"... research and others' research in these settings has convinced me, beyond any doubt, that the natural drives and abilities of young people to learn are fully sufficient to motivate their entire education. When they want or need help from others, they ask for it. We don't have to force people to learn; all we need to do is provide them the freedom and opportunities to do so."

"Peter Hyman's article on the importance of reinventing education and moving away from the prevalent exam-factory model"

"I believe that we are part of a growing movement of teachers out there who know our schools must change, who know the current system leaves so much untapped potential, who believe that it is possible to create a school experience that has a life and a depth and an emotional power that leaves our children wanting more, not less."

"... one of the world's leading psychologists, Professor Carol Dweck visited the RSA to discuss how students' mindsets shape their motivation and learning. She discussed new research showing: a) how parents' and teachers' praise can create fixed mindsets and undermine children's motivation, b) how fixed-mindset school environments can decrease the representation of women and minorities, and c) how teaching students a growth mindset increases their success in school."

Is "grit" something that educators need to develop in students? Or rather, is grit inherent in all children? If so, instead of asking if it needs to be developed in their learning, should we be more introspective and work on not suppressing it through our teaching?

Praising a student on process and effort contributes to their learning and their desire to learn more. Praising success based on intelligence has the opposite effect...it actually inhibits growth. What implications does this have on how we assess student learning and communicate those assessments?

"If examinations challenge learners to solve problems the way they are solved in real life today, the educational system will change for ever. It is a small policy change that is required. Allow the use of the internet and collaboration during an examination. If we did that to exams, the curriculum would have to be different. We would not need to emphasise facts or figures or dates. The curriculum would have to become questions that have strange and interesting answers. "Where did language come from?", "Why were the pyramids built?", "Is life on Earth sustainable?", "What is the purpose of theatre?" Questions that engage learners in a world of unknowns. Questions that will occupy their minds through their waking hours and sometimes their dreams. Teaching in an environment where the internet and discussion are allowed in exams would be different. The ability to find things out quickly and accurately would become the predominant skill. The ability to discriminate between alternatives, then put facts together to solve problems would be critical. AThat's a skill that future employers would admire immensely."

"We have a romantic attachment to skills from the past which are no longer relevant on a curriculum for today's children."

"...Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking..."

Colin, I immediately thought of your work when I read this article.

It appears that we are not the only group having this conversation. Here is an article that parallels our own. (It is actually eerily similar in its stream of thought.)

"...it's easy to see why students are disengaged from the learning tasks that we give them. The big question is whether we care. So far, most of our school systems don't seem too bothered by their environmental deficiencies when it comes to fostering internal motivation. Our actions put the lie to our school mission statements that state that we're about creating 'self-motivated, life-long learners.'" "As school leaders and classroom teachers, how long can we continue to ignore core principles of intrinsic motivation?"

"A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much." At the first RF conference Peter McConville and Tom Sabo ran a really interesting activity where we looked at schools' mission statements from across Vermont. As a part of this activity they asked if individuals could recall their own. Not many (if any) could. It is too bad really. Coming from a corporate background myself, I understand the power of an organization having a common and driving statement of intent. To me what was striking, and unfortunate, was that it wouldn't be at all challenging to get fairly close if you just said something about students who strive to become life-long learners who are global citizens that give back to their community. Maybe it is just me, but I think that a mission statement should be as unique as the schools, communities, and individuals that are striving to fulfill that mission. It should be a mantra, a way to identify what is truly important to your school, a means of sharing your school's common sense of purpose, to communicate your school's common sense of direction to fulfill that purpose. My sense is that a mission statement should be the keystone for the very unique work that we do in our schools, it should be more akin to Dan Pink's My Sentence. But, read though most and you'll find that they seem interchangeable and ambiguous. I think that it may be better to not have one at all if it doesn't really share the message of what your individual school is about and what it specifically strives to be. Does your school's mission statement really share your school's mission?

"...summarizes the research on five categories of noncognitive factors that are related to academic performance: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills..."

Publication Summary Page of CCSR Report http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school Great related blog post on Grit by Jonathan Martin "Developing Grit via Mindset and Learning Strategies: Learning from the CCSR report" http://21k12blog.net/2013/05/19/developing-grit-via-mindset-and-learning-strategies-learning-from-the-ccsr-report/

"As part of IDEA'’s efforts to foster dynamic conversations around powerful learning, we invite you to join us for an Innovation Tour in Vermont. Thirty participants will spend the day visiting three innovative schools and programs and reflecting on our experiences together." Rowland Fellow Tom Sabo's work at Montpelier High School will be one of the three stops!

How does one sustain and nurture a teaching community?

"...some of the most innovative thinking is not coming from above, but from the ground level, where the action is. Teachers and students in local schools are making their own plans on how to meet these demands and tie efforts together to improve student learning. The laboratory is the school itself, and the benefactor supporting the research is Vermont's own Rowland Foundation."

Hello Mike!

I can't wait to hear about your work at our next meeting. Also, you might be interested in a few articles that are here in our Diigo library.

If you use the "Search in this group..." field (top right of page) you can search for "grit" and find some past bookmarks that might be of interest to you around the topic of perseverance.

"By the end of this year, Android will be in more devices than the next four competitors combined (Windows, iOS, Mac OS, and BlackBerry). Before the end of this decade, Android will be in nearly as many devices as all other operating systems combined."

Makes me wonder about what #EdTech curriculum should look like. Are we teaching skillsets which have the diversity necessary to meet our students' future needs? How much of our teaching focuses on mobile applications? How is the mobile experience planned into what/how we teach...of using technology that is not based upon using it while sitting on our backsides.

"Technology and social media specifically have provided tools that enable educators to connect, communicate collaborate and create. That ability makes a difference in individuals. It enables reflection and relevance. It is also creating two groups of educators, the connected, and the unconnected. The discussions of the connected seem to be focused on the future and moving toward it. The discussions of the unconnected seem to be steeped in the past with little or very slow-moving forward movement."

"...valuing each child's sense of imagination and curiosity."

Leading School Transformation (EDLP 380) is a graduate-level course that brings together educators who are leading transformation efforts in Vermont schools. The course will build on the Rowland Foundation Transformation Conference at the University of Vermont through professional dialogue, personal refelection, and related readings. EDLP 380 will help participants develop school-based projects based on the latest research related to school transformation. Participants will read The Big Picture by Dennis Littky and Drive by Daniel Pink and develop strategies to lead change at their schools.

"Charting a new path forward in education by sharing positive stories of change, providing perspective on key issues, and giving you the news and analysis you need to take action."

"Internships came back as the most important thing that employers look for when evaluating a recent college graduate," says Dan Berrett, senior reporter at the Chronicle. "More important than where they went to college, the major they pursued, and even their grade point average."

What does this mean for high school students? If colleges are looking at putting more students in internships themselves...will they recruit students who already have some level of experience in an internship during high school?

"We are moving away from the model in which learning is organized around stable, usually hierarchical institutions (schools, colleges, universities) that, for better and worse, have served as the main gateways to education and social mobility. Replacing that model is a new system in which learning is best conceived of as a flow, where learning resources are not scarce but widely available, opportunities for learning are abundant, and learners increasingly have the ability to autonomously dip into and out of continuous learning flows."