March 2, 2012 Are You Gritty Enough For College? Why do some students drop out of college, while others persist? Researchers think it may have something to do with a person's level of "grit" and are trying to figure out whether this trait can be taught to others.

Here's a link to an article from Duckworth about her research on grit: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Grit%20JPSP.pdf and here's a link to the 8- and 12-item versions of the scales: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/gritscale.htm

precollege math redesign

from Peg Balachowski

Here's a description of one of the commercial tools currently available allegedly addressing (in a generic way) psychosocial attributes related to learning readiness. I doubt this is something we'd be interested in using but it's interesting to compare the conceptual framework to the other approaches we've been reviewing...

Seems like the site I mentioned earlier (http://titanpad.com/) would work--but maybe primarily for rough working documents...?

Another site I've checked out recently may be more elaborate than what you have in mind but seems promising if someone is willing to put in a little time building out the template a bit: http://ecs.mit.edu/

You can also create shared public folders on Dropbox, I believe, and any file updates or changes would be synced automatically for the whole group--Dropbox is a great free tool even if you just use it to track and sync your own files! http://www.dropbox.com/

I think we can predict what those frames will be based on our discussions, but they're all meeting soon enough that we'll have some clarity about general directions before the quarter ends, so it's not a big issue to wait and see where things are headed. Meanwhile we should keep sharing and exploring resources we think could be helpful...

Not sure which paper you're talking about, Helen--the Fong and Asera survey of psychosocial theories related to student support structures in math...? (http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/sites/default/files/elibrary/psychosocial_theories.pdf )

At the math conference Lawrence Morales recommended a book called How Learning Works (http://www.amazon.com/How-Learning-Works-Research-Based-Jossey-Bass/dp/0470484101/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310064077&sr=1-1) as a great and practical resource for teachers related to self-regulated learning; I've got a copy and I'm ordering team copies for the Institute. We should take a closer look at this work, especially chapter 7 (on students becoming self-directed learners) in addition to the Fong and Asera paper.

Much broader than our focus but worth digging into a little as there are some useful and relevant resources included--I'm particularly intrigued by the 4-week course on college readiness (built around Conley's model) being implemented by San Diego CC district with early college high-schoolers...

Very interesting article (with some cool links and sidebars) about ways to build students' capacities to understand patterns and apply them to new problem situations, both in math and in other settings...Not sure it's necessarily related to attributes per se but it's fascinating work!

Anyone seen this book? It was recommended by a group of EWU math folks who at our statewide conference recently presented a session entitled "Strategies for Improving Students' Motivation and Learning in Developmental and First College Math Courses": you can see a brief blurb about the session at the conference web page: http://www.sbctc.edu/college/_e-assesstlconfsessions.aspx

That's good to know, Mike--I'll see if we can get some more copies to make available at the RPM Institute for other folks who might be interested...And I was planning to follow up with Jane and Jackie but you beat me to it--did you send them our plans to see if they had any suggestions or might want to get involved somehow?

A brief description of some other work focused on the "productive struggle" or "productive persistence" issue...

3 of 3 from Lisa Brown: this paper is from Carlton Fong of the Dana Center and Rose Asera (formerly with Carnegie Foundation)--I think I've shared the link on the RPM wiki before but I hadn't looked at it in a while...

2 of 3--focus here is on urban high schools but Lisa thought it might still have some relevance (she suggests chapters 1 and 2)...

Lisa Brown from the Dana Center sent a copy of this article to me in response to my request for more in-depth "white paper" material around the attributes/AYD psychosocial issues...2 more links to follow...

Another reference from David Yeager--this term comes out of the expertise literature. Here's a straightforward summary of some key elements that help define what it is...

Jeff Cohen was referenced in David Yeager's Carnegie Statway video on "productive persistence"--here's a piece from Jeff directed to his students...

That's great, Peg--glad you found it helpful! As I reviewed it I was wondering if there would be ways to create opportunities for students to experience/practice these tips in a hands-on way rather than just being handed the list, and to what extent it would be worth doing that...?

Check out David Yeager's 30 minute video on "Student Success and Productive Persistence"--a nice summary of his research, and obviously related to "productive struggle" (maybe a more positive way of framing it for students, actually...I also like his focus on teaching as a "cultural activity" and his notion that the quality of learning opportunities depends on a) deliberate practice (time on task) and b) making explicit the relationships between and among key concepts/ideas (and between problems/procedures and concepts)...

Here's a useful update to and summary of this work from the January 2011 Statway gathering: http://207.62.63.167/departments/mathematics/statway_talk.pdf