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My original post deleted or melded with somebody else's earlier, so I'll just re-do this:

I have really liked the idea of teachers showing their failures to the class.  This is something that I try to practice in my classroom, but it's good to know how impactful it can be.

I also really resonated with the praise-the-process talk.  I need to find better ways of doing this in my assessments especially.  How can I shift my choir classroom away from "talent" and more to progress and team building?

Finally, every week I seem to realize more and more that our words really matter as teachers. Sometimes when I'm in the flow and thinking a million-miles-a-minute, I say sarcastic things or funny things, but in reality, it could potentially be hurtful to a student. I need to be very vigilant that I am being sensitive and encouraging growth mindset.

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The articles on feedback were very interesting to me. I started thinking about my unit plan and how I plan to build it in a way that would work best for students. I am thinking about how I could measure growth and have the students track it individually for each standard. I know that a lot of elementary teachers use standards based grading methods but that is not something our district uses for middle school. I feel like incorporating a growth mindset spin to the charting of standards could help students to feel more encourage and determined to reach their goals.

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I cannot find my original post on this exit slip padlet so I will give this another try.

I have known about praising the process and not the product since early on in my undergrad years. For awhile I can confidently say I was very aware of the feedback I was giving to my students. I made a point to say things orally and took extensive time giving written feedback on assessments. Then a couple of years ago I had a really tough class. This group of students presented several challenges and it quite honestly took it out of me. I found myself having to be straight forward, strict, and timely. It took me a little while to bounce back from that year, as that was the year we built our home, then brought our second child into our family and I chose to get a job in a new district closer to home. Crazy year! Each year has been getting a little easier again but I want to be sure I get back to that place of being fully aware of the praise I am giving and not stuck into any habits.

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I have learned so much from this course already! I am connecting feedback and praise to the beginning of the school year and how that is so incredibly important to create a classroom culture where mistakes are celebrated and effort is praised. I hope to add this to my school year next year so that students can praise each others effort throughout they ear and have a growth mindset classroom environment from the start.

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One of the biggest connections I made through these readings was using owning my own mistakes and using them as a way to model growth mindset. As I had talked about in my Scenario Response I often times make mistakes in front of my students, whether it be writing something incorrect on the board, giving incorrect information, etc. I own these mistakes and encourage my students to find a respectful way to bring them to my attention if I don't notice them. I realize now that this could also open up a conversation about growth mindset and how I am still learning and growing in my knowledge as well. This modeling will promote my students to feel comfortable making mistakes and realizing that they are part of learning.

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Something I made a connection with during this module was the idea of being more mindful with the types of praise I give to my students. I taught a 6th grade accelerated math class this year, and part of the end of the year duties for me is to then recommend which math class each student should be placed in for next year. They could go to a double accelerated course, an accelerated course, or to a regular math course. I made a point with every student, but especially those for whom I recommended the double accelerated path, to praise their achievements and results, but to stress with them that their abilities and successes are because they also are some of the hardest working students I have had the honor of teaching. Moving into this double accelerated path, I also discussed with each of them how hard they would have to work to continue their success. My hope was that they felt good and proud of what they have accomplished and in their talents/abilities, but that they also had an appreciation for their effort and work ethic that helped them get there.

I hope to continue this mentality with students of any level, as with any student my main focus is on growth. So regardless of what level a particular student is at, we can have the same conversations that I did with the double accelerated students about achievements and successes, but also about working hard and putting forth our best effort.

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My biggest connection made was the importance of using my words wisely and ensuring my students hear that I am praising their hard work and effort not just their intelligence or speed.

Incorporating effort/hard work praise into everyday and all day will not only help the staff and educators who work with the students daily but it will also have a big impact on the students on the receiving end of the praises! We need them to believe the words and praises we tell them!

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After reading the articles and watching the videos presented throughout the course, I have really been thinking about being mindful when providing praise to students for their work. It seems that although praise is a good thing, I need to work on praising a person's effort versus their overall product. I've found myself in a couple of situations this past week where I really thought about what I was saying to students and how I phrased my praise. It doesn't always come naturally, but I'm going to try and continue to practice this my students.

