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I want to learn how to embrace the emotional part of of growth mindset. I don't want to be afraid to deviate from my lesson when sometimes the best lessons are in those uniquic moments. I also want to remember how much words matter and once they come out of my mouth they can't be taken back. In my classroom I want to work on being consistent with language that promotes students growth and gives them a safe and fun space to learn.

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I think overall the most important thing that this course has taught me so far is the importance of developing a growth mindset and cutlivating a growth mindset in our students. There have been so many times throughout these modules and throughout our readings that I think "Oh no. I could have done so much better in that situation." as I reflect on past interactions I've had with my students. "Growth Mindset" was not in my vocabulary before, unfortunately. What is the most frustrating part of learning all of the benefits, verbaige, and strategies to cultivate growth mindset, is that I am not with my kids right now! But I know that what I have learned so far will stick with me for the rest of my career. I have been especially thinking about my students, during this course, that have some very tough family and personal situations. They have people in their life who have a fixed mindset on their potential and on their behavior. I cannot wait to get back to teaching my students and doing my best to cultivate an environment that promotes a growth mindset.

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The most important take-away for me is Dweck’s finding that teaching a growth mindset allowed students to achieve learning outcomes with greater equality even for groups that have significant disadvantages.  At the middle and high school levels, I sometimes have students who have experienced failure for years and have come to think it was inevitable.  Dweck’s research gives me hope that if we can help them see the reality of brain science and the brain’s potential for growth, we can help them continue to have hope for growth.  The groups in Dweck’s study made very impressive growth once they adopted a growth mindset.  As a system, teachers need to be sending this message to students from kindergarten onward.

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There are many things that I want to implement in the clasroom and in my own life. One thing I want to try at home is setting an intention and focusing on the intention to accomplish my goal. Another thing I want to get better at is being okay with failure. I have never really been okay with it and have not ever been a fan of the feedback after something has gone the way I didnt want it to. Lastly, I want to continue to practice wait time and I am excited to practice it after a student answers especially.

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There have been so many things that I want to implement at work, when we get some normalcy back. Two things I have really taken away from this course has been about mistakes and wait time. Mistakes are not meant to be hidden or frowned upon. Mistakes are something that we as teachers should encourage, because it leads us to success. I want students to be able to celebrate their mistakes and continue to develop their growth mindset. Wait time is important for all students, but especially students with fixed mindsets. I teacher students of all disabilities, so wait time is tremendously important for them. Wait time allows students to absorb the new information that was thrown at them in order to think of an appropriate response. When working with special education students, I plan to provide a wait time of 3-5 seconds, if not longer to give them the opportunity to truly think about a response. This course has been very eye opening and I can’t wait to continue it this summer!

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Growing up I dealt with several learning disabilities, labels and negative self-talk. I truly didn’t think a higher education was in the cards for me. I even had a high school teacher tell me that “college isn’t for everyone”. Needless to say I have had some “beliefs” about myself that I have had to deal with. I have seen and felt myself changing as a parent, coworker and educator already despite only having read a few chapters so far. This book will be put on my bookshelf with the other books that I read over and over. I will be making an effort to set intentions for my day, trying a meditation routine and continue taking time to develop my personal interests and skills. By doing this I have faith that my fixed mindsets and beliefs in myself will begin to change for the better. By changing my negative self-talk and believing in my abilities my relationships with coworkers, students, friends and family will change as well. Students will feel safe and accepted in my classroom. Friends and coworkers will feel trusted and valued. And my family bonds will strengthen as I become more confident and accepting of myself.

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The biggest thing that I have learned thus far in this course is that mistakes are okay and should be encouraged. As an educator I find myself afraid to make mistakes in front of my students and colleagues, but this course has emphasized how important and okay it is to make mistakes. I have already taken this and used it with the students I am teaching in summer school and my dancers that I am coaching throughout this summer. This is something that I will help personally develop a growth mindset and will help me learn and grow more as I continue my teaching career. This is something that I am going to focus a lot on when going back to school in the fall, making sure my students know that it is okay to make mistakes and that we grow and learn from each and every mistake that we make. Going hand in hand with making mistakes another big take-away from the course thus far is praising the process, not focusing as much on the product. It is important to teach my students that the process is just as important as the product that they get at the end.

