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10 ways for teachers and parents to communicate better about assessments

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10 ways for teachers and parents to communicate better about assessments

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For many educators, the end of the school year is near, which includes navigating how to communicate a lot of information with parents and other caregivers.

High school teachers are in the midst of processes such as state testing, graduation eligibility, and forecasting classes for next year. Middle and elementary school teachers are looking at transitioning students to the next grade level, and part of that process includes looking at math and reading indicators.

This is as good a time as any to revisit what and how we communicate with our students as well as the important people in their lives. We want to make sure we exchange test information (and so much more) with our students and their loved ones, not at them.

What it looked like for me

I often tell my students about my experiences in school. I struggled with motivation, perseverance, and engagement. Usually, that would result in the school reaching out to my parents. I always dreaded the phone call home and it happened more often than I like to admit.

We want to make sure we exchange test information (and so much more) with our students and their loved ones, not at them.

One reason for the dread: too often the call was about my deficits and my voice was not heard. It was usually about a low test score, a bad grade, or some missing assignment. Information was being told; my parents and I were not stakeholders in the process.

More than that, even if I had the opportunity to communicate about something school-related, I did not know how to talk about my issues in school. And conversely, my parents did not know how to discuss school with me other than a grade A-F or a particular score on a test.

Repeating the pattern

Even though I had such negative experiences in school, when I first began teaching, I did the exact same things to my students. I usually only communicated when I had concerning data to report home and boiled it down to numbers, often with an overemphasis on deficits, which can have a negative impact on learners' success, well-being, and self-efficacy. Negative impacts can look like students withdrawing, being reluctant to talk about school and schoolwork, or even not wanting to go to school.

Of course, I didn't mean to have this negative impact on my students. I had to learn more about responsive teaching and learning practices to figure out better ways to communicate learning information (more than test scores!) with them and their loved ones instead of at them.

Doing things differently

So what have I learned over the years? Here are 10 tips for exchanging test information with learners and their caregivers that have made a big difference for me:

What does this mean and what does this look like? Engaging caregivers and students about their culture, background, strengths, identities, needs, and other pieces from home. This can help the learning journey be accessible, inclusive, engaging, and successful for all learners.

This exchange also provides you with extremely valuable information that can potentially reduce the need for reactive measures. For example, in a recent unit, I noticed a student was starting to struggle to engage, communicate, and demonstrate movement along the learning path. With an email home describing the change and asking for their assistance, I got valuable information about the time of year coinciding with a family member's death. This helped me provide some socio-emotional supports for the student.

Tips

1. Have families meet with you as often as needed to discuss their child's progress.

2. Encourage them to have a quiet, comfortable place for their child to study at home, if possible, and free of digital distractions.

3. Remind them that it's important for their child to be well rested on school days and especially on the day of a test. Children who are tired are less able to pay attention in class or to handle the demands of a test.

Ask students and caregivers for help strengthening the learning culture in your room

Building the spaces, relationships, and routines of responsive teaching and learning processes is hard work yet highly impactful. It's ok to ask students and caregivers for help with it.

I do not want my students to feel like I did: helpless and resentful about bad news and the lack of clarity about how to use my strengths to achieve success.

Reaching out to hear how caregivers can assist extends the available time for practice and demonstration of learning outside the bell-to-bell. For example, over the course of my last two units, I realized a few students were close to mastery and needed some supplemental practice time. In a phone call, I exchanged information with their caregivers to figure out how to support students to use practice routines at home. Thus, we were able to extend the learning space, build relationships, and find a workable home routine. When it came time for the mid-unit assessment, the students demonstrated a significant increase in proficiency, which prevented the need for at-school interventions.

Tips

1. Suggest activities to do at home to help improve a child's understanding of schoolwork. For example, help families understand the importance of providing books and other materials for their child to read. Share with them our eBook How to support reading at home: A guide for families. Tell them about Bedtime Math.

2. Point out academic strengths and weaknesses and how they can help address areas of concern outside the classroom, particularly if assessment results point to specific things they can do.

Engage learners and caregivers in identifying quality assessment processes

Educators, learners, and caregivers working together can identify what will help increase motivation, engagement, and success and decrease unfairness or bias throughout the learning journey. Calling home, emailing, or having quick meetings about students' strengths can help increase the quality of assessment processes.

Ask about how students best show what they know and can do or even what time of day they are most awake. This information is golden and can be used to shape assessment processes that are "show me what you know" experiences instead of "gotcha" events. For example, in my time as a special education teacher, I had several students taking medication at certain times of the day. Sometimes medications impact students' abilities to feel awake or focused. When caregivers and I discussed this, we found best-fit options, such as arranging assessment processes that aligned with students' energy and focus patterns. Adjusting processes based on this valuable information resulted in fewer "problem" behaviors, such as reluctance, disruption, and absence, and more positive outcomes, such as success in meeting challenging learning goals.

Tips

1. Explain the purpose of the assessment, such as the difference between those used to inform classroom instruction and those needed to meet state requirements.

2. If your students are preparing to take MAP® Growth™, share our Family Toolkit with their caregivers (it's also available in Spanish).

3. Share which tests are administered in your classroom and how the results of each are used.

4. Send a communication about when tests are being given, when results will be available, and how families will receive the results.

5. Share their child's learning progress using assessment results as well as your classroom observations. Remind caregivers that assessment is just one data point, and that you always look at the full picture.

We can change

Thinking back to my high school years and those phone calls home, I do not want my students to feel like I did: helpless and resentful about bad news and the lack of clarity about how to use my strengths to achieve success. Emphasizing the value of communication exchanges about students' strengths (more than test scores!) can help you garner valuable information to create authentic learning partnerships with students and caregivers that are truly responsive, empowering, and effective.

Learning partnerships with students and caregivers can not only maximize students' success, well-being, and efficacy but also reduce the burden on educators. For more tips about communication exchanges, read "Last but not least: The role of communication in assessment empowerment." To learn more about assessment empowerment, read our eBook, Assessment empowerment 101: What it is, why it matters, and how to do it. Finally, here are some discussion prompts that can help you continue to think about this work:

What successful communication exchanges have you had with students and their caregivers this year?

How did successful exchanges inform your responsive teaching and learning plans, or "moves"?

Think of an upcoming learning goal. What information about learner context could you gather from caregivers or students? How could it inform success with the learning goal? How might you go about gathering that context?

In what ways can the tips shared in this blog post validate the hard work you're already doing?

In what ways can the tips in this post inform your next steps?

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10 Ways for Teachers and Parents to Communicate Better about Assessments

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Revisit what and how you communicate about assessment with students and families. We must exchange test information with them, not at them.