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My biggest connection and take away was the importance of praise and the difference we can make in a short period of time.  It really impacted my thinking. Just the difference between praising the intellect vs. praising the effort! Such a simple switch.
I look forward to teaching growth mindset next year and hope my students will really embrace the learning!!

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My big take away this week is about how we praise students.  It is so easy to say things like "you are so smart" or "wow, you got them all right".  Those are phrases we have heard in classrooms for many years.  If we want to embrace a growth mindset then we need to praise the process, strategies and efforts that students are making in our classrooms.

One goal that I have for next school year is to bring the discussion of how we praise students to the staff. As the instructional coach, I work very closely with our principal and I think she would be very open to the idea. With all of the work we have done with growth mindset with our students, I think this is an area we could focus on more next year. It would be a good reminder for returning staff and very important for new staff to hear.

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It doesn't have to be complicated. Start small by modeling failure to students. This week reminded me of a time when I was younger, in middle school and high school. I can think about a time when I had a coach, who never really believed in me. I know this because of the way he talked to me and the comments he said. He wasn't encouraging and you could tell who his "favorites were." I wasn't the best softball player and he made that known. I also think my skills were beyond just playing softball. I was always a team player, but because of his comments, I still remember to this day the way he treated me. As a teacher now, I know that these comments can be impactful for years to come. I have to make sure my comments are kind ALL the time. I have to put my students first and be a supporter. I also plan to incorporate these skills into my hobbies (weight lifting). The first time I try something is going to be challenging. I might fail, but I know that I can try again because it is okay to fail.

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I keep coming back to how we give and teach students to use feedback, whether that is on an assessments or in response to in class mistakes. Feedback is a tool I want to focus on improving in my classroom. I want to incorporate some of the specific feedback protocols for more peer to peer feedback and make sure I am helping students respond to the feedback they are given.

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A connection I made is how helpful or hurtful feedback can be for a student. It is so important to praise a student's answer (correct or incorrect) on the amount of effort they put into solving the solution instead of focusing in on the answer being correct or not. I feel that being a 1st grade teacher I can instill the idea that what is important is the work put in, not the correct answer.

I feel that this needs to be shared with so many teachers and should be a building wide policy.

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I made a couple connections this module to my life personally and professionally.  The first connection I made was modeling mistakes.  I had attended Top 20 and have really held on to their idea of "OOPS, I made a mistake, what can I learn from it?"  After Top 20, I had implemented this phrase into my classroom and we would share our mistakes with each other using this idea.  I also connected with the idea of feedback and effort.  In AVB3, we worked on feedback and I implemented some strategies into my classroom such as the colored feedback hats.

(Article for 'Six Thinking Hats' https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/49243/developing-students-ability-to-give-and-take-effective-feedback )

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Throughout this course, I have been really focusing on the language I am using both with myself and family at home and with my fist graders at school. It has been amazing to see how quickly they pick up on the language around growth mindset such as saying "mistakes are a good thing because they are helping our brain grow." We have had a lot of class meeting conversations around mistakes and I truly can see the impact it has made on my students. Next year I would like to provide some growth mindset information and language to parents so that they can use it at home with their child.

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The biggest connection I have made is with the way I am praising children. I am learning a lot about the language I should be using and when to use it. I can praise process and effort both with my students and my son. My son is in 4th grade and just came home today with a packet that included his STAR reports for the whole year. I am already trying to use the language with him by telling him that I am so proud of all the hard work he has done this year. It really shows in his scores but the scores aren't the most important. The most important is how much he has learned this year and how much work he had to put into the school year. Proud mom moment! I think it will be great practice for me so I can turn the language I use into a habit. I will get there!

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Words, my words and how I choose to use them. I think the biggest connection I made is in how to give praise effectively.  There was one video that showed how praise either motivated students or stopped them from giving their best effort. I now see how even our best meant words of praise if not properly given can have the opposite impact from what we are striving to achieve.

