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5 Key Beliefs to Cultivate in all Learners

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5 Key Beliefs to Cultivate in all Learners

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Abbe personifies a lot of the habits and traits I want my students to cultivate: working hard each day, maintaining a great attitude, treating others with kindness, keeping track of her work and completing it with care, asking questions when she has them, appreciating a challenge, and on and on. If my classes were filled with kids like Abbe, I would not need to be very good at teaching. I could almost just show up, put some assignments or concepts out, and say, "Go. Learn. Master. I'll be here if you have any questions." If only...

Unfortunately, we too often stop the line of thinking right there. It's true, but it's incomplete. It makes us miserable. Because we think, "Well, that'd be nice to teach all kids like Abbe, but it's just not the way the world works. After all, there's home life and socioeconomics and student motivation and social media and... Some kids just aren't motivated to learn."

But what if the traits that Abbe exemplifies were possible to improve in all of our students? If we could get better at targeting those things, wouldn't it be possible to promote the long-term flourishing of kids with significantly less effort?

It would.

That was my thinking five years ago when I started rigorously wondering about a few questions:

What in the world makes a kid like Abbe act like she does?

Is that "what in the world" something I can cultivate in all students?

These questions led me on what became the most significant research project of my career so far.

I read as widely as I could - educational psychologists, cognitive scientists, prize-winning economists, best-selling journalists, practicing teachers - and I experimented aggressively with what these people taught me, trying things out with my students. For years, I thought it all had to do with character; I would weave character into every workshop or keynote that I could, even if they were on literacy, because I knew that the best literacy instruction can't magically solve for bad attitudes and rough home lives. I was sharing good stuff, but the things I had gleaned from my reading had a major flaw: they lacked coherence, a sense of how it all works together. They were too complex to be manageable and practical in my work as a busy classroom teacher.

The coherence came when I started finding, in some of the most robust treatments of the research available, a thick throughline: belief. What I found is that when you dig all the way down, the things that make Abbe such a breeze to teach aren't isolated to her upbringing or her home life or her IQ or even her character.

Rather, Abbe is the way she is in my classroom because of what she believes about learning.

A few things from the research, quick, before I jump into the actual key beliefs:

Beliefs - truths held at the heart level, truths that shape our behavior - are malleable. They can change.

On the one hand, this malleability is bad news. You don't do a growth mindset intervention and then ever after kids believe that their effort matters. You don't scaffold a learning experience so that a kid succeeds at a challenge and then ever after the kid believes they can succeed. Beliefs change. There's no "one and done."

On the other hand, this is great news. It means that you and I have the power - and the research supports this - to affect student beliefs about learning in our classrooms. It means we don't need to make excuses for why all the kids aren't like Abbe - we can just patiently, professionally work toward helping them all believe helpful things about school, focusing on what we can control and mitigating what we can't.

The key academic beliefs are heavily influenced by context. The research demonstrates that it's common, for example, that a student might highly value learning in third hour and find learning pointless in fourth hour. Something about that third hour class makes the beliefs easier for the student, and something about the fourth hour makes them harder.

The key beliefs are powerful - they predict the degree to which our students 1) do the work of learning and 2) do it with care.

The key beliefs are often unconscious and always need to be more than intellectual agreed. Think of these things as knowledge held at the level of the will - a place in our being that is deeper than our mind.

So specifically, there are five malleable, powerful, key beliefs that we want to help all of our students cultivate:

1. My teacher is good at her job. (Credibility - this is featured in John Hattie's Visible Learning meta-analysis)

2. This work is valuable to me. (Value; this, and the rest of the list, is featured in Camille Farrington et al's review of over 400 pieces of research literature )

3. I belong in this class with these people. I'm one of them. (Belonging - this is about identity and fit)

4. I can improve my knowledge and skill through my effort. (Effort - this is often called growth mindset, but because of widespread misunderstandings around growth mindset I do not call it that)

5. I can succeed here. I can do this stuff. (Efficacy - Al Bandura was a pioneer here)

Credibility, Value, Belonging, Effort, Efficacy, - these five beliefs are highly malleable in our classrooms, and they create the drive in our students that we long for. They are the source of Abbe's superpowers. Whatever our tack is toward long-term flourishing - helping kids master course material, developing lifelong literacy skills, cultivating critical thinking, practicing healthy habits, or contributing positively to society - it all starts with key beliefs.