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Goal-setting practices that support a learning culture 

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Goal-setting practices that support a learning culture 

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by Chase Nordengren

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Having students set their own goals and monitor their progress is most effective when teachers are able to create a culture, rather than following prescriptive steps.
G etting students to understand where they are in their learning is a steep challenge with potential for a huge payoff when you are seeking to build school and classroom cultures where improvement and growth flourish. So what can educators do to help students care about their learning and become more invested in their own success? In particular, how can teachers use assessments to motivate students without discouraging or stereotyping them?

Goal setting - one of many forms of student-involved data use (Jimerson & Reames , 2015) - gets students involved in reviewing their assessment results, working with their teachers to set reasonable but aspirational goals for improvement, and continuing to drive their learning with frequent reference to those goals. When implemented well, these goal-setting practices have a significant positive influence on student outcomes and school cultures ( Leithwood & Sun, 2018; Moeller, Theiler, & Wu, 2012).

Not surprisingly, students do better when they feel in control of their learning. Robert Marzano's (2009) review of research, for example, finds goal setting can produce student learning gains of between 18 and 41 percentile points. Across a variety of grade levels, subject areas, and studies, effective goal-setting practices help students focus on specific outcomes, encourage them to seek academic challenges, and make clear the connection between immediate tasks and future accomplishments ( Stronge & Grant, 2014). Still, not just any form of goal setting will drive learning. Goal setting must tap into four elements of tasks that motivate students: providing them opportunities to build competence, giving them control or autonomy, cultivating interest, and altering their perceptions of their own abilities (Usher & Kober , 2012). Without these elements, the positive effects of goal setting are lost.

Goals can and do look very different from student to student. Any academic or behavioral outcome - from showing proficiency in multidigit multiplication, to identifying and correctly using question words, to reducing absences and tardies - can play a role in a student's goals. However, the process by which goals are set, monitored, and reviewed is key to ensuring goal setting is successful.

The process by which goals are set, monitored, and reviewed is key in ensuring goal setting is successful.

In particular, research calls on teachers to use goal setting to cultivate a mastery orientation, where students focus on overcoming personal challenges or learning as much as possible, instead of approaches driven by hitting specific performance targets or avoiding failure (Wolters, 2004). These orientations are fungible: Even when teachers don't directly set goals, they convey attitudes and provide directives on how goals should be set and interpreted (Marsh, Farrell, & Bertrand, 2014). And, like any element of a school culture, the attitudes teachers convey are heavily influenced by how the rest of the school system thinks about using data and the ways administrators expect teachers to interpret assessment results ( Schildkamp & Lai, 2013). Goal setting in isolation, then, is far less likely to be successful than when it is part of a culture where goal setting is common, goals are linked to learning, and students continue goal setting as they change teachers and grades.

As a researcher with NWEA, I have been learning from thousands of schools and districts in the United States and around the world who are using our MAP Growth assessment to help students understand what they know and aspire to learn more. The story of one of these systems, which I call Walnut Hills in this article, illustrates how emphasizing goal setting while providing extensive teacher autonomy allows the mastery orientation to flourish and has a significant influence on school culture.
From mandate to ownership
Still, the teachers strongly embraced the program's fundamental values: personalized learning, formative assessment, and student ownership of learning. Over time, then, they found ways to adapt the model to their needs, creating a range of more flexible, classroom-built goal-setting practices that, while they differed somewhat from teacher to teacher, retained the spirit and the research DNA that had driven adoption of the original model.

Similarly, Cassandra, a high school teacher, first encountered the district's goal-setting strategy through a series of professional development workshops, and she knew right away that she would have to adapt the model. The approach was "very complicated," she said, and it happened only alongside testing windows. she turned to best practices from the research on adult goal setting, with an eye to how it could apply to her students. "It needs to be very simple, it needs to be targeted, it needs to be short term, and there need to be periodic check-ins," she concluded. By applying these changes and seeking regular data points relevant to students' lives, Cassandra created an age-appropriate goal-setting practice focused on improving student attendance, study behaviors, and credit attainment.
Making goal setting work
While each teacher I observed in Walnut Hills took a slightly different approach to goal setting, their shared practices paint a picture of an organic and dynamic process that maintains consistency for students from kindergarten through graduation:

Start early. Goal setting in Walnut Hills starts as early as kindergarten. Since these students may not be ready at first to think about individual academic goals, teachers begin with classwide goals for behavior and developing skills. Then they move on to setting simple individual goals, such as learning a set of letters or spending a certain amount of time on task. Through the process of setting goals for their class and for themselves, young children learn to understand what a goal is and how it contributes to learning.

Do it often. Each of the teachers I spoke with in Walnut Hills engaged their students in setting short-term goals, usually lasting no longer than four to six weeks. Short-term goals invited frequent check-ins with students, at least weekly if not daily. In turn, these check-ins allowed for frequent revision of goals based on student progress, preventing students from feeling discouraged: With several opportunities to observe progress, a goal not yet met becomes a goal that can be met in the future with additional effort.

The goal-setting process often begins with a conference in which students answer questions like those Karen used: "What is an appropriate goal?" and "Why do we think this is an appropriate goal for you?" During regular check-ins, teachers confer with students about current work, its relationship to their goals, and strategies they use to improve learning. A goal-setting conference at the end of the process facilitates reflection on learning, answering questions like these from Karen: "What do you notice about your work from the beginning till now?" and "How do you feel like you grew?"

Maximizing the frequency of goal-setting check-ins may require relaxing more complex or drawn-out procedures in favor of quick conversations focused on a handful of key questions. The Walnut Hills teachers note that whatever they've lost by moving away from the initial structured model toward something more heterogenous is more than made up for by the opportunity they now have to reinforce growth mindsets, practice academic conversations, and make regular individual contact with each student.
Make it visual.
Goal-setting teachers rely on a variety of visual tools and artifacts to help solidify their goal-setting culture. At a whole-class level, these may include anchor charts referencing classroom goals or graphs showing student progress toward particular learning goals or assessment targets (without showing individual student names). On an individual level, these can include data notebooks, personalized learning plans (either physical or through a digital system that can be shared with parents and other teachers), and goal-setting worksheets.

The teacher-created worksheets I observed have much in common:

First, they focus on identifying the goal and setting a firm end date for achieving it. If students have experience with SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, the worksheets may reference those guidelines.

Second, worksheets ask students to describe actionable steps to get to their goal. These can include a certain amount of mathematics practice per week, a certain number of pages to read each night, or even a set of behaviors like coming to school on time. These steps enable students to truly tailor the goal to their own learning. As Carla observes, "They've got their picture, they take a learning style inventory, they pace their results" and use other tools to identify steps that are achievable for them.

Finally, goal-setting artifacts ask students to describe evidence they have reached their goal. This can include reflection, essays or other work products, or feedback from teachers or peers. All teachers I spoke with emphasized that test scores provide only one piece of a broader set of evidence of learning, but they could support students motivated by seeing their progress on a scale, so long as those results were connected in concrete ways to learning objectives. In requiring evidence of learning, the objective of these educators was to provide multiple avenues through which students could demonstrate their own improvement in ways that motivated them.

