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The use of mindset has been beneficial to me in many ways. It has showed me the way that self care is neccesary for success especially for an educator. As an educator there are so many times that I have felt drained, like an imposter, not good enough but when I am able to reframe from that thinking I am not only helping myself but I am also helping my students by giving them my best self. Using the headspace app through this semester, I have been able to a change in my ability to reframe my thinking and moving towards a more positive mindset. Using headspace taught me strategies to breath through stressful situation where now I do not feel the need to use the app but instead do it on my own. Overall, I think that working on mindset this semester really followed our program outcomes because I am now able to connect the self care that is needed as an educator along with teaching through an equity lens. If I am not my best self for my students that is OK but I need to work for myself and for my students to be a successful teacher that implements care and community through democratic education.

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This week was MCAS testing again and with the schedule changes, it was hard to see the data of their positive mindset. The data I did take was through asking the students how they think they did on the test after practicing breathing (using both the strategies I tried this semester). I saw that this week they were very down and frustrated. Two weeks of testing was definitely a lot for them and they ended up having a very poor outcome. Instead of the students expressing their feelings and opening up about how they were feeling with testing a majority of them proceeded to share nothing. This outcome showed me the way practicing mindfulness in the classroom has been beneficial and how in two weeks of not practicing mindfulness showed the way they are not making growth and can go back easily to their old habits.

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In my classroom, I saw a change in my students when we religiously practiced mindfulness. I started this semester with implementing patience. This taught the students to be more patient with themselves and others. From there we moved to practicing mindset as a whole. I saw a change in the way the students responded to the survey. They were much more open about the ways they felt and how their mindset had changed. However, as I saw in the change was that if mindset with my students was not being fully implemented religiously the students would then loose the progress they then made. But overall, I think that being diligent with mindset is something I will be using in my teaching practice.

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Implementing mindfulness in the classroom this week was difficult due to a lack of seeing them from MCAS. However, because of this I was able to track the moods, emotions, and mindsets, of each of the classes that I saw at the end of the day. On Monday and Tuesday of MCAS I saw drain and sadness along with a fixed mindset that came over the students with my 6th and 7th grade students after MCAS. So on Thursday when I saw my 8th graders after MCAS I tried to implement a mindful moment of reflection with them. After asking the students how the test went, I asked them to tell me one thing they did well on. Out of 12 of the 8th grade students I have 5 of them said they could not find anything they did well on. But after conversation and hearing from others they were able to then find an area they felt confident in. Next week, On the Tuesday and Wednesday before they take their mcas, I am going to have them think of the one thing they wrote down and see if we can use growth mindset to have them come up with one more thing they can work on.

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This weeks sessions have helped me so much in the final days leading up to my reading mtel results. I have had looming anxiety about them and I have noticed how working on my breathing has really helped. But overall, I’ve noticed a change in my mindset, motivation, and mood since starting this. Not only do I have more energy, but For the first time since 2018, I’ve passed an mtel and it feels awesome and i truly think it is the positive mindset I’ve been going in with. In the last 2 months I’ve passed 2 mtels so I am now only missing the math sub test but with this new mindset I am hoping to achieve a passing score on it in April! Mindset really does make a huge difference and I am going to make it a point to share this experience with my students to show them the difference it can make!!

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In future weeks, track an aspect of student data as you work on breathing prior to group work.
-This week I worked students transitioning from a preferred task (working in small group) to their non preferred task of doing their whole group work. This week I noticed a big difference in one of my students who has had an extreme fixed mindset. He rarely does whole group work and typically when we are doing that task is where he has escalating behavior. After leaving small group I have been having him sit with me as everyone settles in. He typically gets very frustrated with it and as we worked on our patience he saw the reason he gets frustrated with it is because he sees it as a challenging chore (and our tech just doesn't always work). But this week he did not get frustrated and give up for 3 days.
This I saw as a big win. Although it is a different class than the one I am doing the surveys in, this is the class I have continued to work on breathing with. He took deep breathes when things started to not work and I told him to "remember patience". 3 of the times this week it worked well for him. On the other 2 days there was no getting him to do any work so I count this weeks mindfulness as a huge WIN!

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1. I did implement mindfulness over spring break and didnt even mean to. During spring break I wanted to get caught up on all the things that I felt as if I was falling behind in at home, work, and with friends and family. But I used some of the strategies of being present and even going back to DTL and giving myself a permission slip to actually just rest. Not to try to please everyone that week but to take the nap and to do something for myself.
2. One aspect of mindfulness I have observed is attitude and how students are being much more open during their check-ins and its like they are becoming more vulnerable and are beginning to feel comfortable with their vulnerability.
3. I didn't skip the week of using the app completely I actually listened to them before going to bed and this was a game changer. I took a few too many naps after school and found it hard to fall asleep at night. But when I would use the app at night of Spring break I slept so much better!

