. This not only rewards creative and non-formulaic thought but undercuts the likelihood that one strong student can do all the key work. Provide multiple ways of being competent in the task work and the task process Can only be done well by a group, but are designed to foster both individual and group autonomy. (The teacher’s role as teacher and direction-giver should be minimized to near zero). Demand both individual and group accountability Have clear evaluation criteria

hen students arrived on the first day of school they found an empty classroom. The first project Terronez asked his students to undertake was designing their own learning space, one that would support experience-based, collaborative learning.

Terronez asked his students to design an iPod app that would solve a real-world problem. They came up with an idea, designed the display icon, figured out how users would navigate the app, prototyped sample tabs, then pitched their mock-up to an audience.

In a project exploring air pressure, Terronez’s students built their own hovercrafts using a leaf blower as the engine. When the hovercrafts worked, the students designed 3D representations of themes from “Freedom Fighters,” a Discovery School education video about racial struggles featuring the stories of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Their creations were featured in a hovercraft parade on Election Day.

Take a look at High Tech High art teacher Jeff Robin’s video explaining the difference between project-oriented learning and project-based learning.