Create personal relevance. Several teachers, like Carla, noted that starting goal-setting conversations around personal goals provided an opportunity to illustrate the benefits of goal setting:

I have them think about something they're struggling with, whether it's getting their homework done or getting their chores done or anything. And then we start looking at, "OK, what could we do to fix that?" And so we set a goal around that and then that leads more into, "Now let's focus on the school aspect. What are things that you're struggling with at school?"

Many teachers referenced goals they had set in their personal lives as an opportunity to make goal setting more relevant. For Nancy, a goal-setting conversation begins with, "What do you as a person want to be? And then what's the area, academically, you want us to help you with?"

Center student choice. Finally, student ownership of learning is maximized where students feel a sense of agency and choice. Goal-setting teachers serve as directors of learning: breaking larger goals down into skill areas, suggesting goals based on skills students are missing, and outlining the steps necessary to get to a particular goal, but ultimately leaving selection of the goal itself in the hands of students. Even for young students who are less capable of self-reflection, the appearance of choice is key. Leslie said, "I might give them two goals, or three. Then I kind of let them pick [even though] you're still providing the goal for them."

These early choices reinforce a culture of student choice that pays off as students become more self-aware, as Carla explained: "I'm kind of giving them the goal, so to speak, but eventually they'll start setting their own . . . you actually sit down and listen to a kid who has a goal that they want to achieve and help them figure out the steps to get there, because that's where they are stuck." In goal-setting conversations like these, the teacher still plays an active role, ensuring goals are specific, measurable, and connected to learning. They also play an important continuous role in celebrating accomplishments to promote persistence and encourage confidence. Ultimately, however, the aim of goal setting as a schoolwide cultural practice is to provide a gradual release toward self-sufficient goal setting. Karen said, "I think the best goal-setting conferences are the ones where students are able to look at their work, look at the metric piece, and actually be able to say, 'You know what? I'm not there yet,' independently but [also to recognize] 'I can be there. This is what I need to do, though.' "
Bringing it all together
Goal setting by and for students helps form the glue that binds assessment events together. Through goal setting, students develop the skills to reflect on their learning and turn their understanding of their current knowledge and skills into a drive to learn more. In classrooms exemplifying student ownership of learning, "Students know where they are going, where they are, and how to close the gap" (Chan et al., 2014, p. 112). The goal-setting practices I observed among teachers in Walnut Hills focus on identifying these three touch points, returning to them regularly, and empowering students to play an equal role in identifying what they will learn and the processes that will get them there.

Student-owned goal setting, undertaken through a diversity of teaching styles and approaches, is a critical strategy for any school or district looking to create a culture of lifelong learning.

Rick Stiggins (2002) refers to the best formative assessment as "assessment for learning," a source of comfortable motivation for students to fulfill their ambitions instead of a source of anxiety and fear. In tandem with such assessment, effective goal setting engages students in understanding how learning is measured, the myriad ways it can manifest, and the direct relationship between what is learned in school and what students want for their lives. Student-owned goal setting, undertaken through a diversity of teaching styles and approaches, is a critical strategy for any school or district looking to create a culture of lifelong learning.

The most effective teachers model the behavior they expect from their students: They set goals for themselves, monitor progress against them frequently, and reflect on how their daily learning matches their goals. However, administrators must also leverage the example their teachers set to encourage broader organizational shifts that ensure students engage in continuous goal setting between grades and schools, making the practice part of the standard operating procedure of the district.
References
Chan, P.E., Graham-Day, K.J., Ressa, V.A., Peters, M.T., & Konrad, M. (2014). Beyond involvement: Promoting student ownership of learning in classrooms. Intervention in School and Clinic, 50 (2), 105-113.

Jimerson, J.B. & Reames, E. (2015). Student-involved data use: Establishing the evidence base. Journal of Educational Change, 16 (3), 281-304.

Leithwood, K. & Sun, J. (2018). Academic culture: A promising mediator of school leaders' influence on student learning. Journal of Educational Administration, 56 (3).

Marsh, J.A., Farrell, C.C., & Bertrand, M. (2014). Trickle-down accountability: How middle school teachers engage students in data use. Educational Policy, 30 (2), 243-280.

Marzano, R.J. (2009). Designing and teaching learning goals and objectives: Classroom strategies that work. Denver, CO: Marzano Research Laboratory.

Moeller, A.J., Theiler, J.M., & Wu, C. (2012). Goal setting and student achievement: A longitudinal study. Modern Language Journal, 96 (2), 153-169.

Schildkamp, K. & Lai, M.K. (2013). Conclusions and a Data Use Framework. In K. Schildkamp, M.K. Lai, & L. Earl (Eds.), Data-based Decision Making in Education: Challenges and Opportunities (pp. 177-191). Netherlands: Springer.

Stiggins, R.J. (2002). Assessment crisis: The absence of assessment for learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 83 (10), 758-765.

Stronge, J.H. & Grant, L.W. (2014). Student achievement goal setting. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Usher, A. & Kober, N. (2012). Student motivation: An overlooked piece of school reform. Washington, DC: Center for Education Policy.

Wolters, C.A. (2004). Advancing achievement goal theory: Using goal structures and goal orientations to predict students' motivation, cognition, and achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96 (2), 236-250.

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Goal-setting practices that support a learning culture - kappanonline.org

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Having students set their own goals and monitor their progress is most effective when teachers are able to create a culture, rather than following prescriptive steps. G etting students to understand where they are in their learning is a steep challenge with potential for a huge payoff when you are seeking to build school and classroom cultures where improvement and growth flourish.

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16 Ways Parents Can Help Their Child with Testing, Reading, and Mathematics

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16 Ways Parents Can Help Their Child with Testing, Reading, and Mathematics

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The Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) test is a growth assessment given to K - 12 students that provides data to help teachers teach, students learn, and administrators lead. The MAP test is typically administered several times during the academic school year, but it's the initial fall testing period that provides teachers with a clear picture of where students are at the beginning of the school year so they can hone their curriculum accordingly. While teachers will communicate with students about the test, goals, and expectations, there's no lack of opportunity for parents looking to prepare their kids for testing and other subject matter, like reading and mathematics.
Here are five ways that parents can prepare their children for testing:

1. Meet with your child's teacher as often as needed to discuss his or her progress. Ask the teacher to suggest activities for you and your child to do at home to help prepare for tests and improve your child's understanding of schoolwork. Parents and teachers working together benefits students.

2. Provide a quiet, comfortable, distraction-free place for studying at home.

3. Make sure that your child is well rested on school days and especially the day of a test. Children who are tired are less able to pay attention in class or to handle the demands of a test.