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If I'm going to embrace a Growth Mindset I need to embrace the emotional journey that it takes me (and my students on). Emotions are not really something we focus on a lot in teacher preparation. But if my job is to put challenges in front of my students then I need to be able to help 1.) monitor my students' emotions, and 2.) help my students regulate their emotions so that 3.) my students can persevere through frustration and embrace the uncertainty and confusion that seems to reign prior to their "ah hah" moment. My role is partly "academic" but also partly "emotional". And, taken a step further - I need to frustrate my students. If they're not feeling frustrated they're not feeling challenged. If they're not feeling challenged, then they're not experiencing growth. But the frustration has to be the right amount. Too much and the learning is spoiled. Not enough, and the lesson fizzles. I feel like I'm describing a chef as much as a teacher. And that's cool!

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What I have Learned Thus Far

Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the course thus far:

Growth Mindset v. Fixed Mindset Survey: This course has really challenged my thinking and personal beliefs about what it means to truly have a growth mindset. The biggest wow moment for myself thus far was when I took the growth mindset versus fixed mindset survey. As a charismatic, outgoing, positive person, I definitely thought I already had a growth mindset. After taking the time to slow down and really think about my personal beliefs, I have realized that the growth mindset is on a continuum, and I am on my way to being there!

Common Patterns of Distorted Thinking: Another really big takeaway for myself is Aguilar’s table in chapter three on common patterns of distorted thinking. I personally resonated with the tendency of ‘emotional reasoning.’ In short, this sort of thinking skews the truth of our realities; in other words, feelings are facts. When I fall into this pattern of thinking, I find myself in a fixed mindset scenario. When I take the time to pause and reflect, I can interrupt this pattern and really open my mind and heart to other options. (What a powerful tool it is to realize our common tendencies!)

Personal Credo: Lastly, another big learning for myself was when we completed the personal credo reflection. This assignment really resonated with myself because it reminded me of Aguilar’s first chapter on truly knowing yourself. After writing the credo reflection, I talked with my dad about the assignment and actually had him write his own credo reflection! (For real!) I thought this would be a beneficial assignment for him because more often than not, I notice his patterns of thinking tend to fall into more of a fixed mindset. I wanted him to be able to pause and reflect (just like I am telling myself to do more of) to really focus on the here and now. Just imagine if all of our students created their own credos at the beginning of the year and we continued to circle back to their original ideas; talk about a way to develop growth mindsets that align with each child’s core beliefs.

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In my classroom I would like to work on the idea of ‘exercising your brain muscle.’ To me this means that each day I want students to understand that they are in my room to do things that will be exercise for their brains.  It might be hard, but if you keep working at it and doing it over and over, it will get easier.  Part of this is letting students know that there will be mistakes, and it won’t always be perfect, that’s great. An analogy I am thinking of is of a bus ride to school and I am the driver. Everybody gets on the bus at their stop, some have a shorter ride than others, but everybody will end up reaching their goal or destination. Just like their bus route to school might look different their route to their learning goal will also be different. They might encounter difficulties along the way, like road construction or traffic, but they will get there.  As the driver I am there to support and guide them. This will have an impact on my relationship with students. They will begin to see me as a guide to learning rather than just a person who gives them facts. I also want students to see this as an opportunity for them to have some control as well. They get to decide what bus route they are going to take, so I am fostering independence and ownership over learning as well.

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The focus on mindfulness in this chapter spoke to me. I feel as if I need to continue to work on sitting in silence. It is an area that I continue to work on getting better about and more intentional. I feel as if I the idea of pausing and giving wait time to myself and to my kids is a big take away for me this module. A continued study of growth mindset and how to implement it more completely not only in my classroom but also for myself as a person. I also feel a strong calling to bring back the idea of building strong communities to my school. This seems especially imparitive in the current state of affairs of our world and educational systems. If we do not make an intentional effort to create strong and supportive communities within our profession and buildings, I feel strongly that we will not find and keep the teachers and professionals that we need to ride this storm together. Burn out is real, burn out hurts physically and mentally, and it is all of our jobs to work on our resiliency and community together.

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This course has provided me many opportunities to learn ways in which I can foster a positive, growth mindset in my classroom and strategies to help do that. Being able to reflect on my own practices has been very beneficial. I hope to provide activities at the beginning of the year that will introduce some important expectations that coincide with growth mindset such as how to handle failure (FAIL acronym),  understanding the importance of the process, and how to provide positive feedback while working with your peers. For myself, I think this course has helped me reflect on how I react to stress in my life which has helped me already and will help me in the future.

