Mindset for Learning: Next Steps

    For the last 6 weeks, we have been using the ideas from A Mindset for Learning to promote the mindsets of optimism, persistence, flexibility, resilience, and empathy at Hiawatha School.  Check out these posts to read more about the mindsets, or look through #hiawathapride on Twitter.

Optimism

Persistence

Flexibility

Resilience

Empathy

Mraz and Hertz

     We are done!  We have now introduced all 5 mindsets!  Our kids are now so optimistic, persistent, flexible, resilient and empathetic!  Time to move on.

      Oh, wait.  They aren't all those things yet?  Weird.

      We know as educators that simply introducing concepts to children does not make them learn them.  With the mindsets, it could be easy to mistake that a child "gets" the mindsets because they have the vocabulary and can name it when they see a book character or fellow classmate showing it.  Actually demonstrating all 5 mindsets on their own when working, however, is much less likely.  In fact, at a current webinar with Kristine Mraz and Christine Hertz (2/2016), they said that research shows that is takes TIME and SPACED PRACTICE for students to develop habits and learning behaviors.  Their slides are below:

 

     Hiawatha, I think we have to carry on the work.

     Now that our students have the vocabulary in their minds for the 5 mindsets, we need to carry on and develop lessons and situations that continue to reinforce practicing the habits of optimism, persistence, flexibility, resilience, and empathy.  How can we do that? Here are some ideas:

1.  Continue teaching and modeling the mindsets.

Read books, or watch videos, that demonstrate the value of using the 5 mindsets in actions.  This could be in morning meeting, or during read aloud, or in guided reading, or during unit time.  The truth is, mindsets are everywhere.  We just have to keep our eyes open to noticing them.  

2.  Know that Mindsets are just as important as academics.

We have time to teach children how to be a successful part of the community.  We have time to teach children that they have it within themselves to learn new things and control their own learning behaviors.  

We have the time.

Yes, the Common Core can wait. 

3.  We can teach the mindsets within the schedule we already have in place.

A well placed turn and turn, that has students talk about the persistence of a character, is not doing something "new."  It's taking a structure we already have in place, and just tweaking it so that it models something that we value.

The things that we value in our classrooms are loud and clear, even when we don't exactly say it.  Know what matters to you, and what makes a difference to our kids, and just change the book title or the format of the questions, and suddenly our mindsets take shape in our classroom.  

4.  One person can make a difference.

You can be the person who teaches a child how to believe in themself.  You can be the person who notices that a child struggles with persistence, and helps them find ways to persist and keep going.  You can be the person who shows a child that it matters how we treat others.

The truth is, we can't control someone's home life, or their years at school outside of our classroom.  But, we can control the time we have with them.  Use that time to be the person who helps a child realize that they can say, "I can do this.  I can try." and mean it!  It starts with the teacher.  You have to believe in yourself, too.  We can't tell kids to try new things, if we ourselves won't do the same in front of them.

5.  Look for where their mindsets fall apart when behavior falls apart.

Sometimes, when a child misbehaves, the punishment we give actually reinforces the problem.  If we were to look to the Mindsets and see if the child is struggling with one, and we choose to model and teach that instead of just punish the behavior, it's more likely that the child will be successful in the future.  

As we continue the year, keep looking at your students with the lenses of the Mindsets.  When you notice a struggle with one, do something about it!  Whole group, small group, or with individual students.  The book, A Mindset for Learning, have many lessons that you could use to reinforce or model them.  

     Thanks, Kristine Mraz and Christine Hertz, for your fabulous book.  It is sure to make the children of today more successful tomorrow (and beyond).  Thanks for sharing your ideas with us.

     Hiawatha, keep using #hiawathapride if you find you are focussing on the Mindsets throughout the rest of the year.  :)

Resilience (Mindset #4)

     For the last 4 weeks, we have been using the ideas from A Mindset for Learning to promote the mindsets of optimism, persistence, flexibility, resilience, and empathy at Hiawatha School.  Check out these posts to read more about the mindsets, or look through #hiawathapride on Twitter.

Optimism

Persistence

Flexibility

 

This week's mindset is an important one.  

Resilience: The ability to bounce back and recover from setbacks or failures.
When you have trouble, you bounce back and try again.

Here is our One Sheet for the week, and the whole file where you can find the other mindsets.

     Resilient people who fail don't usually give up.  They bounce back and recover from disappointment.  They usually try again, and are able to have persistence in a task.   Often, they have different ways that they can try to try again because they see things with flexibility.  But, what makes they try again in the first place? What do they get back up and try again?  In my opinion, it is having optimism and realistic beliefs in the first place that allows them to be resilient.