4. Give your child a well-rounded diet. A healthy body leads to a healthy, active mind.

5. Provide books and magazines for your child to read at home. By reading new materials, a child learns new words that might appear on a test. Ask your child's school about a suggested outside reading list or get suggestions from the public library.

Here are six ways that parents can help their children with reading:

1. Provide many opportunities for your child to read books or other materials. Read aloud to your child. Research shows that this is the most important activity that parents can do to increase their child's chance of reading success. Keep reading aloud even when your child can read independently.

2. Make time for the library.

3. Play games like Scrabble®, Spill and Spell™, Scattergories®, and Balderdash™ together.

4. Follow your child's interests, and find fiction and nonfiction books that tie into these interests. You can use a third-party site like The Lexile Framework for Reading to help find the right book for your reader.

5. Work crossword puzzles with your child.

6. Give a magazine subscription as a gift.

Here are five ways that parents can help their children with mathematics:

1. Spend time with kids on simple board games, puzzles, and activities that encourage strong math skills. Even everyday activities, such as playing in a sandbox or in a bath tub can teach children math concepts such as weight, density, and volume. Check your TV listings for shows that can reinforce math skills in a practical and fun way.

2. Encourage children to solve problems. Provide assistance, but let them figure it out themselves. Problem solving is a lifetime skill.

3. The kitchen is filled with opportunities to teach fractional measurements, such as doubling and dividing cookie ingredients.

4. Point out ways that people use math every day to pay bills, balance their checkbooks, make change, and calculate a tip at restaurants. Involve older children in projects that incorporate geometric and algebraic concepts, such as planting a garden, building a bookshelf, or figuring how long it will take to drive to your family vacation destination.

5. Children should learn to read and interpret charts and graphs, such as those found in daily newspapers. Collecting and analyzing data will help your child draw conclusions and become discriminating readers of numerical information.

While teachers play an integral role in the education of children, it goes without saying that parental involvement makes the biggest difference in a child's scholastic success. For additional tips and ways to help your child succeed, ask their teachers for suggestions, or check out some of our past posts for parents.

Kara brings 15+ years of marketing communications experience to her role as the Senior Manager of Digital Content at NWEA. She is passionate about learning and creating opportunities to share NWEA partner stories on a variety of platforms. For the past year, Kara has been creating content for Assessment Literacy.org, working on the NWEA-Gallup assessment perceptions study, and collaborating with the Task Force on Assessment Education for Teachers. Prior to that, Kara held communications and consulting roles in a variety of industries. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame and earned a master's degree from Northwestern University.

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16 ways parents can help their child with testing, reading and math - #edchat #MAPtest

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The Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) test is a growth assessment given to K - 12 students that provides data to help teachers teach, students learn, and administrators lead.

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SETTING GOALS--SMART AND ABC with examples

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SETTING GOALS--SMART AND ABC with examples

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Where are you going? What makes you feel you are not wasting your life? Did you ever think about your goals beyond the next 12 months?

Great achievers know your meaningful life starts with one simple step: learning how to set unreasonable goals. Once you master this skill you will never look back. You will surprise yourself and others. You will uncover unlimited opportunities.

Before we get into the details of the importance of goal setting, let's complete a straightforward exercise using your imagination.

Wake-up exercise

Great goals will pull you through difficult times. They will help you on the other side of the day
Jim Rohn

Picture yourself being 90 years old. What emotions does it stir? Does it make you feel happy? Do you see a lot of people around you begging for every single minute of your time?

Tough questions, tough questions as Jim Rohn used to say. It's hard to believe but it's possible to feel great doing this exercise. The only condition is to be willing to set unbelievable goals and to start working on them step by step.

Once you get started nothing and nobody will intimidate you anymore because you will be inspired by your life purpose.

Why set goals?

Eliminate "Your Best Years" lie

It's sad that so many people go to their graves with their song unsung
Zig Ziglar

Most people believe in the "Best Years" lie. They hate projecting their last years on the planet enjoying their "best years" now.

Such a lie.

What is "your best years" concept? What is this range? When does it start? When does it transition to "Worst Years"?

Nonsense.

You must learn to enjoy every single moment regardless of how old or how young you are.

Pull trough difficult days

Jim Rohn, a famous business philosopher, gives us an incredible insight about goal setting. In the "One year success plan" program Rohn says: "Great goals will pull you through difficult times. They will help you on the other side of the day. On bad days when nothing works out your exciting goals will keep you going". Bulletproof. It says it all.

Develop the right mindset

Don't trade your life for mediocre goals

Living a mediocre life will never make you happy. Don't drift aimlessly with the masses. You haven't been designed to waste your life. Find a mentor who will ask you tough questions: "Do you live your life fully? Do you enjoy what you do day in, day out? What is your purpose in life?". Stop flowing in vagueness. Start designing your life.

Eliminate ignorance
Never stop asking tough questions

Get results fast

Ignore the price

Use S.M.A.R.T. goals

Think S.M.A.R.T whenever you set goals. With this concept all goals must be:

I want to be more healthy

with

By December 25-th 2016, I want to lose 15 kilos and do 50 push-ups by going to gym 4 times a week so I can participate in a local gym competition at the beginning of the next year.

Which one is a SMART goal? Of course the second one. Here is the explanation why.

Specific

Specific goals are targets. If it's not specific you have no idea where to shoot. Imagine trying to hit a target blindfolded and turned around multiple times. Where is the target? How are you supposed to hit it?

To be specific each goals must answer 3 questions:

what - I want to lose 15 kilos and do 50 push-ups

how - by going to gym 4 times a week

why - so I can participate in a local gym competition

Measurable

Measurable goals can be tracked. If you can't measure it, you can't prove you achieved the goal. By December 25-th 2016 and lose 15 kilos and do 50 push-ups are good examples of measurable goals.

Achievable

Short term goals must be achievable. Otherwise they will discourage you and you will eventually give up. It's important to understand we are talking about short term goals here. Life goals must be huge and unrealistic. Assuming the person setting this goal is 15-20 kilos overweight losing 15 kilos, doing 50 push-ups and participate in a local gym competition in about a year time is achievable.

Results-oriented / Relevant

Results is the name of the game as Jim Rohn once said. If a goal is not result-focused it's not a proper goal. Once again, losing 15 kilos, doing 50 push-ups, and competing are good examples of result-driven goals. In addition, goals should be relevant. Ideally, they must relate to and support one of your huge long-term goals.

Time-bound

Identifying practical time-frames creates a sense of urgency. By December 25-th 2016 and the beginning of the next year give us clear indication on when the goal is to be achieved by.

The S.M.A.R.T system allows for setting and accomplishing goals in the most effective and efficient way possible. Use this framework whenever you think about your short-term goals.

Don't forget that setting challenging life goals does not always fit into the S.M.A.R.T system perfectly. Some global goals could and should be unachievable unless a real show stopper exists.