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I really connected with the using productive praise this week. As a teacher and as a parent I can see how doing this more often could affect my students and my kids at home. It feels good to give kids compliments and I think there is still a time and place for that. But, if more often I can praise the work and the effort I think it will become easier to do and my kids and students will come to expect that.

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There are so many take a ways from this week. I think the one I am going to use is the peer feedback. 5 and 6 year olds love to feel like the teacher and what better way to do that then by helping their friends. Part of our writing curriculum is to edit papers. This would be such a good way to teach that skill as well as how to give and receive constructive feedback.

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Praise the effort! I have enjoyed looking at different strategies for how to do this, especially in assessments. I also think that it is up to us to create a culture of praising effort and celebrating mistakes in our classrooms. It all begins with us! We need to have Growth Mindset ourselves so that we can be an example for our students!

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As educators of young adults, everything we say means something. Most students respect what teachers have to say and take it to heart. This is why it's SO important that we really think through what we are praising students for. Ability vs. Effort. If a teacher praises a students effort in math, that student will be more confident in math. Confidence in math and translate to english and history, etc. By using the praise examples from the chart, I can grow in my growth mindset and how I share that with my students.

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I have been so blown away by the talks and articles and research on having a growth mindset.  There is no doubt in my mind about how important this is for our students and for us to have as teachers.  I am going to post several of the posters that were shared with us and keep referring back to these.  The idea that our brains are malleable should be posted on every wall in the school!  My dream is that all teachers believe this and know that we make a difference to these students.   We can either be a stumbling block or be the ones to nurture and help these kiddos grow!  I choose to grow them!!

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I think the biggest connection I made was the overwhelming research about what can happen when students are praised on effort and how I need to start implementing that into my classroom. This makes me want to plan activities for my students knowing it will be a little bit too difficult. My real intention of the lesson would be to open up a conversation about what they can do, how they tried to solve the problem, perseverance, etc.

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Praise is something I was looking forward to learning more about in this course. I feel as though I have a good enough understanding of growth mindset and praise that I am going to try out some of these phrases in my classroom. I can see the importance of praising effort and how it affects students willingness to accept a challenge.

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I have been focused on thinking about how to apply these strategies into my science classroom, as well as my personal life. I totally forgot- I also am a volleyball coach! I made the connection to use these strategies as a coach as well. Sports gives kids a wonderful opportunity to learn how to have a growth mindset. I believe the more areas that they practice these strategies and see these strategies, they are going to develop them as well!

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Since the beginning of this course I have really been focusing and using these strategies with one of my students. I have a student who has a ton of confidence in himself and his abilities but then goes home, works on some of his practice work and goes into shut down mode with his parents and often says things like, "I'm so dumb" "I'm not smart enough to do this". I have started to communicate with the parents each day and they fill me in on how the night before went. I then take time with the student to praise his effort rather than ability. He is a student who I have also really focused on using "yet" with. When he says those negative thoughts when we chat I also throw in the word yet. So I have been really enjoying all of the strategies that we have been learning and have been trying to implement them with one particular student this year.

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I think the biggest connection that I made with this module is that I really need to reflect on peer review and how to facilitate opportunities for my students to grow comfortable giving other students constructive feedback and also accepting feedback

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I already referred to this in the padlet about praise, but the past few months, I've been praising one of my students with a very fixed mindset every time I catch her putting in an effort. Last week I did DRA's, and she had made so much more progress than I had even expected her to. I had been hoping to get her to grade level, but now she's above grade level and I couldn't be prouder! I pointed out to her that putting in an effort and using the reading strategies she had learned, is what had helped her get to this point! I hope she keeps it up as she goes into 1st grade!

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A connection I made is how helpful or hurtful feedback can be for a student. It is so important to praise a student's answer (correct or incorrect) on the amount of effort they put into solving the solution instead of focusing in on the answer being correct or not. I feel that being a 1st grade teacher I can instill the idea that what is important is the work put in, not the correct answer.
I feel that this needs to be shared with so many teachers and should be a building wide policy.

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I've come to realize even more now that I've read on student feedback the impact that my responses have on a students ability to develop a growth mindset. Praising EFFORT vs. ABILITY will be my main focus as I approach the rest of the year.