It's so important that I've made schedule-friendly, all-online professional development course on this topic. You can learn more here.

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Five Key Beliefs: The Source of Abbe's Superpowers - Dave Stuart Jr.

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Abbe personifies a lot of the habits and traits I want my students to cultivate: working hard each day, maintaining a great attitude, treating others with kindness, keeping track of her work and completing it with care, asking questions when she has them, appreciating a challenge, and on and on.

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Engaging Young Learners - Masks, Computers, and Zoom...OH MY!

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Seesaw | Elementary Learning Experience Platform

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Elementary Learning Experience Platform | Seesaw

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Seesaw is a Learning Experience Platform with 25M+ users, enhancing elementary education, engagement, and school culture while improving academic success.

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Go to 36:20 to see great ways to include student names and pictures in songs and chants!

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Human Side of Virtual Classroom - Dr. Jean and Teacher Toni - Click Show More

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A Handbook for Play in a Virtual/Distanced Space

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A Handbook for Play in a Virtual/Distanced Space

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By: Kristi Mraz, author of Purposeful Play

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We Wear Masks - A Social Story about the coronavirus

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https://issaquah-wednet-edu.zoom.us/j/94735090107

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shimizul@issaquah.wednet.edu

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How can we get our students engaged in high quality books? We want all students to be interacting with the text and participating in group discussion. Here are six different ways interactive read aloud strategies. Determine which ones will work best with your students and the text that you've chosen.

Interactive Read Aloud Strategies

Think Aloud

The process of making our thinking public, by showing students how to construct meaning, is called a "think aloud."

Ask kids to watch as you model your thinking and notice what we do as readers. This focuses their attention, gives them the opportunity to participate and increases their engagement. A think aloud shows kids how skillful readers think. It also exemplifies how we activate our background knowledge, ask questions and draw conclusions.

Seeing us model our thinking helps kids understand what they need to do as they read on their own. During an interactive read aloud, demonstrate all aspects of inner thinking or focus on one specific strategy.

Tip: Things to share during a think aloud:

aspects of your inner conversation as you read - your thoughts, reactions, connections, confusions and questions.

how you activate and connect background knowledge. Let them know how you merge what you already know with new information you discover as you read.

Turn & Talk

During whole-group instruction, stop every few minutes and ask kids to share their thinking with each other by turning and talking to a peer sitting next to them.

This serves multiple purposes. It allows students to process information, enhance understanding, and maximize engagement.

The turn and talk strategy gives all children (not just the most vocal ones) the chance to participate in the conversation and construct meaning. It gives quieter students a chance to first rehearse their thinking and feel more confident to share it.

Act It Out

Giving students the opportunity to move their body during a read aloud will increase their engagement. Acting out what a character is doing or feeling will help them connect with the story on another level.

Stop & Draw or Stop & Jot

This processing activity gives students the opportunity to respond to questions in writing or pictures. Asking students to think and write about what they are learning promotes retention and comprehension. These quick checks for understanding help students make sense of what they are learning before moving on in the lesson.

Readers can stop and jot/draw about what they...

Tip: Have students bring materials to the rug - pencil, notebook or sticky notes, before starting the read aloud.

Hand Signals

Hand signals is another type of interactive read aloud strategies that will engage your readers. Students use hand signals to show their understanding of words or concepts during read-alouds. This is a great way to increase their motivation for reading. It also becomes a way to assess the kids' level of understanding and get them to think about what they know or don't know.

Examples:

give me a thumbs up or thumbs down

show 1 finger, 2 fingers if...