For example, you don't have to know how you will become a great speaker capable of touching thousands of lives. You can split a goal like that into smaller and more manageable S.M.A.R.T goals.

If, however, your goal is to beat Michael Jordan as one of the greatest basketball players and you are not athletic enough this might represent a natural limitation.

Adopt ABC goals framework

You can also adopt the A-B-C goals system designed by Bob Proctor:

A-goals - goals you know how to achieve. You have done it before. Sticking to such goals will not improve your life. Don't expect different results.

B-goals - something you have never done before but you wouldn't struggle achieving them. It's not beyond your realistic expectations. Better than A-goals, still not good enough for extraordinary changes in your life

C-goals - fantasies that scare and excite you at the same time. Absolutely unrealistic. Going for these goals is scary. You have no idea how to achieve them. The most successful people on the planet choose such goals. They don't care it's not clear how to get there. They want it badly. They persist. They achieve. And the whole process saturates their lives with passion, enthusiasm, and happiness.

Go for big goals in life.

Summary

Learning how to set huge goals will help you write a jaw-dropping chapter in your life regardless of how old you are. That is why mastering this skill is critical. Use S.M.A.R.T goals and A-B-C framework to get inspirational results and enjoy the process along the way.

Setting shocking goals allows for living a fulfilling life full of adventure. Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor, and other personal development experts insist this skill alone when backed by burning desire and persistence will saturate your life with meaning. It will make every single moment count.

Earl Nightingale in his mind blowing record "The strangest secret" explained the definition of success. According to him, "success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal". It's a journey - not a destination. If you learn to set, work through, and achieve gigantic goals one after another, your journey will never end. Keep fighting for your huge dreams and never give up.
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Where are you going? What makes you feel you are not wasting your life? Did you ever think about your goals beyond the next 12 months? Great achievers know your meaningful life starts with one simple step: learning how to set unreasonable goals. Once you master this skill you will never look back.

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The ABCs Approach to Goal Setting and Implementation

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Presented by: Dr. Christine Harrington - Director for the Center for the Enrichment of Learning and Teaching, Middlesex County College Despite its' widespread ...

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Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'

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Commentary

For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say "secretly" because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals-and there it stayed.

However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know. We found that students' mindsets-how they perceive their abilities-played a key role in their motivation and achievement, and we found that if we changed students' mindsets, we could boost their achievement. More precisely, students who believed their intelligence could be developed (a growth mindset) outperformed those who believed their intelligence was fixed (a fixed mindset). And when students learned through a structured program that they could "grow their brains" and increase their intellectual abilities, they did better. Finally, we found that having children focus on the process that leads to learning (like hard work or trying new strategies) could foster a growth mindset and its benefits.

So a few years back, I published my book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to share these discoveries with educators. And many educators have applied the mindset principles in spectacular ways with tremendously gratifying results.

This is wonderful, and the good word continues to spread. But as we've watched the growth mindset become more popular, we've become much wiser about how to implement it. This learning-the common pitfalls, the misunderstandings, and what to do about them-is what I'd like to share with you, so that we can maximize the benefits for our students.

A growth mindset isn't just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students' achievement, but it's not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they're stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches-not just sheer effort-to learn and improve.

We also need to remember that effort is a means to an end to the goal of learning and improving. Too often nowadays, praise is given to students who are putting forth effort, but not learning, in order to make them feel good in the moment: "Great effort! You tried your best!" It's good that the students tried, but it's not good that they're not learning. The growth-mindset approach helps children feel good in the short and long terms, by helping them thrive on challenges and setbacks on their way to learning. When they're stuck, teachers can appreciate their work so far, but add: "Let's talk about what you've tried, and what you can try next."

Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It's the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they're not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, "Everyone is smart!" The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student's current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.

I also fear that the mindset work is sometimes used to justify why some students aren't learning: "Oh, he has a fixed mindset." We used to blame the child's environment or ability.

Must it always come back to finding a reason why some children just can't learn, as opposed to finding a way to help them learn? Teachers who understand the growth mindset do everything in their power to unlock that learning.

A few years ago, my colleague in Australia, Susan Mackie, detected an outbreak of what she called "false growth mindset." She was seeing educators who claimed to have a growth mindset, but whose words and actions didn't reflect it. At first, I was skeptical. But before long, I saw it, too, and I understood why.

In many quarters, a growth mindset had become the right thing to have, the right way to think. It was as though educators were faced with a choice: Are you an enlightened person who fosters students' well-being? Or are you an unenlightened person, with a fixed mindset, who undermines them? So, of course, many claimed the growth-mindset identity. But the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.

Let's look at what happens when teachers, or parents, claim a growth mindset, but don't follow through. In recent research, Kathy Liu Sun found that there were many math teachers who endorsed a growth mindset and even said the words "growth mindset" in their middle school math classes, but did not follow through in their classroom practices. In these cases, their students tended to endorse more of a fixed mindset about their math ability. My advisee and research collaborator Kyla Haimovitz and I are finding many parents who endorse a growth mindset, but react to their children's mistakes as though they are problematic or harmful, rather than helpful. In these cases, their children develop more of a fixed mindset about their intelligence.

How can we help educators adopt a deeper, true growth mindset, one that will show in their classroom practices? You may be surprised by my answer: Let's legitimize the fixed mindset. Let's acknowledge that (1) we're all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, (2) we will probably always be, and (3) if we want to move closer to a growth mindset in our thoughts and practices, we need to stay in touch with our fixed-mindset thoughts and deeds.

If we "ban" the fixed mindset, we will surely create false growth-mindsets. (By the way, I also fear that if we use mindset measures for accountability, we will create false growth mindsets on an unprecedented scale.) But if we watch carefully for our fixed-mindset triggers, we can begin the true journey to a growth mindset.

What are your triggers?
Watch for a fixed-mindset reaction when you face challenges. Do you feel overly anxious, or does a voice in your head warn you away? Watch for it when you face a setback in your teaching, or when students aren't listening or learning. Do you feel incompetent or defeated? Do you look for an excuse? Watch to see whether criticism brings out your fixed mindset. Do you become defensive, angry, or crushed instead of interested in learning from the feedback? Watch what happens when you see an educator who's better than you at something you value. Do you feel envious and threatened, or do you feel eager to learn? Accept those thoughts and feelings and work with and through them. And keep working with and through them.

My colleagues and I are taking a growth-mindset stance toward our message to educators. Maybe we originally put too much emphasis on sheer effort. Maybe we made the development of a growth mindset sound too easy. Maybe we talked too much about people having one mindset or the other, rather than portraying people as mixtures. We are on a growth-mindset journey, too.

Published in Print: September 23, 2015, as Growth Mindset, Revisited

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Carol Dweck Revisits the 'Growth Mindset'

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Commentary For many years, I secretly worked on my research. I say "secretly" because, once upon a time, researchers simply published their research in professional journals-and there it stayed. However, my colleagues and I learned things we thought people needed to know.