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In this module and course so far I have learned and been reminded of many different ways in which I can help my students grow in a positive way. I am very excited to take what I have learned and implement it in my classroom. One way in which I plan to put what I have learned to practice is by continuing to create a classroom atmosphere were students feel safe to be themselves. I also hope to continue to develop respectful relationships with students and families. Once this foundation is set I can then help students develop the belief that our skills and abilities can be built upon as long as we keep our focus on the process of giving our best efforts when faced with challenges. I can encourage this through the specific praise and feedback I give my students. My goal is to focus on students process instead of the outcome itself. I hope to make time to celebrate mistakes as learning moments in our classroom. I also plan to do better at using wait time in order to foster students abilities to think for themselves and use their own reasoning. I feel that this will only empower my students to believe in themselves and their ability to explorer and be proud of their personal growth!

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The biggest takeaways from the course so far, that I’m going to immediately implement into my classroom, all center around mistakes. First, I’ve learned the importance of celebrating, not just normalizing, mistakes. When I celebrate a mistake, students will see mistakes as an exciting step in their learning process. It will also reinforce that they have academic courage and that they should be proud. Second, I am going to use the acronym FAIL to remind students and parents that mistakes, or failures, are just a first attempt in learning. I want to remove the negative stereotype from mistakes, and change how parents see failure so that they can reinforce growth mindset with their children. Last, if students have a fixed mindset about mistakes, I am going to have them say affirmations to boost self-esteem and help rewire their brain. After three weeks in this course I see how important it is for everyone to have a growth mindset, and I am excited to teach others about it!

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There are a few takeaways that I will bring back to work from what I have learned in this module or in the course. One is the wait time. I know that I need to wait longer than I do. I think that having a timer would be beneficial for me to have handy which only I can see. Wait time gives students the time to think through the question and formulate a thoughtful answer. Another is taking back the concept of letting them struggle. I did not know how important it is for their learning. Due to me learning this concept, I plan to start off my year and throughout the year repeatedly discussing with my students the importance of the struggle. If I am keeping students aware of the importance of struggling, then hopefully they will not feel abandoned when I let them struggle longer than they could be used to. Right now those are a few of the main takeaways.

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I think the importance of struggle is another item that struck a chord with me again this week. The important part as an educator is to support them when students feel the struggle. If students are struggling without any support, that would enforce the fixed mindset that they are unable to learn and there will be no growth. Rather, we need to ask high level thinking questions to the entire class and give them the wait time they need to process the question and give a thoughtful response. If the students are struggling at coming up with the correct response, we can praise them that they are learning. And they will get it! The important concept of "get back to me" is one that I will definitely be incorporating into my classroom in the fall. That short phrase communicates to the student that you care about their response and that you understand they may not have the answer yet, but will give an answer after adequate thought. That is extremely powerful in encouraging the growth mindset.

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Growth Mindset: A Foundation for Learning

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Growth Mindset: A Foundation for Learning

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I really want to promote that growth mindset is a foundation for learning among the teachers I work with. The idea that getting in the right mindset is essential for learning to me is very powerful and gives weight to the reason we need to teach this skill in our classrooms. I also really want to use the understanding of identifying what is behind your mindset, a belief or focus so that students and teacher can begin to self regulate and switch their mindset when they are noticing not only that it is fixed, but also why! Lastly, we use UbD as the curriculum writing tool in my district and for students to transfer their learning they need to learn the enduring understandings of each unit. This is where the learning takes place that will require a growth mindset. Without the proper mindset students will not get to the transfer of learning. I want to use this to help support the teachers I work with in developing a growth mindset in their classrooms.

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I want to take the growth mindset concept and start practicing it myself at home. I've always promoted and used this strategy with my students telling them that they can accomplish anything if they believe, put forth the effort, and and keep an open mind. Practicing what I preach has been a little tougher more me. I usually avoid anything that might be hard, things I'm not good at, or anything that may make me look dumb. This class, along with Top 20 has really opened my mind and made me realize how important it is to push yourself and that it is okay to fail. Failure will help my grow as I begin practicing what I preach.

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I learned some really nice techniques for improving my implementation of wait time and questioning. I found it interesting that a perfect wait time is around 5 seconds and that too much wait time can intimidate students. I also learned that open ended questioning can foster more of a growth mindset because students have more freedom to elaborate and not feel like there is only one right answer that needs to be said.

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I am interested in applying what I learned about in regards to think time. This is something I believe would be beneficial for me to implement with first graders. I can picture students then being able to explain their thinking when working with a partner. Student talking is going to help them learn. I also like how as I teacher I would be able to hear the discussion and be able to know what students need more instruction in.

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One thing I would like to focus on and be mindful of this upcoming school year is wait time. I have learned a lot about wait time recently and understand that all students move at their own pace and the pace at which they move at does not determine their intelligence level. Especially in Math, student's may need more time than the classmates around them and it is incredibly important to allow them that time to conduct a thoughtful response. I feel that if I consistently do this for my students it will only continue to increase engagement and promote a growth mindset for my students.