     If you believe you can do something, and you have a realistic goal, it is much easier to have resilience in the face of challenge or failure.  

                                   

     Take this famous quote by Yoda, for example.  When kids read it, they often think that Yoda means that you should just be able to do something and get it done the first time.

"Do or do not.  There is no try."

But, when you watch the video clip and see the quote in context, it takes on a different meaning.

Taking Luke Skywalker out of the conversation, you have: 

"So certain are you.  Always with you it cannot be done.

{It's} Only different in your mind.  You must unlearn what you have learned.

Do, or do not.  There is no try."

     If, in your mind, you don't believe that you can actually accomplish the task (optimism) you are way more unlikely to show flexibility and persistence in achieving it.  It is harder to have resilience when you don't believe in yourself.  Thanks, Master Yoda, for reminding us of that.

     Resilience is not something that our students need just when solving a math problem.  The truth is, the real world is filled with challenges for our kids.  Especially as they grow a little older and they become aware of the world outside of themselves, it can be harder and harder to be resilient.  Many times, they don't have control over their situations because they are kids.  But, they could have control over their mindsets, and the ability to bounce back even in the midst of struggles.  Take this scene from Inside Out, for example.  

(Thanks, +Tyler Haar for comparing the movie to Crenshaw today.  This scene can totally be watched after reading a few of the chapters in Crenshaw to compare and contrast resilience!)

     Another example that could be used with students is the resilience that athletes have when they compete.  They may fall, but always get up.  There are many athletes, like Michael Jordan, who could be used to teach that bouncing back from struggle can lead to success.  I really like this video, though, because it shows an Olympic runner who fell and got up, but didn't win the race.  Resilience doesn't mean that we always WIN.  It means that we keep going despite the obstacles and challenges ahead of us.

Test your own resilience!  Ask yourself:

How quickly do we recover when we get to our destination late?

Or burn dinner?

Or get lost?

Or lose our cell phone?

Do we rebound in a few minutes, or is the whole day lost?

How quickly do we bounce back?

     Beach Balls have resilience!  In the book, Mraz and Hertz talk about how Ginsburg and Jablow (2011) use a beach ball as a metaphor for resilience.  Beach balls float on the water.  Now matter how far down you push it, it always comes back to the surface.  It bounces back and recovers quickly.  If you click on this link, you can see my son and I test it out in our bathtub.  

                                   

     How do we do this in a classroom?  We should develop resiliency in a climate that supports it and models it.  This is not a mindset that we can just name, and expect them to learn.  My son learned the word pretty quickly, and was using it in the video in just three minutes.  But, he doesn't HAVE resilience because he name it. We need to have an classroom environment that models risk taking, and learning from mistakes, and celebrating the learning process over the product.  

                                     

Ok, Hiawatha!  Let's explore RESILIENCE!  #hiawathapride

How does your classroom embrace resilience?  

How do students show resilience?

How are we using the rest of the mindsets with resilience?

Flexibility (Mindset #3)

Last week we focused on Persistence, with a review on Optimism.  Click here for our One Sheet on optimism and the One Sheet on persistence.

This week, we are introducing Flexibility! Here is the One Sheet for flexibility.  There are also poster in that link, with graphics thanks to Ashley Hughes.

All of this mindset work is, of course, inspired by the work of Kristine Mraz and Christine Hertz and their book:

When someone is flexible, they know that there in not one way of doing something.  They often persevere through a challenge and show persistence because they see that there are tools available to them to try.  I like to think about this as the many ways I could get to work each morning.  If there is a traffic back up, there are many routes I can take.  It might not be my favorite route, but having those  options gives me the flexibly to get to work when there is a road block.  

One special thing about people who think with flexibility is their ability to change their minds when they are given new information.  They can reassess the problem and think about how they are solving it, and change directions.  This is critical to problem solving.  

What does that mean for our students?  Perhaps things like:

Knowing a book is too hard, and seeing the options to solve or support that.

Using our CAFE Boards, knowing that those options are choices for readers to make and apply.  

Knowing that they can't figure out how to subtract the numbers, and finding tools to help them.

Struggling with a difficult assignment, and using a few strategies to help from getting stuck.

Costa and Kallick (2000) describe flexible thinkers as people who can see from more that one perspective.  They can see from their own perspective, another's perspective, a bird's eye view, and a worm's eye view.  This ability to change perspective and see things in more than one way helps them come up with different paths to solve the same problem.