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Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff

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Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff

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Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff

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You Can Do It! How to Encourage Goal Setting for Students

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As a teacher, you regularly think about goal setting for students. From improving skills and meeting standards to being kind and putting the darn caps back on the glue sticks, there's always something to strive towards. Have you tapped into the power of setting goals with students, though? Research spanning decades shows that setting students goals improves both motivation and achievement. Goal setting encourages a growth mindset. It also supports the development of skills students need to be prepared for their future careers.

There's no shortage of teachers doing innovative work around goal setting for students. We've compiled some of our favorite resources into this handy guide for you.

What is a goal, anyways?

For younger students, you may need to start by distinguishing between a goal and a wish. I wish for a giant bowl of ice cream every evening around 8 PM, but my goal this year is to stay hydrated by drinking 100 ounces of water each day. Sigh. A read aloud like Froggy Rides a Bike by Jonathan London can help make this distinction clear. Froggy wishes he could own a cool trick bicycle, but his goal is to learn to ride a bike-which it turns out he's able to achieve with persistence and despite a few classic "more red in the face than green" moments.

For all students, it's helpful to share books that portray goal setting. In early elementary grades, Peter's effort in Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats is a classic example of persistently working towards a specific goal. Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller presents a nice variety of goals, from learning to read to helping someone each day. However, upper elementary and middle school, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Young Reader's Edition by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer chronicles William's work to relieve his village from drought. It includes the sub-goals he works towards along the way, such as researching viable solutions and figuring out how to build a windmill.

A great picture book option for older students is Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story by Paula Yoo. This title is a biography of a diver who set and reached many goals, both physical and academic, along the way to becoming an Olympian.

Be SMART about it

Helping students hone their goal setting skills makes it more likely they will meet them. SMART goals have been a popular tool for years and many teachers have successfully implemented versions of this practice with their students. Consider these tactics:

Unpack the goal-setting process with students

SOURCE: Scholastic Top Teaching Blog

This lesson plan from Scholastic includes a free downloadable poster and graphic organizer. We love the brainstorm activity and interactive whiteboard sort for distinguishing specific and vague goals. These could easily be adapted for younger students based on the examples you choose.

You can also check out our free goal-setting printable here.

Start small

SOURCE: 3rd Grade Thoughts

This blog post from 3rd Grade Thoughts includes a simple-but-powerful anchor chart and a straightforward system for students to publicly identify short-term goals. Students in this classroom work on " WOW goals " to be completed "Within One Week."

Encourage nonacademic goals, too

In this lesson plan about character-based goals, students work with partners to discuss goals related to specific virtues such as respect, enthusiasm, and patience. They make specific plans to upgrade their behavior and evaluate their own progress.

Don't stop now: keep track and reflect

Raise your hand if you sometimes add items to your to-do list just for the satisfaction of crossing them off. Progress monitoring systems are motivating, and they are a crucial component of goal-setting work. Consider:

Visual tracking systems

SOURCE: The Brown Bag Teacher

This post from The Brown Bag Teacher describes a star chart for keeping track of filled-out reading logs. This system displays progress in a concrete way and could easily be adapted to other goals.

Goal-setting apps

There's an app for that! This roundup of goal setting and tracking apps from Emerging Ed Tech gives you plenty of options for taking that to do list up a notch.

Sharing assessment data with students

This video from EL Education demonstrates how teachers can make the assessment data you're collecting anyways more meaningful to students. This teacher discusses DRA data with students to help them reflect upon their progress and establish updated goals.

It's time to celebrate!

Who doesn't love a chance to be recognized for an achievement? Acknowledging students' attainment of goals is an important component of classroom goal setting. Consider these ideas:

Make celebration a habit

Nurture a "hooray" classroom culture by adopting the perspective of teacher Kevin Parr, who noticed an uptick in student motivation when he simply made a daily effort to provide more nonverbal and verbal recognition.

Recognize students in writing and in public

Send students "Happy Mail", as described by Responsive Classroom. Use written awards or notes to give individualized and authentic positive feedback and publicly share them for added recognition.

Introduce fun classroom traditions

If your school allows balloons, we love Dr. Michele Borba's suggestion to put small rewards-or reward "coupons"-inside balloons and write a goal on the outside of each one. Make a big deal out of popping a balloon when a goal is met.
How do you go about goal setting for students in your classroom? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook. Plus, check out this goal-setting bulletin board kit.

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How to Do Goal Setting With Your Students This School Year

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As a teacher, you regularly think about goal setting for students. From improving skills and meeting standards to being kind and putting the darn caps back on the glue sticks, there's always something to strive towards. Have you tapped into the power of setting goals with students, though?

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Free teacher resources for effective instruction

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Through thousands of hours of practice working with groups of all shapes and sizes we've found this to be the most effective progression:

1. Mindset Check Up
2. Growth Mindset Overview
3. Building a Growth Mindset
4. Learn Like a Jungle Tiger
5. Sustaining a Growth Mindset Culture

Start scrolling to begin your journey. Enjoy!

TRAIN UGLY WORKSHOPS

We love getting hands on with this and would be honored to come work with your group. For more info on our growth mindset workshops and training: TRAIN UGLY WORKSHOPS

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The Growth Mindset Playbook: Tools to Help Build a Growth Mindset

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Through thousands of hours of practice working with groups of all shapes and sizes we've found this to be the most effective progression: 1. Mindset Check Up 2. Growth Mindset Overview 3. Building a Growth Mindset 4. Learn Like a Jungle Tiger 5.

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Interview with Dr. Carol Dweck: Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the “growth mindset.”

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Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the "growth mindset."

As a young researcher, Carol Dweck was fascinated by how some children faced challenges and failures with aplomb while others shrunk back. Dweck, now a psychologist at Stanford University, eventually identified two core mindsets, or beliefs, about one's own traits that shape how people approach challenges: "fixed mindset," the belief that one's abilities were carved in stone and predetermined at birth, and "growth mindset," the belief that one's skills and qualities could be cultivated through effort and perseverance. Her findings brought the concepts of fixed and growth mindsets to the fore for educators and parents, inspiring the implementation of her ideas among teachers-and even companies -across the country.

But Dweck recently noticed a trend: a widespread embrace of what she refers to as "false growth mindset"-a misunderstanding of the idea's core message. Growth mindset's popularity was leading some educators to believe that it was simpler than it was, that it was only about putting forth effort or that a teacher could foster growth mindset merely by telling kids to try hard. A teacher might applaud a child for making an effort on a science test even if he'd failed it, for instance, believing that doing so would promote growth mindset in that student regardless of the outcome. But such empty praise can exacerbate some of the very problems that growth mindset is intended to counter. A new edition of Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, updated to address false growth mindset, comes out at the end of this month. I recently spoke with Dweck about how she wants her ideas to be applied. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Christine Gross-Loh: Could you tell me about the development of the idea of growth mindset? What was it intended to correct? What were you seeing that you felt growth mindset would help improve?