To save you some time, I have interactive read alouds that are already done for you! Just choose the topic that you are working on in class and you are all set!

Want to save these tips for later? Pin the image below!

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Interactive Read Aloud Strategies to Use in the Elementary Classroom

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How can we get our students engaged in high quality books? We want all students to be interacting with the text and participating in group discussion. Here are six different ways interactive read aloud strategies. Determine which ones will work best with your students and the text that you've chosen.

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CGI Animated Short Film "Joy and Heron" by Passion Pictures | CGMeetup

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Hair Love | Oscar®-Winning Short Film (Full) | Sony Pictures Animation

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Browse all the free Your Therapy Source special education, occupational and physical therapy printables, forms, worksheets, and activity ideas. We have finally reorganized these pages so it will be easier for you to navigate. If you were used to the old page and knew where everything was just scroll down.

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Browse all the free Your Therapy Source special education, occupational and physical therapy printables, forms, worksheets, and activity ideas.

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After a long day at work, I was never 'thrilled' to take my daughter grocery shopping. Mostly, it was because I was just drained and I knew that she was too. I never knew if we would be 'that family' that had the meltdown in the grocery store (I'm including myself in that meltdown too!) Grocery shopping became easier when I kept us both engaged in learning and fun! Here are some tips that you can share with your student's parents that will encourage bringing the kids to the store and building their speech and language while they are there!

1.) Build Vocabulary by Labeling and Describing EVERYTHING! The grocery store is filled with speech and language opportunities. Parents and students can discuss size, color, function, category, location, etc.. Trying to find a few items in the same category is always fun!

2.) Work on Prepositional Phrases! Is the item that you are looking for on the top shelf? Between the canned corn and the canned green beans? Is it on the second shelf?

3.) Work on Following Directions! It can be as simple as 'please grab the big box of Chex' or more complex such as 'After you grab the small box of Chex cereal and put it in the cart, point to the kind of instant oatmeal you would like us to buy this time.'

4.) Work on Taking Turns and Inferencing Skills! That is right, play good ole' I SPY in the grocery store! Encourage parents to take turns with their kids in describing an item, its use, where it comes from (tree, cow, etc..), and its appearance while the communication partner guesses!

5.) Work on Pragmatic Skills! Model and reinforce positive social skills and language to demonstrate good manners. Practice taking turns asking and answering questions about the environment, what they need to find next, where they might find the item, and using please and thank you when asking the bakery for that free cookie or sample (not all stores offer the cookie but you would be surprised how many do!)

6.) Have a Sound Search Party! While walking down the aisle, how many items can the student find that has their sound? Where is the sound located in the word (initial, medial, final position)? Did the student find more or the parent (I always encourage making it into a game)?

I provided my friends that have joined my email list this exclusive freebie that include a starter list or words by sound!

7.) Build Executive Functioning Skills! Prior to going shopping have parents and students decide on a recipe they want to complete at home and make the shopping list for it or just a shopping list for that week's groceries. By planning ahead, getting organized, making a list, and developing a plan for where in the store they need to go, student's are building executive functioning skills!

8.) Expand on these Lessons at Home with the Little Ones! If they have a play kitchen at home... bonus! However, these days parent's can get cheap toy food at the local dollar store or at some of the chain stores. Continuing to practice the above-mentioned tips at home during play will increase speech and language skills too (plus it is a bonus if you just really can't bring yourself to include the kids at the grocery store due to the fear of meltdowns)!

How do you encourage parents to build speech and language skills at the grocery store? There are a million ways (including learning money names, values, and concepts)! I would love if you would share with me different ways that you have helped encourage speech and language growth at the grocery store!

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Build Speech and Language Skills at the Grocery Store

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After a long day at work, I was never 'thrilled' to take my daughter grocery shopping. Mostly, it was because I was just drained and I knew that she was too. I never knew if we would be 'that family' that had the meltdown in the grocery store (I'm including myself in that meltdown too!)

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Playdough, Paint, and Other Sensory Items

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Playdough, Paint, and Other Sensory Items