So, what about a pig's eye perspective?

   

Our second grade teachers were introducing their fairy tale unit this week, and they decided to do it with a little STEAM.  (I think their end products were works of ART, so I added the A.)  

                            

All four classes used flexibility in their materials and how they tested the houses as "wolf proof."   But, they basically all had their students use materials to build houses that would withstand the huffing and puffing of the Big, Bad Wolf.  Watching them create the houses showed their persistence and flexibility at times of challenge.  Marshmallows can be a finicky building material, and straw (whether the plastic or plant kind) is not the easiest material to manipulate.  Some homes were pretty flat, and others had walls to protect their pigs.  But, ALL students showed persistence in the task and built a house!  A few of the classes then had them rotate to a different set of building materials, showing them how different tools make the process different.  Flexibility in action!

 

At the end, I caught +Erin Flynn's class discuss how they were persistent while building.  The kids said things like, "The sticks were easy because they were pointy" or "The straws were hard, because they fell down when you stacked them."  One said, "It was just gross and sticky, but I did it anyway." Another said, "I tried the same things over and over again" (referring to those tricky straws).  Their teacher responded with: 

"I didn't see a single one of you giving up!  You kept trying it again and didn't give up!"

Now, how often can we honestly say that about a lesson?

                              

Isn't that great?  I love the idea of teaching these mindsets in situations like this!  Low stress, creative challenges that allow kids to experience the real struggles and successes that we feel in life.  Plus, it ties directly to their study on the Three Little Pigs.  

Kids who struggle with a book might just close it.  

Kids who struggle with building a toothpick house might think more flexibly and choose a new strategy.  

Perhaps this is where we need to teach that type of thinking, and reinforce, scaffold, and celebrate transfer to academic struggle. 

Thanks +Stacy Rammer +Margaret Daly +Erin Flynn +Stephany Berryhill and +Claudia Scott for starting your new unit of study in such a dynamic way.

Want one more pig's eye view on flexibility?  Watch Ormie the Pig use flexibility and persistence to get the cookies at the top of the fridge.  +Lori Horne showed me this video a few years ago, and I always seem to find a new way to use it.  

Ok, Hiawatha!  Let's explore FLEXIBILITY!  #hiawathapride

How does your classroom embrace flexibility?  

How do students show flexibility?

How do you see flexibility, optimism and persistence 

working together in your class?

Persistence (Mindset #2)

Last week we focused on Optimism.  Click here for our One Sheet, based on the work of Mraz and Hertz.  The book is phenomenal.

This week, we are going to show Persistence!  Here is the One Sheet.

Being persistent is a mindset that will help our students work through challenge.  It is so much easier to give up when things get hard.  I know when I try to parallel park, if I do decide to try, I give it one go, get embarrassed, and pull away in defeat.  Clearly, being persistent is not always as easy as we hope.

I think it is really important to mention that we need to put kids in situations where we tell them to be persistent when they actually can succeed.  They need to know that challenge can be worked through, and feel the success on the other side.  It reminds me of those "grit" lessons that some grade levels did earlier in the year during reading workshop.  It is good to teach a child to be persistent through a book that they can read, but provides some reasonable struggle.  It's another thing to hand them a book 2 years above their reading level and with no interest level there and tell them "Be persistent!"  Trying again and again, in this case, will only lead to frustration and failure.

Because of this, I really think that the mindset of persistence should be taught in a low stress, less academic way if we can.  We want to teach children that they shouldn't give up at the first sign of struggle, and to keep going even when it is a little hard, but we don't want them spinning wheels in the mud either.

I think a lovely mentor text for persistence is Float, by Daniel Miyares.  It is actually a wordless picture book, and it just arrived at my house today!  Perhaps I am looking at things through the lens of persistence today, but I see the mindset in this book.  It is a story about a boy who makes a newspaper boat.

The endpapers of the book alone could teach persistence.  As a second grade teachers for 15 years, there were so many kids who would see directions like this for paper crafting and just hand me the paper and ask me to "help."  Meaning, do it for me Mrs. O'Donnell.  When I would say, "Just try!" they'd walk over to the kid in the class who was a paper plane making expert.  Clearly, I missed some lessons on persistence back then.

The boy in the story does succeed in making a boat, with dad's help perhaps, and goes off to sail it.  Despite drizzle, then rain, then losing it downstream, the boy still ends up with his boat in the end, even if it isn't the way he had hoped it would end.  But, he dries himself off, and starts the next day off with a new newspaper craft.  