Carol Dweck: I've always been interested, since graduate school, in why some children wilt and shrink back from challenges and give up in the face of obstacles, while others avidly seek challenges and become even more invested in the face of obstacles. So this has been my primary question for over 40 years. At some point, my graduate students and I realized that a student's mindset was at the foundation of whether [he or she] loved challenges and persisted in the face of failure.

When students had more of a fixed mindset-the idea that abilities are carved in stone, that you have a certain amount and that's that-they saw challenges as risky. They could fail, and their basic abilities would be called into question. When they hit obstacles, setbacks, or criticism, this was just more proof that they didn't have the abilities that they cherished.

In contrast, when students had more of a growth mindset, they held the view that talents and abilities could be developed and that challenges were the way to do it. Learning something new, something hard, sticking to things-that's how you get smarter. Setbacks and feedback weren't about your abilities, they were information you could use to help yourself learn. With a growth mindset, kids don't necessarily think that there's no such thing as talent or that everyone is the same, but they believe everyone can develop their abilities through hard work, strategies, and lots of help and mentoring from others.

Gross-Loh: When I first interviewed you about growth mindset a few years ago, I remember that it was a relatively unknown idea. But growth mindset is now so popular that I'll hear people who aren't steeped in educational theory say, "Praise the effort, not the child (or the outcome)." Why do you think this idea struck such a chord, and how did you find out there were people misunderstanding it?
"Nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time."
Dweck: Many educators were dissatisfied with drilling for high-stakes tests. They understood that student motivation had been a neglected area, especially of late. So many educators, as well as many parents, were excited to implement something that might reenergize kids to focus on learning again, not just memorization and test taking, but on deeper, more joyful learning.

But a colleague of mine, Susan Mackie, was doing workshops with educators in Australia and observed that many of them were saying they got growth mindset and were running with it, but did not understand it deeply. She told me, "I'm seeing a lot of false growth mindset." I just did not get it initially-growth mindset is a very straightforward concept, and besides, why would people settle for a false growth mindset if they could have a real one? But I started keeping a list of all the ways people were misunderstanding growth mindset. When the list got long enough, I started speaking and writing about it.

Gross-Loh: Could you elaborate on false growth mindset?

Dweck: False growth mindset is saying you have growth mindset when you don't really have it or you don't really understand [what it is]. It's also false in the sense that nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time. Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets. You could have a predominant growth mindset in an area but there can still be things that trigger you into a fixed mindset trait. Something really challenging and outside your comfort zone can trigger it, or, if you encounter someone who is much better than you at something you pride yourself on, you can think "Oh, that person has ability, not me." So I think we all, students and adults, have to look for our fixed-mindset triggers and understand when we are falling into that mindset.

I think a lot of what happened [with false growth mindset among educators] is that instead of taking this long and difficult journey, where you work on understanding your triggers, working with them, and over time being able to stay in a growth mindset more and more, many educators just said, "Oh yeah, I have a growth mindset" because either they know it's the right mindset to have or they understood it in a way that made it seem easy.

Gross-Loh: Why do you think these misunderstandings occurred?

Dweck: Many people understood growth mindset deeply and implemented it in a very sophisticated and effective way. However, there were many others who understood it in a way that wasn't quite accurate, or distilled it down to something that wasn't quite effective, or assimilated it into something they already knew.

Often when we see kids who aren't learning well, we might feel frustrated or defensive, thinking it reflects on us as educators. It's often tempting to not feel it is our fault. So we might say the child has a fixed mindset, without understanding instead that, as educators, it is our responsibility to create a context in which a growth mindset can flourish.

Gross-Loh: So it seems that the danger is that some teachers think they have growth mindset and believe it will transfer to their students, even though they themselves don't really understand it. How about this: Are there educators who do understand the idea that abilities can be developed but don't understand how to pass it on to students? Are there certain children who are more vulnerable to this sort of misunderstanding of growth mindset?

Dweck: Yes, another misunderstanding [of growth mindset] that might apply to lower-achieving children is the oversimplification of growth mindset into just [being about] effort. Teachers were just praising effort that was not effective, saying "Wow, you tried really hard!" But students know that if they didn't make progress and you're praising them, it's a consolation prize. They also know you think they can't do any better. So this kind of growth-mindset idea was misappropriated to try to make kids feel good when they were not achieving.

The mindset ideas were developed as a counter to the self-esteem movement of blanketing everyone with praise, whether deserved or not. To find out that teachers were using it in the same way was of great concern to me. The whole idea of growth-mindset praise is to focus on the learning process. When you focus on effort, [you have to] show how effort created learning progress or success.

Gross-Loh: What should people do to avoid falling into this trap?

Dweck: A lot of parents or teachers say praise the effort, not the outcome. I say [that's] wrong: Praise the effort that led to the outcome or learning progress; tie the praise to it. It's not just effort, but strategy ... so support the student in finding another strategy. Effective teachers who actually have classrooms full of children with a growth mindset are always supporting children's learning strategies and showing how strategies created that success.

Students need to know that if they're stuck, they don't need just effort. You don't want them redoubling their efforts with the same ineffective strategies. You want them to know when to ask for help and when to use resources that are available.

All of this is part of the process that needs to be taught and tied to learning.
"Focus on the learning process and show how hard work, good strategies, and good use of resources lead to better learning."
Gross-Loh: Is there a right way to praise kids and encourage them to do well?

Dweck: Many parents and teachers who themselves have growth mindset aren't passing it on because they are trying to protect the child's confidence, focus on the child's ability, and kind of boost the child's view or protect the child from a failure. They're conveying anxiety about ability.

But we have a new line of research (with my former graduate student, Kyla Haimovitz) showing that the way a parent reacts to a child's failure conveys a mindset to a child regardless of the parent's mindset. If parents react to their child's failures as though there is something negative, if they rush in, are anxious, reassure the child, "Oh not everyone can be good at math, don't worry, you're good at other things," the child gets it that no, this is important, and it's fixed. That child is developing a fixed mindset, even if the parent has a growth mindset.

But if the parent reacts to a child's failure as though it's something that enhances learning, asking, "Okay, what is this teaching us? Where should we go next? Should we talk to the teacher about how we can learn this better?" that child comes to understand that abilities can be developed.

So, with praise, focus on "process praise"-focus on the learning process and show how hard work, good strategies, and good use of resources lead to better learning. Be matter-of-fact, with not too strong or too passive a reaction.