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To attach mindfulness to content this week I began to have students work on breathing techniques and positive self-talk specifically before whole group work which is where many of my students get frustrated. In my 6th grade class where I am implementing it they are to do a check-in on Mondays telling me how they are feeling and if there is anything they are looking forward to this week. I then implemented a check-out on Friday to ask if doing the few minutes of breathing and positive affirmations helped. Out of the 8 students, I did this activity with 3 said yes and 5 said no at the checkout.

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My expectation for my students is that they will be able to see the importance of growth mindset through the practice of the meditation in the classroom. They are able to see the way mindfulness can help them with the way they handle situations and think about classwork.

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Describe why you chose this aspect of the content curriculum, and theorize what you expect to happen as a result. We will begin implementing this plan next week!
- I am choosing to implement patients as a mindset in my classroom to continue to see the student reflect on themselves. The next step to implementation is to be consistent with it in the next week to come. Now that the students are coming back from February break it typically is a time of adjustment. My steps to continue to implement a growth mindset:
1. continue with the last 5 minutes of class for meditation
2. Have students use a log to track how they feel at the beginning of class v. how they feel at the end of the class.
3. At the end of the first full week of implementation have them take a google form to collect the data.

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This week I did 4 meditations. Two my own and 2  with my students.
- In one of the mediations I did on my own, Eve told me how there are always things to do and ways things to wait for. And I thought this was a good example of how we can use growth mindset in our practice. This week I found myself having a hard time finding time for everything. The one time I mediated by myself was in the car before my math mtel this week. I was nervous about the mtel and exhausted from the week i had. But listening to Eve explain that this feeling of needing to get things done is never going to go away but I need to think about how this is going to make me a better and stronger person by doing the things that need to be done but also taking the time for myself. Mindfulness can make me better as an educator because I am recognizing the problem and realizing where it stems from. As an educator, we have so much on our plates. But that does not mean we can neglect ourselves. And even though meditation sometimes is one thing we but off because it takes too much time, as an educator you need to remember you can't pour from an empty glass. We need to take care of ourselves to be the best educator we can be.
- This week I also did quick patience mediations with my class. I wrapped up class early and had them get comfortable in their flexible seating and mediated. before we started, they filled out "how they felt today". After the first day of meditation, they told me how they felt again once it was over. I got "confused and tired" after the first meditation. Then the next day we did meditation again. I explained how meditation could help the students. They did it for only 3 minutes this time compared to the 5. The students this time were extremely wild (full moon) but a minute into the meditation they were silent. Some of my students talked about how nice it was to sit in silence when we had a turn and talk about it. Others said "all i could think about was food" "the quietness freaked me out". But out of the 12 students, I practiced meditation with 7 of them said they left the class feeling better than they entered when comparing their do now and wrap-ups.
I think this is a practice that would be hard to do daily but would work really well if I decided to do it 3 times a week. Due to timing and settling in, we need to do it at the end of my class but I wonder if it helps them stay focused for the class my students go to after.

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When I realized how impatient I have been it made me realize I should use this patience practice with my students. Next week I will end the class early and save the last 10 minutes for them to listen to the first 5 minutes of the patient.
At the end of the class, many students often find themselves itching to leave or frustrated from something that happened for the day. But I think the end of class is a great way to begin their next class on a good note.
Although many middle schoolers will hate the idea of mediation I think it is important for them to identify how and why they are impatient.
Then as their ticket to leave they will have to say one thing they were impatient about (either that day or the day before). At the end of the week, I will survey them to see if they felt they were more patient after doing it for 4 days!

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Yoga and the patience mediation did make a difference this week. This is my second week back after a while of not doing yoga. I feel a bit rusty and a bit intimidated because we are doing sequences that I used to be able to do but that I can't anymore. But in yoga for the month of February, we are working on transitions. As Jason talks about, transitions are what give us momentum to keep going forward. I thought the way he said that was beautiful because I always feel as if transitions are something that I am scared of because I am scared of failure. But as I failed at doing crow time and time again I realized that I am not failing but I am growing strong both physically and mentally to transition into a position that makes me feel uncomfortable.
After Yoga this week I still found myself very impatient. But using this app I learned that I need to identify what is making me impatient, acknowledge it when I am becoming impatient and notice how I react.  I found myself impatient with myself for not running as much as I should, not being able to do a few yoga poses for not being there for family and friends. But this app did make me feel better by noticing what it is that is making me impatient.

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Mindfulness week 1 2/3

This week I began my mindfulness with going a yoga class on Tuesday 2/1. This yoga class showed me the control I do not have over life but the way what I can control is where my mind goes and how I can only control myself. This day in age with teaching I need to come to terms with the things I cannot change but that I am in control of myself.

I also will be using the headspace runs. While I am running I use the headspace app to have a clear sense of how I am running snd where I am going in life. It gives me a positive (growth mindset) as I run.