I actually love how optimism and persistence run through this book.  Throughout the rain, he wears a bright yellow raincoat and boots that jump off the page.  It could be just because traditional raincoats are yellow.  But, at the end, the sun comes out and the boy, in gray, is surrounded by the same yellow of the sun as he runs off to play again with his newest creation.  That, to me, is use of color to show optimism.  His boat is gone, but his plane will soar.  This is great, because the mindsets can work together in real life, too.

If you want to borrow this book, feel free!  It is a wordless book, so we can chat about how you would "read" it to your class if you'd like.  If you end up having your class follow the endpapers and persist in making paper airplanes at the end, then make sure you take a picture and tweet it using #hiawathapride!

Ok, Hiawatha!  Let's explore PERSISTENCE!  #hiawathapride

How does your classroom embrace persistence?  

How do students show persistence?

Optimism (Mindset #1)

Mraz and Hertz

     January begins, and learning gets serious. We re-evaluate the first half of the year, and push forward.  My principal, +Karen Marino, wanted to start 2016 off with a session during our Institute Day about goal setting.  She is an avid reader, so when she prepares for things it often involves reading a book or some articles.  This time, she couldn't have found a more perfect match (in my opinion, at least.)

     My district adapted a standards based grading system this year, and we are in the midst of a major shift in thinking about learning and grading.  Karen wanted us to create SMART goals as teachers, and while introducing it she showed us the 5 "mindsets for learning" that we should have developed in our learning communities.  Rather than jumping to students setting goals, we really need to embrace the mindsets that learners have.  We can't focus just on learning standards and the CCSS when we set goals.  They have to have a growth mindset mentality that embraces the process of learning, and we can develop that through modeling and directly naming the mindsets that will make us successful learners.  I think we embraces this at Hiawatha a few years ago, but how much time do we actually spend beyond the first few weeks talking about learner behaviors?

     After her presentation, a group of us got together at our district EdCamp and created a "slow chat" on Twitter.  A slow chat is where you give a question, like in a Twitter chat, but instead of only having the standard 8-10 minutes to answer it, you stretch out the time that you accept answers.  We decided to take answers for a week.  We created a calendar to introduce one mindset per week, either in morning meeting or throughout the day.  As a staff, we would share the books, resources, and lessons we used with our building hashtag, #hiawathapride.

     Thanks, +Lori Horne, +Tyler Haar, +Katherine Whisler, +Kathryn Wallace, +Theresa Carrillo, +Virginia Burdett, and +Karen Marino for meeting during edCamp to work out the details.

     We are now starting week 1!

OPTIMISM

     Here is a "one sheet" that I created for our staff to use during Morning Meeting or when introducing it to their class.  It is based on the ideas in A Mindset For Learning.  There is so much more in the actual book!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6nSB6nXSloXWnlxZmVmUlNXMDA/view?usp=sharing

     When I think of optimism, I think about having the ability to see the positive side of things.  I think that people who are optimistic tend to be willing to face struggles, because they can see the possibility for success on the other side.  I think that it is a mindset that we can have that can really change our perspective on the way we see things. Many people see things as "glass half empty" and other see it as "glass half full."  I saw this image of a giraffe, and thought, "Exactly!"  We all have, within ourselves, the ability to see things from a positive or a negative perspective.  Those that are optimistic and see the positive side of things are more likely to overcome the challenges and succeed.  One person (or in this case, one giraffe) can choose to be optimistic or not.

http://penelopeillustration.com/portfolio-items/optimism/

     How can we help our students at Hiawatha (or in the world beyond) be optimistic?  Let's follow the #hiawathapride hashtag and find out.  Once we introduce "optimism" we don't forget about it, so we can answer this question for the rest of the year.  Mindsets work together to make a learner successful.

     Two of my favorite books for optimism?  An old favorite, given to me by +Diona Iacobazzi, is Beautiful Oops.  It is about seeing mistakes as opportunities.  A new favorite, written by the wonderful Kevin Henkes, is A Good Day.  It is about a bad day turning around.

     Also, as we wrap up MLK weekend, I can't help but think of Dr. King as a person who showed optimism (as well as many of the the other learning mindsets to come).  He was willing to take a risk and stand up for what he knew was right.  There were many challenges and problems back then that deterred reaching equality, and there still are many today.  But, he worked to bring change anyway.  He was optimistic that his voice could make a difference for millions of people.  

     Ok, Hiawatha!  Let's explore OPTIMISM!  #hiawathapride

How does your classroom embrace optimism?  

How do students show optimism?