You can see evidence of fixed mindset as young as 3.5 or 4 years old; that's when mindsets can start becoming evident, where some kids are very upset when they make a mistake or get criticized and fall into a helpless place. That's when children become able to evaluate themselves. We collaborated ... with researchers from the University of Chicago who had a longitudinal project with videotape of mother-child interactions. What we found was the more praise was process-oriented-not a ton, just where the greater proportion of the praise was process praise [versus outcome praise]-the more those children had a growth mindset and a high desire for challenge five years later, when they were in second grade.

Gross-Loh: That's very helpful to know for parents of young children. But what about older kids who might feel discouraged and worn-down after years of feeling that they weren't smart enough or a fear that they would never be able to be successful? Is it ever too late to foster a growth mindset in students?

Dweck: No-we've developed a number of online workshops addressed at adolescents and shown that when we teach [those] students a growth mindset, many of them regain their motivation to learn and achieve higher grades, especially students who have been struggling or students who have been laboring under a negative stereotype about [their own] abilities.

Research conducted last year by my former graduate student, David Yeager [now a professor at the University of Texas], on 18,000 students entering ninth grade, shows us that students who took growth-mindset workshops are seeking more challenges.

You can't tell adolescents, "We're adults, we have the answer, and we're going to tell you what it is." So we said, "We're scientists from Stanford University and the University of Texas, and we need your help. We're experts on the brain and how students learn, but you're the experts on being a freshman in high school and we'd like your input for a program we're developing for future freshmen."

We then taught them about how the teenage brain is especially open to learning. We talked about how it's a time of great plasticity, a time they need to take advantage of, and that they can grow their brains through taking on hard tasks in school and sticking to them. We had the students write a letter to a struggling freshman, counseling that person in terms of the growth-mindset principle, which is often very persuasive. We had testimonials from some public figures, talking about how a growth mindset got them to where they were.

Finally we talked about why someone would want a growth mindset. We realized that some kids would be overjoyed to hear you can develop your intellectual abilities, but others might not think it was the most exciting thing. So we then had a whole section on why you might want to develop your mind. Teenagers are really excited about the idea that they can do something to make the world a better place. So we asked them what they want to make their contribution to in the future-family, community, or societal problems-and then talked about how having a strong mind could help them make their future contribution.

We're excited about this because we know the world of the future is going to be about taking on ill-defined, hard jobs that keep changing. It's going to favor people who relish those challenges and know how to fix them. We are committed to creating a nation of learners.

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development of the idea of growth mindset

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Don't Let Praise Become a Consolation Prize

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Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the "growth mindset," says the psychologist Carol Dweck.

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MAP Goal Setting Resources - NWEA  Great Goal Setting Sheets to be used with student MAP scores | Classroom Central | Pinterest | Goal setting sheet, Goal settings and Scores

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MAP Goal Setting Resources - NWEA  Great Goal Setting Sheets to be used with student MAP scores

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Hi Friends! I'm going to talk about...This is because the focus is always on the BIG standardized tests that do absolutely NOTHING to
Guess what?!
I'm going to be a little controversial today.

(DUN, DUN, DUUUUN!!!) TESTING

I know, I know, it can be a super-scary word. There's so much talk about how we're testing students too much, (and I completely agree with this) BUT, we never talk about the positive components of testing (yes, there are some). Have you heard of the NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment?inform our instruction. Today, I want to share about an assessment that does exactly what it should. It measures student progress and informs instruction to meet the needs of our learners.

For those of you who are not familiar with MAP, it's an online assessment that adapts to each child's learning level. Throughout the assessment, when a child answers a question correctly, the questions get harder. As a child answers a question incorrectly, the questions get easier. The assessment adapts like this for every question. The result is that every child will have answered about 50% of the questions correctly and 50% incorrectly. Teachers will have data that shows where students are and what they are ready to learn within 24 hours of taking the test. Now I know some of you are already thinking, this girl is crazy, kindergarteners Actually, they In fact, my little friends are quite
can't take tests. They can't sit for more than 5 minutes. They don't even know how to use computers. They can't, they can. can't, they remarkable and they are capable of anything, given the right supports. can't!!!

My goal is to share my experience with MAP in my kindergarten classroom, and encourage you to take a look at "testing" through a different perspective. I encourage you to focus on testing's purest intentions, which are to better understand our learner's needs and to inform instruction.

I piloted MAP with my kindergarteners during the 2012-2013 school year. At that point, I knew nothing about MAP. My principal told me that I was going to pilot it because he wanted to prove that, "if kindergarteners can do it, anyone can do it". The first year, we only gave the assessment two times (Winter and Spring). I was blown away with the amount of support that my district provided to pilot the assessment (wow this test must be a big deal, I thought!). I had at least 5 adults from different departments within the district to help me administer the test. Administering the test was cake. It was keeping up with the 25 little hands that was a bit more of a challenge. Thankfully, with 5 other adults, we were able to help our little friends adjust the volume, use the mouse pad, and re-login after they exited out of the test.
All in all, the testing itself was a success.
And so we tested...
which seemed like it should have been the hard part.
After the first test I had all this data, but I didn't really know how to look at it or how to use it.
I learned that in order to understand it, I literally had to just dive in (and yes, this task takes a considerable amount of time).
There were all of these reports that seemed to have such valuable information but it was overwhelming to look at. As I dabbled with the data, I learned to narrow my focus. This became key to my success in looking at the MAP data.

The following school year, I knew exactly what to expect when giving the test. I also knew that I wasn't going to have the same supports that I had when I first piloted the assessment. I was able to prep my students by modeling and practicing how to use the Chromebooks and also by talking about what to do if they click out of the test, or can't hear the directions. The answer was to
ALWAYS raise your hand and be patient! The Fall test is always a bit overwhelming with kindergarteners BUT they have to start somewhere and I truly believe the data is too good to pass up.
I also had a better idea of how I could utilize the MAP reports in planning differentiated instruction. I am a big believer in small group instruction. I believe that our students are able to thrive much more in a small group setting where they receive targeted instruction on skills at their level. Once I figured out how to read the data, I couldn't get enough! I mean seriously, it is all laid out there for you. It tells you skills/standards to teach your kids AND it groups them for you! Planning for instruction has become easier (notice that I did not say "less time consuming") for me because MAP takes the guess work out.

I know exactly what my kids need. My goal is to share a short series of blog posts that highlight the successes and challenges I've experienced with the MAP test in my kindergarten classroom.

I hope to share some ideas and tools to help you implement the MAP test with ease, use the data to better meet the needs of your students, and understand how to include the students in goal setting and meaningful conversations about their learning.
I look forward to sharing my experiences with you!
If you have specific questions, please leave a comment and I'll try to include it in one of my upcoming posts!
Have a fabulous week!!

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Hi Friends! I'm going to talk about...This is because the focus is always on the BIG standardized tests that do absolutely NOTHING to Guess what?! I'm going to be a little controversial today. (DUN, DUN, DUUUUN!!!) TESTING I know, I know, it can be a super-scary word.