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Personally, I am going to work on my response time when I speak. I know I often answer too fast because I think that people expect it, I am going to mindfully pause, process and then speak. As for my teaching,  I want to make sure I give my students the words they need to process accordingly. I will teach them to say " get back to me" and feel good about it.
I also want my students to embrace the struggle. When we are struggling, we are actively growing our brain. That is powerful stuff! I can't wait to teach my class more about their brain and the power of the struggle!

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In completing this course, an overarching takeaway I keep coming back to is that the words and phrases we use really matter. When communicating with our students and one another, we must be intentional about what we are emphasizing and whether or not that fosters further growth. I will attempt to be more intentional about reflecting on the words I commonly use in my classroom. Shifting the focus on the process rather than the outcome will allow for more learning to take place. I know that I can sometimes get caught up in the final product and ignore the important steps along the way. This week, it was valuable to be reminded that all students have diverse experiences and will approach a growth mindset differently. That understanding should always be at the heart of what we do and guide our work. Dominant culture influences how we navigate the world and reinforces that our differences must be affirmed.

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I think my biggest takeaways so far are 1) I must believe that all of my students have the potential to get smarter and I must convey that belief to them on a daily basis, 2) I must be intentional to explicitly teach my students about the science and the research that supports the benefits of having a growth mindset, and 3) I must model a growth mindset to my students through my words, actions, and teaching practices. This week, the strategies of wait time and “get back to me” seem really powerful despite being so simple. The message that I’m sending to my students when I tell them I will get back to them is that I know that eventually they will have their answer. My reactions to incorrect answers are just as important - how will I encourage my students to not give up, to embrace the struggle, and keep going until the problem is solved? Thinking about my responses ahead of time, similar to what we did with the fixed mindset scenario, is a great strategy for teachers.

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There were many quotes that I had to write down from the Onward book because I felt I needed to be reminded like: "Trust what you say, do what you say". "Practicing mindfulness is like hitting an internal pause button on the drama of life." "We are our thoughts". etc.
What stuck with me was the wait time article by Whiteoak. I enjoyed it so much I needed to read it twice just so I could soak more up. I reflected on the words and noticed that wait time was everywhere. It's so important as a teacher to allow wait time for your own thoughts and your students!
Wait time in a classroom weather digital or face to face is extremely important. I saw it first had with my daughter's 1st grade distance learning classroom and on the cartoons her and her sister watch. They are more engaged with the learning and what's happening in the moment.
After reading the article it gave me so many ideas on what next year could look like on how I'd incorporate wait time both digital (for distance learning) and in the classroom. I feel this wait time will allow students time to reflect and make educated answers instead of blurting out or just not feeling comfortable to communicate because they needed more time to process and think. I feel this will be most beneficial for students who are still learning the language to allow for more processing time too.

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Hannah Whiteoak's article on Schoology used the phrase "mental incubation" and I've been thinking about that ever since I read the phrase. The author was specifically referring to wait time as a chance for mental incubation, but I also feel like mental incubation could be used to think/teach about growth mindset. Sometimes a subject or skill may have a longer incubation time for one student than another....and having them all end up "hatching" is the end goal, and it doesn't matter the pace to get there. It's still a rough idea...but I'm tossing it around in my brain.
I think that the reading in Onward might have the greatest application for those I work with and my family....2020 has certainly called up resilience from us all, and I feel like having this book in my life right now is fortuitous.

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One thing that I plan to implement at work from this module is the concept of wait time. I think that by being very intentional about giving wait time that I will have more student participation in discussion portions of class. Not only to give the wait time, but ask for students to think first and raise hands to answer when they are prompted to rather than right away. This can be applied to home life as well with a spouse or child. I think that relationships can be strengthened if we give someone the time to respond during conversations. It gives them a chance to be heard, understood, and feel valued.

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So many things I valued in this week--wait time, get back to me,  value the process not the product, and others.  The three that are listed are the three that I will consciously work on with my students this year.  The wait time can be difficult because some students are almost jumping out of their chairs with their hand up to answer your question even before it has been completely asked!  So it will be good to consciously, SLOW DOWN, allow time and get "deeper" answers!  I do need to work on valuing the process of learning and not always just focusing on the product.  Again, that might be a time issue.... I loved the idea of giving the student an "out" by saying , "Get back to me." I think that will help reduce student stress level in the classroom as well.  By implementing all three of these I feel it will help build a stronger sense of community where students are will to be more willing to be risk takers in their learning as well.